Blackwood´s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 130
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Excerpt from Blackwood´s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 130: July December 1881 Continually the door would open for a message or telegram, - now brought by MacGregor the military secretary, now by Elwes the aide-de-camp - both since gone with the rest. "You will find Standerton an excellent position for defence," the General said. "Just get into the laager there, strengthen it, take care they don´t get at you unawares, and hold till I come. Troops are starting already; we have wired to India for more. By the 20th of next month I shall be there, or thereabouts, and we shall march together on Heidelberg. Don´t attack; act on the defensive, and wait till I come. Get up some volunteers; set the heliograph in working order; and look after the telegraph line." "Suppose they come at me, am I to fire? I asked. "Yes: tell them to stop; and if they don´t, make them! Then we shook hands, and I left him: he to see others, and arrange further plans in that comfortable study; I to pack, wish good-bye, and bump up-country in a mail-cart, doubtful if I should ever get beyond Newcastle. Who would have said that we were never to meet again? who, if that were granted, would have ventured to say that, of the two, he was to be the one taken? Travellers by mail-cart in South Africa carry but a small amount of baggage, - military men more than others, their allowance being 40 lb.; and my 40 lb. was soon made up. A saddle and bridle - absolute necessities in the country - took half at once; the moiety was a change of clothes, soap, toothbrush, and towel, - the lot to last through a campaign that promised to extend over several months at least. My sword I managed to smuggle in unperceived, with a blanket and rug to sleep under; and with every pocket full, I climbed into the front seat beside the driver, and behind six spanking ponies, gave one last parting wave to those left behind, and was off down the dusty street towards the big hill behind the town, beyond which lies that terra incognita "up-country." We were six, including the driver, a black man from the old colony; a young lady held on somewhat tenderly by a tall, black-whiskered parson, who introduced himself as the chaplain to the new Bishop of Zululand; and a couple of storekeepers also bound up-country. How we did roll, and sway, and bump, and tumble! "Bumps!" cried the black driver; and bumps it was, landing me as often as not on the foot-board, and the young lady, pleasantly enough, to judge by his face, on the parson´s broad knees. Mail-cart travelling in Natal must be endured to be enjoyed; and it must be a strange, strong man who can enjoy it even then. We passed strings of waggons hopelessly stuck in the deep mud; straggling lines of soldiers marching on towards the front; the two 7-pounders afterwards heard of in such terrible straits in the battles that were to come, the fat black horses only too good a mark for Boer rifles, and Charlie P - in command trotting cheerily by their side. At night we put up at the so-called hotels by the roadside, timing our journey so as to reach one by nightfall, and starting in the cold grey of the following morning. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully;
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