We shall feel this some day, you
and I.
And poor unstuffed Bloemfontein lies there empty. There are all the
shops, and here all the merchandise. You may guess that the tradesmen
are indignant. Never has there been such a market. Here is the whole
British army clamouring for all kinds of things; most furiously perhaps
for eatables and drinkables, baccy and boots. All these things have long
been bought up, and the poor Tommies can only wander, sullen and
unsated, up and down the streets and stare hungrily in at the empty
shop windows; while out of the empty shop windows the shopkeeper glares
still more hungrily at them. I have heard how in the Fraser River the
fish positively pack and jostle as they move up. So here; but the
unhappy sportsman has nothing to catch them with. Brass coal-scuttles
and duplex lamps are about all that remains in the way of bait, and
these are the only things they won't rise to. He rushes off to
Kitchener. "Give me a train a day. Give me a train a week." "You be
d----d," growls Kitchener. Back he comes. The hungry eyes are still
staring. Incarnate custom flows past. Never in all his life will such a
chance recur. Poor wretch! It is like some horrible nightmare.
LETTER XV
MODDER REVISITED
BLOEMFONTEIN, _April 9_, 1900.
All the way from Modder River down the Kimberley line and up the central
one from Naauwpoort, the most dismal rumours reached me at all stations,
growing more definite as I neared Bloemfontein.
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