I should have been proud of the way I had served my country.
We started in our cart with our horses as we thought in grand condition. While at Pretoria we had been congratulated on the way in which we had made our purchases and travelled the road surmounting South African difficulties as though we had been at the work all our lives. We had refilled our commissariat chest, and with the exception that my companion had shied a bottle of brandy,—joint property,—at the head of a dog that would bite him,—not me,—as we were packing the cart, there had been as yet no misfortune. Our Cape-boy driver had not once been drunk and nothing material had been lost or broken. We got off at 11 A.M.; and at half past one P.M.,—having travelled about fifteen miles in the normal two and a half hours,—we spanned out and shared our lunch with a very hungry-looking Dutchman who squatted himself on his haunches close to our little fire. He was herding cattle and seemed to be very poor and hungry. I imagined him to be some unfortunate who was working for low wages at a distance from his home. But I found him to be the lord of the soil, the owner of the herd, and the possessor of a homestead about a mile distant. I have no doubt he would have given me what he had to give if I had called at his house. As it was he seemed to be delighted with fried bacon and biscuits, and was aroused almost to enthusiasm over a little drop of brandy and water.
On our road during this day we stopped at an accommodation house, as it is called in the country,—or small Inn, kept by an Englishman. Here before the door I saw flying a flag
