Although we talked for a long time I did not really learn much from these Boers, who represented the most unthinking class. Just as I had found the English colonists to conduct their arguments in a circle and constantly to bring forward the same old statements, so I found these Boers repeating the same assertions over and over again: that the Lord was on their side; that they must prevail in the end; that they could not trust us; that we had played them false; that we were really after their gold-fields; "if there had been no gold in South Africa there would have been no war." They spoke as men who repeated a lesson; yet I am bound to say that they spoke with sincerity, and although they seemed to speak parrot-wise, they probably accepted current forms of speech as giving the best expression to a deep and universal conviction. We had been riding for nearly two hours, when one of my companions noticed marks on the ground evidently made by a man dragging himself along. We followed this spoor down the rocky slope where ferns and little shrubs divided the stones. It wound about, choosing the smoothest places, covering altogether a distance of about a mile; it led us at last to the shade of a mimosa bush, where the poor soldier had ended his duty and journey together. There was nothing to be done now but to rejoin my party, and when I expressed a wish to do so the doctor said, "This will be your nearest way," pointing to a barrier range of low hills. They lay in the right direction, so I rode on for about a mile and a half, the two Boers still accompanying me, until we reached the top of the nearest hill. What was my surprise to see lying below me the smoke and waggons and picketed horses of the enemy's laager! The Boers, to the number of perhaps seven or eight hundred, were sitting or lying beneath trees that made a circle round the mile-wide basin. I glanced at the faces of my companions with some misgiving, but honesty was written there. "I have no business to be here, you know," said I. "We shall all get into a row." They preceded me down the slope, and, with a presentiment that I should get out again, I slipped out my pocket compass and made a mental note of the bearings of the laager from Spitz Kop, the head of which was visible about six miles away. There was a small farmhouse which appeared to be used as headquarters; round this were twenty or thirty waggons piled with cases, but, so far as I could see, no forage or oats. There were either three or four guns; there were certainly four gun-carriages, but one of them may have been a limber. As we came into the basin a small, young-looking man, to whom I was introduced as the Commandant, met us. "Please remain here," he said to me sharply; and as he led the doctor away, pouring forth a stream of Dutch, I gathered that my poor friend was getting into trouble. At last Cronje came back and addressed me, speaking English very imperfectly. This is the substance of what he said--