LETTER FROM THE FRONT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6701, 19 May 1900, Page 2

LETTER FROM THE FRONT.

Mr W. Ryan has received the following letter from one of the N.Z. Troopers at the front:—Blonifontein, Sunday, April Bth, 1900.—1 got your letter a week ago, but had no chance to write before. lam still in the best of health. I am now stuck on the top of a kopje on picket, the Boer lines being about 5000 yards off. It is not the pleasantest of places to write from, but we have got used to any trouble that can come to us now; we are good enough testand any. thing in the line of warfareFand so we ought to be, "having seen enough of it now not to trouble what, <k>mes next. The New Zealanders hav^fSfe^o do their little bit so far. You willliave seen by the papers how General French has travelled. I have been with/him since we^landed, I was at thesflief of Kimberley^ and had a few J|M spell there, if^AucancalHtsufi|^K; O lling rounjy|^^HU-idgfl|^^^Kj>y the j^^^^Hjj^^^Hßftttle on c, to

y&S yoV couia. The only thing to do Was to bpil the flour without sugar (and you can 'guesa what it was like), but it is no use growling, take it all in good part and you get on just &a well. . . We were to neve plum duff, &c, for Xmas, but instead we had dry biscuit and a bit of boiled mutton; now we ihave to go on biscuit without the •putton. . . . From Paardeberg we wattled through to Blomfontein, having a few scraps on the road. We had a few days' rest there, when 1500 of us started for a place called Thabanchu. j We stopped there twelve days, then the ! Boers made an attack 8000 strong. We ' had got about 20 miles from Thabanchu, when the Boers got partly round us, giving us a bad doing; in killed, wounded, and prisoners, we lost 500 out of the 1500, besides losing 7 big guns and 100 waggons of tucker and everything. We were in a proper corner for a while; at one time I did not think we were ever going to get out of it; but where there's a will there's a way. The Boers are far cleverer men than we thought they were. Their rifles are as good or better than our own. They have good artillery and good men to work it, and are equal to us in every way. The way they are beaten is by overpowering them—and then they take a lot of shaking off. They are a yery dirty race of people to look at, but then there is not much time for washing here—once a week if you have luck. If you saw us now you would not think we were the same lot that left New Zealand. No one would believe what warfare is unless they have actually witnessed it. The things I have seen and what I have come out of (and of course others as well as me) I would not expect you to believe, but it is a miracle how some men get clear at times. About the country. It is a grand country about here, and I believe it is better further up. I intend to go back to New Zealand if I am spared, but I think I will return to South Africa. It will be a grand country when things get settled. Of course we are getting the worst of it, and some people think it will always be rough, but I do not look at it like that. The farmers here seem to have a grand time of it, of course they have their houses to go into when it rains, and we have to stay out rain or shine. Wo have not seen much of the comforts of South Africa. From February 8 to April 2 our bed was the bare ground, with a saddle for a pillow, and an oil-sheet and overcoat for covering, no roof to shelter us rain or fine. Of course, if a man iooks at South Africa J as being always like that, he is looking at the wrong side of the picture, and is bound to say the country is no good, but I look forward to the time when the war is over and we have peace, and then South Africa will be the country to make money. This is a funny way of putting in Sunday, but we are used to it now. It is now my turn to go on sentry, so good-bye, and I hope we will all meet again. The same old Jack.