swarms over the country, coming down from Johannesburg and the
collieries, and naturally finding it rather hard to give account of
themselves. The peculiarity of the trials which I have attended has been
that if a Kaffir could give the name of his father it was taken as a
sufficient guarantee of respectability With one miserable Bushman, for
instance--a child's caricature of man--it was really going hard till at
last he managed to explain that his father's name was Nicodemus Africa,
and then every one looked satisfied, and he left the court without a
stain upon his character.

So we live from day to day. The air is full of rumours. One can see them
grow along the street. One traces them down. Perhaps one finds an atom
of truth somewhere at the root of them. One puts that atom into a
telegram. The military censor cuts it out with unfailing politeness, and
a good day's work is done. Heat, dust, and a weekly deluge with
stupendous thunder complete the scene.




CHAPTER IV

BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE


LADYSMITH, _October 22, 1899_.

It was a fair morning yesterday, cool after rain, the thin clouds
sometimes letting the sun look through. At half-past ten I was some six
or seven miles out along the Newcastle road--a road in these parts being