Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II A LONG HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN Before we could resume our march every commissariat store needed to be replenished, and every man required a new outfit from top to toe. If the march of the infantry had been much further prolonged we should have degenerated into a literally bootless expedition, for some of the men reached Bloemfontein with bare if not actually bleeding feet, while their nether garments were in a condition that beggared and baffled all description. Once smart Guardsmen had patched their trousers with odd bits of sacking, and in one case the words " Lime Juice Cordial" were still plainly visible on the sacking. So came that "cordial" and its victorious wearer into the vanquished capital. Others despairingly gave up all further attempts at patching, having repeatedly proved, as the Scriptures say, that the rent is thereby made worse. So they were perforce content to go about in such a condition of deplorable delapidation as anywhere else would inevitably result in their being "run in" for flagrant disregard of public decorum. The Canadians took rank from the first as among the very finest troops in all the field, and adopted as their own the following singular marching song :— " We will follow Roberts, Follow, follow, follow ; Anywhere, everywhere, We will follow him ! " Brave fellows that they were, they meant it absolutely, utterly, even unto death. But thus without boots and other yet more essential belongings, how could they ? The cavalry was in equally serious plight. It is said that Sir George White took with him into ... , . , Remounts. Ladysmith over 10,000 mules and horses, but brought away at the close of the siege less than noo. Many of the rest had meanwhile been transformed into beefsteak and sausages. We also, during...