(2 P.M.)—­We are halted to feed.  There is some firing on the left front.  Had a good sleep for an hour.  Later on we went into action, but never fired, and in the evening marched away behind a hill and camped.  The Wilts and Montgomery Yeomanry are with us, and at the common watering-place, a villainous little pool, with a steep, slippery descent to it, I recognized Alexander Lafone, of the latter corps.  I walked to their lines after tea, found him sergeant of the guard, and we talked over a fire.  We had last seen one another as actors in some amateur theatricals in a country town at home.  They had been in action for the first time that day, and had reported 500 Boers close by.  A warm night.  Quite a change of season has set in.

August 18.—­A big gun was booming not far off, during breakfast.  A hot, cloudless day.  Started about 8.30, and marched till twelve, crossing the valley diagonally, till we reached some kopjes on the other side.  A pom-pom of ours is now popping away just ahead, and there is a good deal of rifle-fire.

(3.15.)—­The old music has begun, a shell coming screeching overhead and bursting behind us.  We and the convoy were at once moved to a position close under a kopje between us and the enemy.  Shells are coming over pretty fast, but I don’t see how they can reach us here.  A most curious one has just come sailing very slowly overhead, and growling and hiccoughing in the strangest way.  I believe it was a ricochet, having first hit the top of the kopje.  When it fell there was a rush of gunners to pick up the fragments.  I secured one, and it turned out to be part of a huge forty-pounder siege-gun shell.  Such a gun would far out-range ours, and I believe the scouts have not located it yet, which explains our inactivity.

(3.30.)—­Our right section has gone into action, and is firing now.  Some wounded Yeomen just brought in.  One of them, I’m sorry to say, is Lafone, with a glancing wound under the eye, sight uninjured.  We camped at five, and unharnessed.  It seems the Yeomanry lost ten men prisoners, but the Boers released them after taking their rifles.

August 19.—­Sunday.—­Reveille at four.  Some days are very irritating to the soldier, and this was a typical one.  We harnessed up and stood about waiting for orders for five hours.  At last we moved off, only to return again immediately; again moved off, and after a few minutes halted; finally got more or less started, and marched five or six miles, with incessant short halts, at each of which the order is to unbuckle wither-straps and let horses graze.  This sounds simple, but is a horrible nuisance, as the team soon gets all over the place, feet over traces, collars over ears, and so on, if not continually watched and pulled about.  When it is very hot and you are tired, it is very trying to the temper.  At one halt you think you will lunch.  You get out a Maconochie, open it, and