and over the plain that stretches to the river their grey foliage gathers into thick covers or is sometimes dotted here and there.  The smell of the mimosa flowers (little yellow balls of pollen-covered blossom) is the most delicious I know, and the air as we ride through these lonely covers, where a few buck seem the only tenants, is fragrant with it.  Far apart there are farms, prettily situated, generally close to the hills, the rocky sides of the kopjes rising behind, the wide plain spread in front.  Each has its dam, sometimes more than one, built round with mud embankments, with huge weeping willows overhanging, and rows of tall poplars and blue gums (with shreds of bark rattling), and plenty of other trees.  The farmhouses themselves are uninteresting, but the gardens, with their great thicket hedges of prickly pear and quince and brilliant blossoming pomegranate, are delightful, especially at this time, when the fruit is just getting ripe.

It was out on this western side, where we were feeling for the enemy’s right flank, some twenty miles from camp, in a niche half way up the mountain, that we spent our last Christmas.  We rather expected an attack, as a Kaffir of ours had been taken by them, and might be expected to reveal our movements.  After dark we climbed the hill, dragging our ponies over the boulders and scratching our way through the thorns.

The Boer hill was four or five miles distant, north across the plain.  All along its purple sides we ranged with our glasses, seeing nothing; but after dark several little points of light showed where their laager was.  We sat all night among the rocks (I thought of you and the roast-turkey and holly), occasional heavy drops of rain falling, and a flicker of lightning now and then.  Heavy clouds rolled up, and the night set in as dark as pitch.  The level plain below us lay flat as a pancake from their hill to ours.  So passed our ’99 Christmas, picturesque possibly, but not very comfortable.  Dark hillside; rain in large warm drops; night dark, with a star or two and struggling moon.  In front, a distant hillside, with points of camp-fire twinkling, where the Boers, indifferent to our little party, were carousing and drinking their dop. Now and then a yawn or groan as a man stretches his cramped limbs.  Down below under us an expanse of dark plain, like a murky sea, reaching to our feet, which we peer across, but can make out nothing.  Peep-of-day time is the Boer’s favourite hour for a call, and we were all very much on the qui vive when the white line showed along the east.  No doubt, however, they all had such heads after their Christmas drink that they were in no humour for such a diversion.  At any rate, they let us alone.  Very stiff and weary and wet, we crept down the hill soon after daybreak and started on our twenty-mile homeward march.  It was 5 P.M. before we reached camp, and we had had nothing to eat all day.  I don’t know if we were most tired or hungry.  Take that three