The latter was the one unsportsmanlike action which can up to that date be laid to De Wet's charge.

Forty thousand men to the north of him could forego their coats and their food, but they yearned greatly for those home letters, charred fragments of which are still blowing about the veld.

[Footnote: Fragments continually met the eye which must have afforded curious reading for the victors.

'I hope you have killed all those Boers by now,' was the beginning of one letter which I could not help observing.] For three days De Wet held the line, and during all that time he worked his wicked will upon it.

For miles and miles it was wrecked with most scientific completeness.