of the ground mapped in their head; judging not by slow calculation and an effort of the memory, but intuitively and at once.  This instinct is called “an eye for a country,” and is a most valuable gift.  Personally, I am very ill equipped with it, which makes me the more inclined perhaps to admire it in others.  It is developed in the Colonel to an extraordinary degree, and is one of the chief means by which, however hard beset, he has always been able, so far, to find a way out.  Most nearly of any of our officers his tactics in daring and in craft resemble the tactics of that prince of scouting officers, Christian De Wet.

Kronstadt, Lindley, Heilbron, Frankfort, has been our round so far.  We now turn westward along the south of the Vaal.  Farm burning goes merrily on, and our course through the country is marked as in prehistoric ages, by pillars of smoke by day and fire by night.  We usually burn from six to a dozen farms a day; these being about all that in this sparsely-inhabited country we encounter.  I do not gather that any special reason or cause is alleged or proved against the farms burnt.  If Boers have used the farm; if the owner is on commando; if the line within a certain distance has been blown up; or even if there are Boers in the neighbourhood who persist in fighting—­these are some of the reasons.  Of course the people living in the farms have no say in these matters, and are quite powerless to interfere with the plans of the fighting Boers.  Anyway we find that one reason or other generally covers pretty nearly every farm we come to, and so to save trouble we burn the lot without inquiry; unless, indeed, which sometimes happens, some names are given in before marching in the morning of farms to be spared.

The men belonging to the farm are always away and only the women left.  Of these there are often three or four generations; grandmother, mother, and family of girls.  The boys over thirteen or fourteen are usually fighting with their papas.  The people are disconcertingly like English, especially the girls and children—­fair and big and healthy looking.  These folk we invite out on to the veldt or into the little garden in front, where they huddle together in their cotton frocks and big cotton sun-bonnets, while our men set fire to the house.  Sometimes they entreat that it may be spared, and once or twice in an agony of rage they have invoked curses on our heads.  But this is quite the exception.  As a rule they make no sign, and simply look on and say nothing.  One young woman in a farm yesterday, which I think she had not started life long in, went into a fit of hysterics when she saw the flames breaking out, and finally fainted away.