did not accompany it. I can only say that the burghers composing it did not remain long south of the Tugela, and were obliged by great numbers of troops to return to Ladysmith. General Joubert, however, said that he had succeeded in his object of preventing all the English troops from massing on the western borders of the Free State.

Shortly before the expedition was sent to Estcourt, the portions of the several commandos which had been left on the Drakensberg were ordered to descend into Natal and join the besiegers of Ladysmith. They arrived in due time, and brought all the waggons with them. We had after that the convenience of a laager. Tents of every shape and size soon sprang up everywhere between the great waggons, and nobody who was not actually on duty needed to have any apprehension with regard to heat, or cold, or wet. There were indeed several who had raised their voices against the bringing down of the waggons, and had said that they would prove to be an encumbrance, in case a hasty retreat became necessary, but the majority of the burghers were bent upon taking it easy—even in the war—and demanded that the waggons should be brought down.

As far as I was concerned, though I did not approve of the presence of the waggons, it was a personal pleasure to have a large square tent with a table in it. Writing on a table was a decided improvement to writing on a book, or a pad, on one's knees, or on the ground.

That tent in which I wrote!—how I remember it, while I am in Cape Town writing my book over again.

The time passed swiftly, though it dragged from moment to moment. This was one of the first things that struck me in the war. I would wake in the morning and feel the duty of the day lying on me, as a burden which could not be lifted. But when the shadows of night had fallen I found that the burden had been borne. It often seemed as if the future lay far beyond my reach, but after an hour, a day, a month was past, the hours seemed to be seconds, the days hours, and the months weeks.

The burghers were terribly bored in the laager? Why? They wanted nothing. The Government provided meat, bread (in the shape of meal), coffee, sugar, potatoes,—sometimes tobacco;—we even lived in luxury, for our wives sent us fruit and vegetables, cake and sweets. Why, then, did the burghers feel bored in the laager?

The reason is that the Africander is not a soldier, who can take kindly to camp or barrack life. The Boer detests a confined life, and whenever he is away from the open plain, and the free breezes of heaven, he is miserable. Thus it was that every burgher now longed to be back on his farm.

How I pitied the Commandant! He was continually besieged by burghers asking leave to go home. They asked for leave on the slightest pretexts, or with no pretext whatever; for they would give as a reason for leave of absence the work which had to be done on the farms. The women looked after that as well as, and in many cases better than, the men themselves had done. No, in the majority of cases there was no sound excuse to justify a request for leave. It was simply because they could not stand the confinement of the life in a laager.

Towards the end of the third week in November, one of the heavy guns of the Transvaal—another Long Tom—was brought into the Harrismith laager in order to be placed on the hill where our two guns stood. What a monster it was!

A wooden platform of thick deal beams was constructed in the fort, and Long Tom was drawn into position during the night. On the following morning it fired on the forts at Platrand (Cæsar's Hill), and the terrific recoil splintered the stout beams of the platform as if they had been thin lathes. The platform had to be rebuilt and rendered stronger.

While we were doing this, the English were not idle. They were busy putting a heavy gun on Platrand into position; and on the following day they sent shell after shell, which pulverised the rocks and ploughed the ground, but which happily did no injury to Long Tom.

On Sunday, 26th November, I visited the Bethlehem laager with the intention of holding divine service there. On arriving, I found everything in a state of hurry and bustle. Here someone was roasting coffee, there another was shoeing his horse, yonder a third was greasing the axles of his waggon. The cause of all this activity was that the commando had been ordered to the western border by the War Commission, and that they were preparing to start.

I succeeded in my intention of addressing the burghers, and took as my text the comforting words of St. Paul: "Be of good cheer: for I trust in God, that it shall be even as it was told me."

A fortnight afterwards, Acting-Commandant Christian de Wet was appointed General, and likewise ordered to the western border. His achievement at Nicholson's Nek had fixed the attention of the War Commission on him, and he was now called to take upon himself the rank and important duties of a General. I had no suspicion then that Christian de Wet had begun the career which would make him famous throughout South Africa; nay, throughout the world!

Thus far we had busied ourselves exclusively with the enemy hemmed in at Ladysmith; but on the 28th of November the Boers were also threatened from the south of the Tugela. On that day a considerable number of troops advanced from the direction of Chieveley, and opened a heavy fire on the Boer positions north of the river, with about twelve guns. The Boers replied, and our shells fell upon the British until they were forced to retire.

Platrand! What enchantment hung over that hill! From the first moment that we had come south of Ladysmith, it had been the talk of everyone that the hill should be taken; and about a week after the investment of the town, Commandant de Villiers had actually made a night march with the object of making an assault on it; but General Joubert had recalled him before he could begin the attack. Since then the cry had ever been: "The hill must be taken!" At last, wearied of the continual nagging, the combined War Council of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State decided that 900 men should storm the hill during the night of the 29th-30th of November.

Many considered the decision unwise. They were of opinion that the hill could not be taken without great loss of life, and that it was doubtful, after it was taken, whether it could be held. Nobody, however, opposed, and preparations were made to set out at two o'clock on the 30th of November.

Something, however, intervened.

At ten o'clock in the evening some Transvaal officers entered the tent of Commandant de Villiers, and pointed out that there was no shelter for the storming party, and that the dongas at the foot of the hill, instead of affording shelter, would prove disadvantageous to us in case we were forced to retire. One officer after another entered the tent until there were fifteen together, and all were opposed to the project of storming the place. At one o'clock they had convinced one another that Platrand could not be taken, and took it upon themselves to disobey the orders of the Council of War, and so far from storming Platrand at two o'clock, everyone was sound asleep in his bed at that hour. The evil day was postponed.

On 7th December my son Charlie, aged 15, arrived in the laager. I had left him behind at Harrismith to go to school, but it was impossible to keep him there, and he had come to the laager at the first opportunity, after receiving my consent. When he had been with me but a short while he got a Lee-Metford from his friend Jan Cilliers, which had been taken at Dundee.

At this time it became clearer and clearer that some event or other might with certainty be expected from the south. The British Commander-in-Chief in Natal, General