I thought he was killed, he lay so still, but it
was only his collar-bone and a bad shaking. He is in the field again
now.
Hunter has a great reputation as a fighter, which is rather alarming,
especially when we are confronted with such a poisonous country as the
one before us now; a medley of big mountain ranges, fantastically
heaped, stretching thirty miles south to Basutoland, and forming part of
the great mountain formation that reaches to and culminates in the
Drakensberg range. These hills are garrisoned by about 7000 Boers with
several guns, and De Wet to lead them; altogether a formidable force.
There is a saying, that you should not bite off more than you can chew.
I hope we have not done that. Hunter looks as if he could chew a good
lot, I think. Still the job is likely to be a difficult one to handle,
and if he asks my advice I shall tell him to leave it to Rundle.
I should think a life of this sort would be likely to have some
permanent effect on one's mind and intellect. The last mail--that is to
say, the last news of any sort of the outside world--which we have
received was on April 27th before leaving Bloemfontein; three months
less a week since any whisper concerning events or people out of our
immediate sight has reached us. My ignorance of things in general weighs
on me. It is a taste of life in the dark ages before modern inventions
kept one in touch with the world.
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