Burghers who have taken the oath of allegiance will be readier than ever
to break it. However, time no doubt will balance the account all right
in the long-run.
From Lindley, fighting a little every day, we marched north to Heilbron,
where Broadwood got hold of the Boer convoy by the tail, and succeeded
in capturing a dozen waggons. From there we cut into the railway, and
crossed it at Vredefort, passing through the main body of the advance in
doing so. Anything like the sight of these vast columns all pushing in
one direction you never saw. In this country one can often see thirty or
forty miles, and in that space on the parched, light-coloured ground
you may see from some point of vantage five or six separate streams of
advance slowly rolling northward, their thin black lines of convoy
overhung by a heavy pall of dust. As we closed in and became involved
for a moment in the whole mass of the general advance, though accustomed
to think no small beer of ourselves as an army, for we number 11,000
men, we realised that we were quite a small fraction of the British
force. Endless battalions of infantry, very dusty and grimy, but going
light and strong (you soon get into the habit of looking attentively at
infantry to see _how they march_); guns, bearer-companies, Colonial
Horse, generals and their staffs, go plodding and jingling by in a
procession that seems to be going on for ever.
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