When I went first to Africa, I stayed for a time at Pretoria, and from Pretoria I went north in a pioneer company.

You want to have been engaged in an expedition of that kind to quite appreciate what it means.

We were on short rations a good part of the time, with a fair prospect of absolute starvation ahead, and doing forced marches all the while.

When we camped of an evening, I have seen men who had eaten nothing since breakfast, and little enough then, just slip the saddles from the horses, and go fast asleep under the nearest tree, without bothering about their supper.

Then, perhaps, an officer would shake them up, and they'd have to go collecting brushwood for fires.