Show j imtETHUENS AIIMY AC De Annr where I first pitched my tent I wiv as I described to youa military city rise as If by magic upon Urn veldt iron BlorehouBos filled with all time fo < vl ammunition clothing liar nwftt and accouternumtv nevded by an army Vit corrals or krailn as they say here quickly tilled with mules and horut moundn of fora e greet Inclo surw full of wagons a tented village of 1000 souls all transport men drivers conductors and the like Day after day I aw the mule hurncwed to thy wijrona and trained lllco the men who were to drive them to the work that lay ahead of nil Next the troops began to com and they ilmllng everything In rcudlnciw for them merely had to pitch their tent and begin the fitting of themnclverf for the new condition of war In this xtninse land of tropic days and arctic nights Water was ready In pfUv ration were forthcoming n m Jliil cjmp wan In bfrlng In a word < h y n na i I loikod after as If they H were In barracks in London bore on I the veldt whore a few sheep had roamed a month before The Cape Government railway beginning be-ginning of the muchvaunted Cape to Cairo iimieWmLS In time taken over by the military and became glutted with business By day and night Immense trains of guns wagons horses troops llrewood forage and stores of all sorts swept Into De Aar or or to Orange rlv I er completing the wonderful organlza 1 thin by which a modern army Is able to move where It wills taking its supplies sup-plies close behind It and finding itself at all limes equipped fed watered and served In every way so completely as to keep Its lighting value always at par I All this I saw and with it were all the activities of the life of a town There were wheelwrights tentmakers blacksmiths carpenters painters waiters wait-ers cooks bakers clerks messengers ridingmasters rough riders mca of a score of vocations all working like nail ers with all their paraphernalia about them and apparently as much at home as If they had settled on the veldt long before and had no Intention to leave it Suddenly with no more nourish Than had attended any stage of this complex work an army gathered and moved across the Orange river an army des tlned to be famous perhaps immortal for It was the advance column for the relief of Klmbcrley and commanded by LieutGen Lord Melhucn Battalion after battalion moved off from either DC Aar or this post and then followed a supply train which as I saw It reaehlnr far across the veldt three days ago I figured to be five miles long It was mainly made up of the long skeleton curls to which the people here ImrncHs or inspan as they say five teams of mules From the noses of the leaders to the tailboard of such a cart is a distance of about seventy live foot and the persuader which is used by the man who sits beside the driver Is a whip whose handle Is as long as a long flyrod with a lash at least thirty feet long at the end of 1L To see miles of these carts raising a yellow bank of dust to hear the explosive explo-sive cracks of the whips and the doglikc yelping of the drivers was to witness as picturesque a blending of the local and military life as Umve yet encountered encoun-tered Julian lialph lu Colliers Weekly Week-ly |