A Letter from the Front.

Manawatu Herald, 16 June 1900, Page 2

A Letter from the Front.

», We ate in receipt of a letter dated 9th May from* Trooper Bobert Perreau. From it we learn that he is at Bloemfontein and is in good health. The town he pictures as being about the same size as Christ' church, bat, owing to the war, much more busy, trains running day and night, and thousands of troops arriving every day. The' First and Second Contingents were camped two miles away, and Perreau's, tfie Third Contingent were camped a

.quarter of a mile from the railway station. The Third Contingent were to stay a few days for a spell, they having hatJ a ':.• ci timo and the horses T/ive knocked ur. Siuce Easter !•• •."•." -L „ hA« liau ihe sky ioi a ro;' 9.1 .1. am vocks for a bed, B-"d ot times rue only meat they had was w.'.-at they could catw'h. Sometimes they passed a whole day without a drink, ani if a wash was obtained once a week they thought themselves lucky. Their o.wn mothers : would not know them as they have not had a shave since leaving East London. The other troops all think a lot of the boys, and as they rise before daybreak they say they think the New Zealanders never go to > sleep. . For a time the Contingent was under General Brabant, and then they wee transferred to General Hart's Bugade. General Brabant formed a high opinion of the Con- ; tingentr especially their coolness? under fire, and when they were at Bushman's Kopje, riding in close lorjnation along the bottom of a hill j the Boers oened fire with a heavy ! gun and the shells went shrieking j over their heads, and then the boys could be heard to laugh saying "Co j it you devils, you can't hit us, you are only wasting your ammunition." < 1 However, abit after a shell landed right amongst the horses, but it buried it- j self in the ground and did not burst. It was time then to move round a hill. Trooper Perreau mentions that a great many of the shells-'-did not burst, but they, make a very naaty I report when they do. He and fours others were lying under the ledge of J rock with, another lump of rock in j front, when a shell burst just over thelrheads. It was such a terrible .report that thejtnen will never forget It; ifaenttonf of loose rock' rolling dowii past them, but none were hurt. A/ter . • 4jperienoe« vwith ihe' enemy Trooper Jterr«au has come to the conchisron that the Boers do not shoot ,so well as people, used to say theyepuid. The following incident will give a better comprehension of the risks tan :— One morning we woke iip early at hearing some shots fired at the back of us, so we knew it was «omeof our chaps. We looked all round but it was too dark to see far, so. we bid flat down on the rock and listened. We could hear some men running so we fixed bayonets and waited; the footsteps came nearer and nearer, and all at once we found ourselves among 20 or 80 Boers, there being only 18 of us. Our | riilea did a little work and the Boers • dUappf&red like lightning down a fiteep chasm -in the rock. We did {tot follow them, but we looked down >£aen it got a bit light and how they got away I do not know, as it was hundreds of feet deep, and as steep a* a house. We have found the Boers a wily lot of fellows, they are_ always on the alert