The British-Boer War. EXPERIENCES OF LANCE-CORPORAL C. A. WILSON (3rd NEW ZEALAND CONTINGENT).

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 62, 23 October 1900, Page 3

The British-Boer War. EXPERIENCES OF LANCE-COR-PORAL C. A. WILSON (3rd NEW ZEALAND CONTINGENT).

{Continued), The country through which we passed cm our way to Bsthulie Bridge was of the finest. Oats, bavlay, wheat, all in the sheaf, filled the barns, quinces grew on the trees, pumpkins covered great patches of ground, and there were large stores of dried apricots and peachas in the houses. The sheep were somewhat indifferent, but the Angora -goats, large numbers of which are bred there, and the oattle were in the pink of condition. The farmhouses were well furnished, and each stable contained a comfortable carnage, with silver-plated harness to match. At last we reached Bethulie Bridge Station and camped for the night. With one of our war photographers, I managed to secure a covered railway truck and had a decidedly good night. We s wakened before dawn and started to bring up the horses aud truck them. By 7.30 ■wt W«re ready to atart, but it "waß 9.80 before we moved out on our three "V'a.ye* journey. We were in open trucks, each man with his bagguge, and a sardine bad a free and -roomy existence compared with ours. However it was not so bad, for we kept each other Warm at night and the day time did not matter. Passing the Httls stations en ronto wo souaetunes stopped to nuko way for a freight train puffing on with its hospital stores at fourteen miles an hour. The gradients are so staQp that trains are compelled to go at a slow pace. At Spi-ingfonleiu we stopped three hours. -Here we watered the horses and had the luxury of a full bucket of water to wash in. It was glorious, after three week's total abstinence. Here the Sergeant- Major invested in a dozen little cakes, at threepence each. Bread was one shilling the small loaf. It was at this station that we met a number of First and Second Contingent fellcws. They were hi the police, and. were on doty at stations all along the line. Anoa, we would pass a train of sick or wounded coming down to general hospitals, or going on to the base, but they gave us little aoncorn. We wore beginning to get used to these things. All -along the line we dropped men, oae bore and one tb6re. It was d.ue -to the scourges of war time, enteric and dysentry. - At long last we reached the quondam capital of the Free State, Bloemfootein, in -the early morning. Grey dawn saw us astir and before very loug tbe horses wero oa a patch of open ground near the station, boing while the rest of the men hauled out the baggage or waited hungrily in the dust and heat, what dust. Daring the cix horn's we stayed here, hundreds and hundreds of mules tramped despondently past. Mule fceani3 of sprighfelier animals dashed by, all raising more dust. No orders had come. We wished to push on, but the train in which we had arrived was needed for something else and we had to get out, much cheered by the ' confidence of a baggage guard of a colonial troop, which had been lying 'in tbe road near the Biding for three dasy. But we were not -destined to spend that time, for orders arjived that' 'we were to camp on the veldt about a 'snile away, near the military stores. - Accordingly we trudged over, our kits lon the horses -end our minds on the 1 possibility of a meal. Nothing since the night before but a small piece of - bread. " A couple of us had induced ' the engine-driver to turn his steam-pipe -■£nt» our canteens, in which we bad placed a little coffee and we had thereby secured a drink, but you could not "come the double," for so many desired the same privilege. Our mess had a black boy, " Charlie " by name, and he managed to get our utensils, usually carried on the waggon, over to the camp in two trips of an hour and ft half each. He was just in time to get some water boiled before it became dark aud we turned in, already disgusted with the city of the " Flowery Fountain," *{To be Concluded.)

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