As it was, however, we moved along slowly, the monotony being broken now and again by an exchange of shots between our scouts and scattered parties of Boers on the adjacent hills. About midday on August 13 Lumsden’s Horse were detached from the main body and sent off to the flank to reconnoitre, and on our way met a party of the Imperial Light Horse who had been sent out to burn a farm situated in a hollow among some hills from which the Boers had been sniping. The officer in charge of the Imperial Light Horse party requested Captain Noblett, under whose command we were, to keep us on the top of the hill to prevent surprise while he and his men went and destroyed the farm. This was done, but for some reason or another the Imperial Light Horse officer changed his mind and did not burn the farm. While on the hill we were told by some Kaffirs that the enemy (about eighty in number) had left a few moments before; seeing our scouts coming over the hill, they had fled precipitately. We went down to the farm after the Imperial Light Horse party had gone on, and had hardly left it to return to the main body again when we saw a small party of Boers on the hill on our right, and these were doubtless the men referred to by the Kaffirs we had spoken to. Instead of going by the road we took a short cut across the veldt, as it was rather late and we wanted to get back to the main body before nightfall. It turned out afterwards that it was as well we did so, as on the way we heard firing on our right, and on approaching to see what it was all about saw that the road led through a deep hollow among some low hills in which the Boers had taken up their position. Had we taken the road we should have walked right into the trap which they had evidently laid for us, and should have got slaughtered. The firing we heard was an exchange of compliments between these Boers and some dozen Australians who had also been sent out on reconnaissance duty, and who had posted themselves on a hill opposite. Finding that they did not want any assistance, we pushed on and joined the brigade again at about 5 o’clock, camping shortly afterwards. It is interesting to note that the spot we camped at was the one that heard the first shots fired during the Jameson Raid. The Boer _sangars_ still exist, and were occupied that night by Lumsden’s ‘outlying picket.’ Having no Transport, we had to depend on whatever we had in our saddle-bags, and were consequently on rather short commons; and the horses, too, fared badly, poor beasts, having to subsist mostly on what grass they could pick up on the veldt and on such oat-hay and mealies as we could get out of the farmhouses we passed. The latter were very few and far between in that part of the country. Next day we continued our march in the same direction, and both flanking parties engaged the enemy’s snipers on several occasions.