After passing "Joe's Luck," where for us "there was no luck about the house, there was no luck at all," the Guards reached Avoca, another station on the Barberton branch; and here we found not only a fine railway bridge destroyed with dynamite, but also the railway sheds, recently crammed full with government stores, mostly provisions, now ruthlessly given to the flames and absolutely destroyed. Thousands of tins of condensed milk had flown like bombs in all directions, and like bombs had burst, when the intense heat had turned the confined milk to steam. Butter by the ton had ignominiously ended its days by merely adding so much more fat to the fire. All good things here, laboriously treasured for the benefit of the Transvaal troops, were consumed in quite another fashion from that intended. Even accumulated locomotives to the number of about fifty had been in some cases elaborately mutilated, or caught, and twisted out of all utility, by the devouring flames. So wanton is the waste war begets. The torch has played a comparatively small part in this contest; but it is food supplies that have suffered most from its ravages, and the Boers, with a slimness that baffled us, having thus burned their food, bequeathed to us their famished wives and children. Thousands of these innocents drew full British rations, when thousands of British soldiers were drawing half rations. That is not the Old Testament and Boer-beloved way of waging war, but it foreshadows the slow dawning of an era when, constrained by an overmastering sense of brotherhood, Men will hang the trumpet in the hall, And study war no more! [Sidenote: _More fat and mightier flames._] Beyond Avoca we rested for the night at Fever Creek, and were alarmed by the approach of a heavy thunderstorm just as we were commencing our dinner in the dense darkness. So I crept for refuge between the courses of our homely meal under a friendly waggon, and thence came forth from time to time as wind and weather permitted, to renew acquaintance with my deserted platter. Finally, when the storm had somewhat abated, we sought the scanty protection and repose to be found under our damp blankets. That for us with such favouring conditions Fever Creek did not justify its name seems wonderful.