of £80,000. The Grey College was a building of which any city might be
proud. The Post Office was quite up to the average of some large
provincial town in this country, and several other imposing buildings
proved that the capital of the Orange Free State, though small, was 'no
mean city.'

It was literally a town on the veldt. The veldt was around it
everywhere. It showed up now and then in the town where it was least
expected, as though to assert its independence and remind the dwellers
in the city that their fathers were its children.

Wonderfully healthy is this little city. Situated high above sea level,
with a climate so bracing and life-giving that the phthisis bacillus can
hardly live in it, it seemed to our soldiers, after their long march
across the veldt, a veritable City of Refuge. Alas! how soon it was to
be turned into a charnel house!


=The March to Bloemfontein.=

It was to this oasis in the South African desert that Lord Roberts
marched his troops after the surrender of Cronje. It had been a terrible
march from the Modder River, and its severity was maintained to the
end. The difficulty of transport was great, and sickness was beginning
to tell upon the troops. The river water, rendered poisonous by the
bodies of men and cattle from Cronje's camp, and the horrible filth of
his laager, were responsible for what followed. The men for the most
part kept up until the march was over. They had determined to reach
Bloemfontein at all costs, and many of them in all probability lost
their lives through that determination. They ought to have given up long