I wish I had my camera.  Unfortunately it got damaged, and I have not been able to take any photographs.  These farms would make a good subject.  They are dry and burn well.  The fire bursts out of windows and doors with a loud roaring, and black volumes of smoke roll overhead.  Standing round are a dozen or two of men holding horses.  The women, in a little group, cling together, comforting each other or hiding their faces in each other’s laps.  In the background a number of Tommies are seen chasing poultry, flinging stones, and throwing themselves prostrate on maimed chickens and ducks, whose melancholy squawks fill the air.  Further off still, herds and flocks and horses are being collected and driven off, while, on the top of the nearest high ground, a party of men, rifles in hand, guard against a surprise from the enemy, a few of whom can generally be seen in the distance watching the destruction of their homes.

One hears the women talk.  Their ideas about the war are peculiar, for they all maintain that they will succeed in the long-run in asserting their independence, and seem to think that things are going quite satisfactorily for them.  “Of course we shall go on fighting,” they say, quite with surprise.  “How long?” “Oh, as long as may be necessary.  Till you go away.”  It is curious coming to household after household and finding the whole lot of them, women and children, so unanimous, so agreed in the spirit in which they face their afflictions.  Husbands and sons in the hill fighting.  Homes in the valley blazing, and they sitting and watching it all, almost always with the same fortitude, the same patience, and the same resolve.  I am impressed, for I have never seen anything of the sort before.  It is not often in these days that you see one big, simple, primitive instinct, like love of country, acting on a whole people at once.  Many of our officers, the thoughtful and candid-minded ones, do these people justice; but many don’t.  Many catch at any explanation but the true one, and attribute every kind of motive save the only one that will explain the facts.  They refuse to call the Boers patriots, but that the Boers are prepared to face a slow extermination in defence of their country is now evident.  It has become more evident since the war has assumed its present character of individual, personal effort.  I much respect and admire them for it.

It is time to bring this long letter to an end.  I wish I could see an end to the campaign.  When I come home “an old, old, aged and infirm old man,” I mean to pass the evening of my days in a quiet cottage with its full allowance of honeysuckle and roses.  There I shall grow sweet williams and, if I can stand the extra excitement, perhaps keep a pig.  They tell me the Times has pronounced the war over.  I would be glad to pay L5 out of my own pocket to have the man who wrote that out here on the veldt with us for a week.  We have just heard that Dewetsdorp has fallen, and that there is a rising in the Colony near Aliwal North. Vogue la galere!