Lifting the heavy stones and repairing and untangling the barbed wire
was unaccustomed work, and soon our hands were covered with cuts and
bruises. The distance by road between the two points is only about forty
miles, but owing to the fences running at all angles to each other we
had about seventy miles to cover. This it took us a week to do, rising
early, working all through the day, and continuing in the moonlight at
night. By buying a couple of sheep to supplement the bags of meal, and
drinking a gall-like imitation coffee brewed from barley, we managed to
fare well enough, and better than thousands of others are faring to-day.

Our communication with the starting-point continued fairly good until we
came within six miles of Heilbron, when it suddenly failed. I went back
along the line, and eventually found the fault. After having repaired it
and given my pony an hour's rest, I took a short cut for Heilbron, and
arrived there at ten that night, only to find that during the time
occupied by my return ride the wire had again stopped working. Having
been in the saddle since six in the morning, I could do no more that
night, although the Government, now installed here, was anxiously
awaiting the resumption of communication. Early the next morning I
started back. I considered it best to start testing from the middle of
the line, and therefore went by road instead of following the fence. A
few miles out of town I met De Wet's force, which was just retreating
from Ventersburg. The men and animals were weary and dusty, but there
was no depression noticeable; hope seemed to spring up afresh after
every defeat, and those who thought of the result at all were confident
that, as the song of the camp had it, "No Englishman shall ever cross
the Vaal."

And now I shall try and draw you a picture of what I saw next. It was a
scene painfully humiliating for a Boer; what it was for an Englishman I