and even at a distance we could hardly be taken for Boers."

All agreed that it would be an excellent plan.

"We shall, of course, have bandoliers for our cartridges, and haversacks
for our provisions and spare packets of ammunition. Not an hour must be
lost in getting these things. I hear that Captain Brookfield, who came
up to Johannesburg last year and stayed a fortnight with us, has raised
a corps, which he has named the Maritzburg Scouts. I will call upon him
this afternoon and tell him that there are one-and-twenty of us, all
somewhere about my age, and that we mean fighting; and that as we all
speak Dutch we think we can do more good by scouting about on our own
account than by joining any regular corps; but that at the same time we
should like, if there was anything like regular fighting, to place
ourselves under the orders of an officer like himself. It is rather
difficult to explain, you know, but I think he will understand what we
mean. We should be, in fact, a section of his troop, acting generally on
independent service, either scouting, or going in among the Boers and
getting intelligence, trying to blow up bridges, and engaging looting
parties--for we may be sure that the Boers will be scattering all over
the country plundering.

"Of course I shall say, if he won't accept us on those terms, we shall
do as we best can on our own account; but that as we don't require pay,
and will provide ourselves with all necessaries, we do not see that we
should be any burden when we join him. I propose that we meet here again
this afternoon, and I hope that by that time we shall all have got our
mounts and saddlery. I hear that many of the loyal farmers north have
driven their animals down here, and are only too glad to sell the horses
at the usual prices. Mind, the clothes we have now won't do; we must get