Standing about in the fresh morning light, dirty, frowzled, altogether abominable to look at, they seemed a blot on creation, and the knowledge of their mere existence hung heavily on one’s mind. It was not a pleasant awakening to the splendours of the Boer capital. For about the tenth time we gave in our full names, and all we could think of in the way of description, down to red hair, for which the Boer has a peculiar regard. A Boer with red hair can be a Mormon a dozen times. Nearly all their clergymen have red hair. In among the drunks and incapables we found one cell containing representatives of the British Army, lately free fighting men, but now confined against their own wishes. One of these, to my astonishment—for his appearance did not suggest the soldier in the very least—addressed me by name, and I recognised in him a saddler sergeant who had built me a very excellent saddle some years before, when his regiment, the 18th Hussars, was in India. He and a pal had been taken prisoners at the very beginning of the war in Natal, and so had done six months in durance vile. They had been so bored with their experiences that they had escaped and endeavoured to get to Portuguese territory, but unluckily the ubiquitous Boer had been too many for them, and they were now being restored to their _status quo ante_, as political paragraphists describe it. Another was a Yeoman lad from county Notts, with a very much worn pair of boots to his feet, and it showed fine public spirit in him that he seemed to deplore this fact more than his being made prisoner. In the corner of the courtyard was a tap, and we all did a bit of washing. The absence of silver-topped scent-bottles, ebony hair-brushes, Pears’ soap, &c., was rather a drawback, but it did not prevent us creating at least a zone of cleanliness. We were then paraded, and in as martial array as was possible, without guns or swords and incommoded with blankets and empty sacks, we marched forth with a loud cheer. To be a prisoner of war was a fate that might overcome the best soldier that ever stepped, but to be herded with police mud-scrapings injured the dignity of every one of us.