Lord Lytton tells us that in the days of Edward the Confessor the rage for psalm singing was at its height in England so that sacred song excluded almost every other description of vocal music: but though in South Africa a similar trend revealed itself among the troops, their camp fire concerts, and the concerts in the Pretoria Soldiers' Home, were of an exclusively secular type. At one which it was my privilege to attend, Lady Roberts and her daughters were present as well as the general, who generously arranged for a cigar to be given to every man in the densely crowded hall when the concert closed. All the songs were by members of the general's staff, and were excellent; but one, composed presumably by the singer, was topical and sensational in a high degree. It was entitled: "Long as the world goes round"; and one verse assured us concerning "Brother Boer," with only too near an approach to truth, He'll bury his mauser, And break all his vows, sir, Long as the world goes round! Another verse reminded us of a still more melancholy fact which yet awakened no little mirth. It was in praise of De Wet, who in spite of his blue spectacles, seemed by far the most clear-sighted of all the Boer generals, and who, notwithstanding his illiteracy, was beyond all others well versed in the bewildering ways of the veldt. He apparently had no skill for the conducting of set battles, but for ambushing convoys, for capturing isolated detachments, for wrecking trains, and for himself eluding capture when fairly ringed round with keen pursuers beyond all counting, few could rival him. Like hunted Hereward, he seemed able to escape through a rat hole, and by his persistence in guerilla tactics not only seriously prolonged the war and enormously increased its cost, but also went far to make the desolation of his pet Republic complete. So there Lord Roberts sat and heard this sung by one of his staff:-- Of all the Boers we have come across yet, None can compare with this Christian De Wet; For him we seem quite unable to get-- (Though Hildyard and Broadwood, And our Soudanese Lord _should_)-- Long as the world goes round! They _should_ have got him, and they would have got him, if they could; but when Lord Roberts, long months after, set sail for home, he left De Wet still in the saddle. Then Kitchener, our Soudanese Lord, took up the running, and called on the Guards to aid him, but even they proved unequal to the hopeless task. "One pair of heels," they said, "can never overtake two pair of hoofs." Then our picked mounted men monopolised the "tally-ho" to little better purpose. De Wet's guns were captured, his convoys cut off, but him no man caught, and possibly to this very day he is still complacently humming "Tommies may come and Tommies may go, but I trot on for ever." [Sidenote: _Cordua and his Conspiracy._]