We spent the next two days in preparations for departure, in sorting of harness, sifting and packing of kit, and great burnings of discarded rubbish.

On the first of October, Williams and I walked into Pretoria to do some business, and try and pick up some curios.  We had an exhausting conflict with a crusty old Jew, with whom we bargained for scjamboks and knobkerries.  It was with great difficulty we got him to treat with us at all, or even show us his wares.  He had been humbugged so often by khakis that he would not believe we were serious customers, and treated our advances with violence and disdain.  We had to be conciliatory, as we wanted his wares, though we felt inclined to loot his shop, and leave him for dead.  After some most extraordinary bargaining and after tempting him with solid, visible gold, we each secured a scjambok and a knobkerry at exorbitant prices, and left him even then grumbling and growling.

Scjamboks are whips made of rhinoceros’ hide.  They take a beautiful polish, and a good one is indestructible.  A knobkerry is a stick with a heavy round knob for a head, overlaid, head and stem, with copper and steel wire, in ingenious spirals and patterns.  The Kaffirs make them.

I also wired to my brother to meet our train at Elandsfontein.  He had written me, saying he had been sent there from the Convalescent Camp, having the luck to find as his commandant Major Paul Burn-Murdoch, of the Royal Engineers, who was a mutual friend of ours.

I was on picket duty that night—­my last on the veldt.  The camp looked very strange with only the four lines of men sleeping by their kits, and a few officers’ horses and a little knot of ten mules for the last buck-waggon.  It was an utterly still moonlight night, only broken by the distant chirruping of frogs and the occasional tinkle of a mule’s chain.

At seven the next morning we met the C.I.V.  Infantry and Mounted Infantry, and were all reviewed by Lord Roberts, who rode out with his Staff to say good-bye to us.  He made us a speech we were proud to hear, referring particularly to the fine marching of the Infantry, and adding that he hoped we would carry home to the heart of the country a high opinion of the regular British soldier, alongside whom we had fought.  That we certainly shall do.  He prophesied a warm reception at home, and said he hoped when it was going on we would remember one man, our Honorary Colonel, who would have liked to be there to march at our head into the city of London; “good-bye and God speed.”  Then we cheered him and marched away.