However, the next day compensated us for our hard work, as we had a short march of merely ten or eleven miles, which, with a halt at mid-day for a couple of hours, brought us into camp about four o'clock. There is no doubt that, where troops are marching with a big convoy, it is a wise thing to give the infantry a rest of a couple of hours in the middle of the day, as it enables the convoy to close up, to water and feed, and to get a short rest too. Transport animals travel all the better after being watered and after having had a short rest, and it is a sound policy to do this, as the column travels all the faster afterwards. The Boers, when they are trekking, water their animals much more frequently than we do, and they often made the remark to me that we were killing our bullocks by not giving them a rest. On all marches the pace of the column undoubtedly depends on the rate at which the slowest wagon travels, and matters should, therefore, be arranged with regard to that fact. Apart from considerations of safety, it is not sound to see the troops trekking away into camp with the convoy sprawling along the road, and with the rear guard clustering behind the last wagon. Another short march fetched us into Reitz, at mid-day on the 7th of July: half the battalion and two guns were sent to occupy a farmhouse at the foot of a hill, about a mile and a half away from the town--but such a farm house! The doors and windows were gone, the ceilings and floors had been wrenched away, part of the corrugated iron roof was gone, and several of the rafters had been cut off short with saws, so that the rest of the roof was in rather a dicky condition. This mass of ruins rejoiced afterwards in the select name of "Joe Muggins' Farm." All Boer farms are more or less similar, and the buildings and outhouses are practically identical in their shape and general appearance. First of all there must be one or more dams which contain the water supply for the cattle, and which are usually constituted so as to drain a considerable area of watershed. A few trees are sometimes planted to bind the embankment, but as a rule the burgher does not bother about improving his property by arboriculture, but contents himself by growing an orchard of peaches and apricots, and by planting a number of eucalyptus trees round his homestead. This is indispensable in every well-conducted farm.