At Maritsani siding we found the first really serious break in the railway. For about three miles the line was completely wrecked, and two culverts, one (over the river) spanned by unusually long girders, had been blasted in the middle and were lying broken in the gap. Even here it was easy to distinguish between the work of the trained German or French engineer and that of the ordinary rank-and-file Boer. The Boer did not understand dynamite, but he had a very fair idea of destruction from the spectacular point of view, and his work made by far the finer show. One might almost think that children had been at work, so laborious and futile were his efforts. The permanent way for perhaps two miles was bodily uprooted, each length of rails with the sleepers attached, and laid along the embankment. Not a thing was destroyed; the fishplates, four to each joint, were lying at a convenient distance, and even the bolts and nuts for securing them were disposed in little heaps. All that the repairing party had to do there was to replace the lengths of line, couple them, and shovel in the ballast. But the mile on which the trained engineer had been at work probably took four times as long to repair. Here a dynamite cap had been attached to the middle of each rail, with the result that there was a piece about six inches long blown out of every length, and that meant that all the old way had to be taken up and an entirely new one laid down. One thing I did envy this simple-minded enemy of ours, and that was the pleasure he must have experienced in doing one bit of damage. Towards one culvert the line sloped down in a long gradient, and on this a couple of trucks and a van had evidently been placed and allowed to run down to the culvert, where, the bridge being gone, they plunged into the gap. Think of the glorious smash! The trucks must have got up considerable speed. And picture the crowd waiting expectantly for the final catastrophe. I must say that I should have liked to see it. The destructive spirit had evidently been satisfied by this gorgeous sacrifice, for nine miles of the line and telegraph wires running southward from Maritsani were untouched, and at Kraaipan, where we met the repairing party from the south, the damage was nearly repaired.