most intelligent Malay boy, who was working hard as a mason in the full
glare of the midday heat, and was touching neither food nor drink from
sunrise to sunset.

All around were signs and tokens of the war. Large transports lay gently
rolling upon the swell in every direction, and it was said that not less
than sixty ships were lying at anchor together in the bay. H.M.S.
_Niobe_ and _Doris_ faced the town, and further off was stationed the
_Penelope_, which had already received its earlier contingents of Boer
prisoners. It is very difficult, by the way, to understand how some of
these captives contrived later on to escape by swimming to the shore,
for, apart from the question of sharks, the distance to the beach was
considerable.

On land the whole aspect of the streets was changed. Every few yards one
met men in khaki and putties. This cloth looks fairly smart when it is
new and the buttons and badges are burnished; but, after a very few
weeks at the front, khaki uniforms become as shabby as possible. No one
who is going into the firing line has any wish to draw the enemy's fire
by the glint of his buttons or his shoulder-badges, and so these are
either removed or left to tarnish. Nor does khaki--at any rate the
"drill" variety--improve its beauty by being washed. When one has
bargained with a Kaffir lady to wash one's suit for ninepence it comes
back with all the glory of its russet brown departed and a sort of limp,
anæmic look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at
full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his
kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one
superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen
eyes behind the Mauser barrels fail to spot Mr. Atkins as he lies prone
behind his stone or anthill.