LETTER PAGE I. ORANGE RIVER CAMP 1 II. BELMONT 8 III. GRASPAN 15 IV. MODDER RIVER 22 V. THE 4.7 30 VI. MAGERSFONTEIN 34 VII. A RECONNAISSANCE 43 VIII. SCOUTING ON THE MODDER 49 IX. THE ADVANCE 59 X. RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY 63 XI. PAARDEBERG--THE BOMBARDMENT 73 XII. PAARDEBERG--THE SURRENDER 77 XIII. POPLAR GROVE 83 XIV. BLOEMFONTEIN 89 XV. MODDER REVISITED 97 XVI. JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR 104 XVII. THE MARCH NORTH 112 XVIII. PRETORIA 126 XIX. THE MARCH SOUTH 139 XX. PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER--I 151 XXI. PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER--II 165 XXII. FIGHTING AND TREKKING 173 XXIII. WRITTEN FROM HOSPITAL 185 XXIV. FIGHTING AND FARM-BURNING 192 XXV. THE SITUATION 205 XXVI. PLAIN MISTER! 217 WITH RIMINGTON LETTER I ORANGE RIVER CAMP ORANGE RIVER, _November_ 18, 1899. The sun is just rising on Orange River Camp. Our tents are pitched on the slopes of white sand, soft and deep, into which you sink at every step, that stretch down to the river, dotted with a few scraggy thorn-trees. There are men round me, sleeping about on the sand, rolled in their dark brown blankets, like corpses laid out, covered from head to foot, with the tight folds drawn over their feet and over their heads. A few bestir themselves, roll, and stretch, and draw back the covering from their sleepy, dusty faces. The first sunbeams begin to creep along the ground and turn the cold sand yellow. I am beginning this letter in the shade of a mimosa. The whole scene reminds me very much of Egypt; and you might easily believe that you were sitting on the banks of the Nile somewhere between the first and second cataract. There are the same white, sandy banks, the same narrow fringe of verdure on each side, the same bareness and treelessness of the surrounding landscape, the same sun-scorched, stony hillocks; in fact, the whole look of the place is almost identical. The river, slow and muddy, is a smaller Nile; there only wants the long snout and heavy, slug-like form of an old crocodile on the spit of sand in the middle to make the likeness complete. And over all the big arch of the pure sky is just the same too.