We occupied Vryburg yesterday at about three o'clock. We made a very easy march, with a long rest at midday, and as the column wound up to the summit of a high ridge we saw Vryburg lying green and white on the farther slope. Half our journey done, and the most dangerous half; it was a pleasant sight. The Boers had all left the little town, and the English residents--chiefly women of the artisan and shopkeeper class--swarmed out to meet us, waving spurious Union Jacks, and exhibiting all the loyalty that can be displayed by means of dyes and pigments. It was like Bloemfontein on a smaller scale. The people here have been in rather a bad way. There has been a great deal of sickness; the supplies have been very scanty, and meal seems to be the only thing of which they have plenty. So naturally they welcomed the column as the sign of an open road to Kimberley. I went to see the railway station, which has been much damaged. The only two locomotives here have been outraged; vacuum gauges have been broken, dome-covers torn, and taps smashed; and bullets have been fired at the steel-plated boilers, which, however, they did not penetrate. But it is only outrage, and it seems that with materials left in the workshops here the engines can be repaired in a couple of days. The Boers have been very clumsy over this; a dynamite cartridge might have been strapped under a driving axle in far less time, and its explosion would have been more effectual. Our chief joy has been in straying about the town, revelling in the sense of things to be bought. No man can withstand shops after having experienced for several days conditions under which money is not of value. There is really nothing to buy that is of much use, but we stand agape at the window of an ironmonger's shop, fingering the money in our pockets, and wondering whether to buy an axe or a mincing machine. On the whole, the axe has it; one must have fires; and bully beef _can_ be eaten in the slab form. XXI NEARING THE GOAL JACKAL'S PAN, _Saturday, May 12th_.