seven, the last being, if I mistake not, the one on which General
French was feted at the Kimberley Club.

Elaborate arrangements were made on Tuesday for the better protection of
our cattle. The quadrupeds, Dutch and English, were on the best of
terms--a happy augury, surely, for the amity which would unite the
bipeds of the land when the war was done. We had a batch of natives
employed digging trenches for the cattle-guards. A patrol was at hand to
nip in the bud any interference with the work which might be
contemplated. If the Boers did interfere, so much the better;
interference would involve a fight, and from a friendly tussle in the
sun the patrol was not averse. On the south and west sides the enemy
still laboured at their fortifications. We knew not what to make of
this; it nonplussed us. We had ceased ascribing it to want of knowledge:
for we had, reluctantly, let it down on us that the Boers knew as much
of the Column's movements as we did ourselves. But of course we also
knew that the Boer was a child in such matters as generalship and
tactics.

Every afternoon, at this period, the "child" delighted in trying to hit
the head-gear of the Premier Mine. Whether it was the red flag that
floated at the top or the thing itself he sought to tatter is uncertain.
At any rate, it was no easy matter to hit the head-gear, as the gunner
had long since discovered, nor, could he hit it, to smash it. Hundreds
of shells were thrown at it, but it was never struck, and to damage it
materially it would be necessary to strike it more than once. Its
substance was tough--what Bismarck would have called iron painted to
look like wood. Another object of Boer wrath was the searchlight. Night
attacks were supposed to be the enemy's _forte_, and it was only the
difficulty of extinguishing the candle that delayed _our_ extinction.