show me a heap of things in the fistic line which I should remember for the
rest of my life; but as I only laughed he slouched off, and now, when we
meet in the street, we pass without speaking. But I got his history, all
the same, from one of the Cape Police, who told me the beggar had refused
to join a volunteer regiment when the war broke out, and had remained the
whole time in a quiet little Boer village as a British refugee, and had not
seen the outside, let alone the inside, of a Boer fighting laager in all
his lying life. Yet such cravens at times help to make history--of a kind.

Possibly it may interest Englishmen--and women, too, for that matter--to
know what a fighting laager is like, and as I have seen half a dozen of
them from the enemies' side of the wall, a rough pen and ink sketch may not
be amiss. In war time the Boer never, under any circumstances, makes his
laager in the open country if there are any kopjes about. No matter how
secure he may fancy himself from attack, no matter if there is not a foe
within fifty miles of him, the Boer commander always pitches his laager in
a place of safety between two parallel lines of hills, so that no attack
can be made upon him, either front or rear, without giving him an immense
advantage over the attacking force, even if the enemy is ten times as
strong in numbers. By this means the Boers make their laagers almost
impregnable. If they have a choice of ground, they pick a narrow ravine, or
gully, with a line of hills front and rear, covered with small rocky
boulders and bushes. They drive their waggons along the ravine, and make a
sort of rude breastwork across the gully with the waggons. In between these
waggons the women are placed for safety, for it is a noticeable fact that
very large numbers of women have followed their husbands and fathers to the
war, not to act as viragoes, not to play the wanton, not to unsex
themselves, not to handle the rifle, but to nurse the wounded, to comfort
the dying, and to lay out the dead. I have heard them singing round the
camp fires in the starlight, but it was hymns that they sang, not ribald