saddle.

To return to to-day. It has been very inconclusive and unsatisfactory.
We have marched about twelve miles, I think, with some long halts, in
one of which we unhooked and rode to a pool some distance off to water
horses. I have been fearfully sleepy all day. Two guns of the 38th
Battery have joined us, and we march as a six-gun battery under Major
McMicking. They have no officers fit for duty, and our Captain looks
after them. In the evening some shrapnel began bursting on a ridge
ahead, and we went up and fired a bit; but I suppose the Boers
decamped, for we soon after halted for the night. It is said that the
mythical Clements is now one march behind us, our scouts having met
to-day, and that Bethlehem is three miles ahead, strongly held by De
Wet. Other mythical generals are in the air. I am getting used to the
state of blank ignorance in which we live. Perfect sunset in a clear
sky. One of the charms of Africa is the long settled periods of pure
unclouded sky, in which the sun rises and sets with no flaming
splashes of vivid colours, but by gentle, imperceptible gradations of
pure light, waning or waxing. And as for rain, when it is once over it
is thoroughly over (at this season, at any rate). This night the
darkness was soon lit up by a flaming farm. All desperately hungry,
when it was announced that an extra ration of raw meat was to be
served out. If I can't cook it, shall I eat it raw? To-morrow's ration
is a pound of fresh cooked meat, instead of the eternal Maconochie. It
was drawn to-night, and looked so good that I ate half of it at once,
thus yielding to an oft-recurring temptation. Orders for reveillé at
seven. Great joy.

_July 6._--Reveillé was marked by a Boer shell coming over the camp,
followed by others in quick succession, real good bursting shrapnel, a