distance short of fifteen miles. There was no panic. The few ladies who
remain went riding or cycling along the dusty, blazing road which makes
the town. The Zulu women in blankets and beads walked in single file
with the little black heads of babies peering out between their
shoulder-blades, and roasting in the sun. Huge waggon-loads of
stores--compressed forage, compressed beef, jam, water-proof sheets,
ammunition, oil, blankets, sardines, and all the other necessaries of a
soldier's existence--came lumbering up from the station behind the long
files of oxen urged slowly forward by savage outcries and lashes of
hide. Orderlies were galloping in the joy of their hearts. The band of
the Gloucesters were practising scales in unison to slow time. Suddenly
a kind of feeling came into the air that something was happening. I
noticed the waggon stopped; the oxen at once lay down in the dust; the
music ceased and was packed away. I met the Gordons coming into town and
asking for their ground. Riding up the mile or two to camp, I found the
whole dusty plateau astir. Tents were melting away like snow. Kits lay
all naked and revealed upon the earth. The men were falling in. The
waggons were going the wrong way round. The very headquarters and staff
were being cleared out. The whole camp was, in fact, in motion. It was
coming down into the town. In a few hours the familiar place was bare
and deserted. I went up this morning and stood on Signal Hill where the
heliograph was working yesterday, just above the camp. The whole plain
was a wilderness. Straw and paper possessed it merely, except that here
and there a destitute Kaffir groped among the _débris_ in hopes of
finding a shiny tin pot for his furniture or some rag of old uniform to
harmonise with his savage dress. In one corner of the empty iron huts a
few of the cavalry were still trying to carry off some remnants of
forage. It was a pitiful sight, and yet the rapidity of the change was
impressive. If the Boers came in, they would find those tin huts very
luxurious after their accustomed bivouacs. Is it possible that tin huts