THE NINTH CONTINGENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12403, 12 July 1902, Page 10

THE NINTH CONTINGENT.

' (K SOUTH ISLAND SECTION IN CAMP. (FBOU Obb Own CORBESrONDENT.) VEREENIGING, ilay 27. W« are still sitting down, in camp here, and there is 110 • immediate prospect of a move, us scarlet fever lias broken out in the North Island lines, and we are all in (strict quarantine. Yesterday the . North Island Battalion struck camp; and- moved over to the banks of the unl, about half a mile distant. I think on the whole we are very glad to be rid of them,' Excepting the Seventh Details, who have joined us, they are the most undisciplined lot of New Zealanders we have yet come across! A ease in point. There was a cricket match proceeding between the North and .South islands. A. lieutenant and a man were batting. The latter shouted to Jijs officer while running, " Why don't you shift your (very lucid adjective) legs':'-' and- at the end of the run, standing in his ground, remonstrated down the pitch, ".There was three there." The new hands are very eager to get on trek. The old hands who know the dreariness of aimless trekking in a country where there are no fowls or, turkeys possess their eouls in patienco 61 ride about jumecl in the hope of picking up a stray buck. But it Teally is time wo got some, real work. It is simply disgraceful the amount of firing by mistake that goes on in the lines. At Elandsfontein we shot a nigger, who subsequently' diea; and three or four nights ago we shot through the foot one of our own men, who was making up his bed in his bivouac. TITe next day an Army Service Corps officer, who had gone up to the %ig plantation in the hope Of getting a hare, galloped back to his' lines, pale and trembling, and when asked the cause'of his discomfort replied that-he had been at Colenso and Spion liop, but never knew anything like the fire going on in the plantation. The same day a child in, the Boer refugee camp was shot through the arm, presumably from the .plantation.- These same plantations are said W contain three million trees, and I can quite Relieve it. Lord Kitchener wanted to know why they had not been burnt. The trees are English oak, now in the glory of '.autumn colour, and firs, and at a low estimate are valued at a million pounds. What a splendid item for compensation! -"To destroying coi'eron my farm, £1,000.000." Our uncrowned King visited us on the 23rd of this month. It was a great occasion. We were paraded at 10 a.m., and marched to tho station, where we lined up a hundred yards from the arrival platform. After waiting for two hours under a blazing sun, our attention was divided between the bull-dog ants, aimlessly pulling straw about, and the officers, who were fortunate enough to get over 'to the refreshment room.- The royal train arrived, and Mr and Mrs Seddon, entering a rather neat vehiclo-drawii by a pair of sad-faced mules, drove up'.and down the lines, then, handing/our horses to-No. 3's, we got into oloso order, and the rest of his party, together with fteneral BadenPowell", having arrived, Mr Seddon gave us one, of his usual, few minutes of the pearls of wisdom which flow from him. I remembered none, hut the whole address sounded tired, which was not to be wondered at, as, during the preceding: four days at 'Pretoria, Johannesburg,'and Klerksdor'p, lie had bpen firing off speeches whenever reouired. During the talk General JhdenPowell's camera whs going like a'Maxim gun. and at its conclusion Mr Seddon introduced liim to the assembled multitude. Major Bauchon. looking Very'fit and well, was of Mr Seddon's parly; I must tell you of an incident in tho Bothasberg fight described to me bv.an eyewitness. Major Bimcliop, when the firing begau, turned out. in a .pill- of boots ami overcoat and nothing else. As he stumbled up the ridge a Boer firetl at him from his hip so doss, that the fire etung Ins..face. The Major dropped, and the Boer pounced on him and ripped open, his coat: then, seeing him in tho elate in which lie entered this funny iworld, and concluding that lie had already been stripped, he let him go. Vereenigincr looks rather preltv from our eamir. a collection of'red-roofed railway buildings, with a few dark-green trees to relieve t.hnm, the iuevitable railwav tanks, and a bridge not unlike that over tho Wanganui River,—but when »nu get into it yon can't find a township. The Imnses appear to be about a nuarter of a mile apart, and there am only about a doz«n of them. The ihteftetrittft sputa is fitted ' with' 'military camps, Boer refugees, the Peace 'Conference, and hospital camps. Tt is a great 1 "arming district, but'just al>out SO per c<Hit of th» farms are owned by Messrs Lewis and Marks, who work many farm* on shares vitli the Kaffirs. I !>nve hoa"l Marks described as "a silent millionaire." W" are expecting daily to h"ar that p»ace has been proclaimed. but. like all other uews. you wi'' get it first in New Zealand,. and we shall be the last to hear It.