Amajuba led to a fatal misjudgement of the British by the Boer. In all leniency, the latter now recognises only an encouraging lack of grit, which persuades him to prolong the contest by whatever tactics suit him best. Its effect resembles that of the Danegeld our Saxon fathers paid their oversea invaders, with a view to staying all further strife. Their gifts were interpreted as a sign of craven fear, and merely taught the recipients to clamour greedily for more. Long before this cruel war closed it became clear as noonday that Boer hostilities could not be bought off by a crippling clemency, and that an ever-discriminating severity is, in practice, mercy of the truest and most effective type. How great the pressure on the military authorities became in consequence of these frequent breakages of the railway line, and how serious the inconvenience to the mercantile community, as indeed to the whole civil population, may be judged from the fact that only on the day of my return from Resina Garcia did the Pretoria merchants receive their first small consignments of food stuffs since the arrival of the British troops some four months before. Clothing, boots, indeed goods of any other type than food, they had still not the faintest hope of getting up from the coast for many a week to come. War is always hard alike on public stores and private cupboards; but seldom have the supplies of any town, not actually undergoing a siege, been more nearly exhausted than were those of Pretoria at the time now referred to. For hungry and impecunious folk the City of Roses was fast becoming a bed of thorns. [Sidenote: _Farewell to the Guards' Brigade._] From Pretoria I accompanied the Guards on what we all deemed our homeward way as far as Norval's Pont. Then the Brigade, as such, was broken up for blockhouse or other widely dispersing duties; and I was accordingly recalled to headquarters for garrison work. At this point, therefore, I must say farewell to the Guard's Brigade. For over twelve months my association with them was almost absolutely uninterrupted. At meals and on the march, in the comparative quiet of camp life, and on the field of fatal conflict, I was with them night and day; ever receiving from them courtesies and practical kindnesses immeasurably beyond what so entire a stranger was entitled to expect. Officers and men alike made me royally welcome, and won in almost all respects my warmest admiration.