Back in the days at De Aar the Boer spies were thick among us, pretending to have horses or forage for sale, but in reality watching us, and making daily reports to the enemy. Even then I begged my friends among the officers to observe what was going on, and to take steps to keep all Dutch-speaking men out of our slenderly guarded great storage camp of supplies. But the typical officer said then, as he said afterwards for months, "Oh, there's nothing to worry about. These people are our friends." And the occasional wide-awake non-typical officer ground his teeth and whispered, "Lord! Lord! how we are being played with! They know everything about us at every hour, in every move--and we not only know nothing of them, but are being fed up with lies." Far from merely keeping the Dutch out of our camps, we engaged the people of the country as transport drivers and waggon hands, and even--it used to be said--let them find their way into our corps of scouts and regimental guides. We demanded that they should know the Taal lingo and the country, and the result was that when we marched into a Boer village or hamlet we saw our own people hobnobbing with the residents, and asking, "Where's Piet? How's Billy? How have all of you been getting on?"--hail-fellow-well-met with these alleged "loyalists," who were among the most tricky, shuffling hypocrites I have ever met in any of my travels. On and on we went, never knowing anything of the Boers, and the Boers always thoroughly informed about us. Everywhere the slimy, slippery ranchers and tavern-keepers and merchants welcomed us with the heartiest speech, and always were we fooled by it. They had been born in the country, half the people or more in all that great region were out "on commando," no man except a pro-Boer or a born Boer could have been where we found these double-faced people, with their Judas-like pretence of friendship. It was self-evident that they must have been siding with our enemies. Had they been for us when our backs were turned, the Boers would have offered them a choice between joining their fighting forces or losing their property and their right to stay in the land. Capetown, Durban, and Port Elizabeth were crowded by the refugees who had taken an open stand for the British side, and been obliged to leave their homes. Nothing of this needed telling; it was indisputable, it was logical, it was common knowledge.