six days at De Aar. This news was not at all pleasant. I have been in
many dreary and uninteresting spots in the world, _e.g._, Aden or Atbara
Camp, but I have never disliked a place as much as I did De Aar. The
whole plain has been cut up by the incessant movement of guns, transport
waggons and troops, and the result is that one is nearly choked and
blinded by the dense clouds of dust. Huge spiral columns of sand tear
across the plain over the tops of the kopjes, carrying with them scraps
of paper and rubbish of all sorts. The irritation produced by the
absorption of this permeating dust into the system militates to some
extent against the rapid recovery of men who suffer from diseases like
dysentery or enteric fever. It travels under doors and through window
sashes, and a patient is obliged, whether he will or no, to swallow a
certain amount of it daily. Nevertheless the South African dust does not
appear to be so bacillus-laden as, _e.g._, that of Atbara Camp, which,
amongst other evil effects, continually produced ulceration in the mouth
and throat.

De Aar lies in the centre of a large plain, shut in on every side by
kopjes. In fact its position is very similar indeed to that of
Ladysmith. The hills on the east and west were always held by pickets
with some field guns belonging to the Royal Artillery and the Prince
Alfred's Artillery Volunteers. A much loftier line of kopjes to the
north was untenanted by the British, but any approach over the veldt
from the north-east was blocked by several rows of shelter trenches and
a strongly-constructed redoubt with wire entanglements, ditch, and
parapet topped with iron rails. Signallers were continually at work, and
at night it was quite a pretty sight to watch the twinkling points of
the signal lights as they flashed between the tents on the plain and the
distant pickets on the tops of the kopjes. Boers had been seen to the
east and on the west; some at least of the Dutch colonists were in open