They all seemed wonderfully patient, but looked despairing and miserable.

At one of these houses we spoke to the daughter of such a family who was able to converse in English.

She told us her father had died during the war, that two of her brothers had fought for the English, and had returned with khaki uniforms and nothing else, but that the third had thrown in his lot with the Boers, and had come back the proud possessor of four horses.
At Kimberley we had motors placed at our disposal by Mr.Gardner Williams, manager of the De Beers Company, and were amused to hear how excited the Kaffirs had been at the first automobile to appear in the Diamond City, and how they had thrown themselves down to peer underneath in order to discover the horse.

These motors, however, were not of much use on the veldt, and we soon found Kimberley very dull, and decided to make a flying tour through Rhodesia to Beira, taking a steamer at that port for Delagoa Bay, on our road to Johannesburg.

Our first halting-place was at Mafeking, where we arrived one bitterly cold, blowy morning at 6 a.m.I do not think I ever realized, during all those months of the siege, what a glaring little spot it was.