THE TRANSVAAL WAR.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4496, 25 October 1901, Page 5

THE TRANSVAAL WAR.

MISCELLANEOUS. LONDON, October 23. Colonel Lukin surprised Vandcvont’s commando .it Btemkrantz, capturing twelve Boers. Commandant Maritz and others are retiring to Bushmantani, where pursuit is difficult and water scarce. Arthur Lynch, an ex-Boer colonel, is on the way to Ireland, with the intention of landing at Galway. A NEW ZEALANDER’S PROMOTION. Tho following extracts from a private letter received trom Regimental-Orderly-Sergeant Robinson may be of interest. It will, by the way, lie gratifying to hi s many friends hero to learn of his promotion to the above rank. Ho loft with the Seventh Contingent as divisionalsergeant, and he is now acting-regimen, tnl-sergeaut-major, tho highest rank a non.commissioned officer can attain to. He writes as follows; —I am sitting on tho bank of tho Vaal river, watching tho convoy struggling across. It is an interesting sight to see waggons pulled by as many as thirty oxen or mules, accompanied bv the strange cries of the Kaffir drivers. . ■ We have been under fire any number of times, and been in some rather tight corners. We have made a. large number of night marches, and have been as much a.s twpntv-thrco hours in the saddle ai one stretch. . . “This life has many attractions, but it is a bard one. and is one continual bustle from tho time one binds in tho country until one leaves; there does not scorn to be such a. thing as a vest. . . It has been a usual thing to go to bed at 11 p m., and ■sometimes ba.lf-nast, and np again at 2 a.m au oil shoot and, three blankets, with th * skv as a roof; vet tlmro is a groat charm in tho life, and I am quite happy.” '