THE NINTH CONTINGENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2522, 16 July 1902, Page 4

THE NINTH CONTINGENT.

SOUTH ISLAND SECTION IX CAMP. (From Our Own Correspondent.) VKREEXIGIXG, May 27. We are still sitting down in camp here, and there i 3i 3 no immediate prospect of a move, as scarlet fever has broken out in the North Inland lines, and we are all in strict quarantine. Yesterday the North Island Battalion s-truck camp, and moved o\er to the banks of the Vaal, about half a, mile distant. I tluuk on the whole we »re \ery 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 case in point. There was a cricket match proceeding between the North and .South leland*. A lieutenant and a man were batting. The latter shouted to his officer while lunning, "Why don't you shift your (very lucid adjective) legs?"' and at "the end of the run. standing in his, ground, ic-nionstrated down the pitch, "There was three theip " Tlic new hands are very eager to get on trek. The old hands who know the cheanne--) of aimless trekking in 1 country wliere there aie no fowls or turkey.3 po'-pe.-s their soul* in patience or ude about armed in the hope of picking U p a stray buck But it really i s time we got .some real work It i» simply disgraceful the amount of firing by rnibtake that goes on m the lino*. At Elandsfontein we bhot a nii^er, wlm subsequently died ; and three or four nights ago we bhot through the foot one of oui own men, who was making up his bed 111 his bivouac. Tlie next day an Ai my Service Corp- officer, who hud go:ie up to the big plantation in the hope of getting a ham, galloped back to his lines, pale and trenibhng, and when asked the r auRC of lm diiscomfoit replied that he had been at 1 Colenso and Kpion Kop, but ne%er knew anything like the fire going on in the plantation. The «ame day a child in the Boer refugee camp was shot through the arm, presumably from the nlantation These same plantations aro said to contain three million troe«. and I can quite believe it Lord Kitchener wanted to know wiiv 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 pound*. What a splendid item for compensation ! "To destroying cover on my farm. £1 000.000." Our nno-ouned King \ kited u« on t]i<* 23nl of this month. It wan a grej't rrcanon. Wp ueie paraded at 10 a.m., and matched U> tho station, wliere wp lined up a hundred yard-, irom the arrival platform. Aftp; waiting foi two hours under a blazing sun, nm attention wa.-, dmded between the buH-dopf ants, aim]ps=-ly pulling straw about, and the ofTui-i~, \\ !io were fortunate enough to gpl over to the refreshment room. The royal tiain arrivpd, and Air and Mrs Seddon, ' entering a raXliAt jalur.le drawjx bz &

pair of sad-laced mules, drove up and down the lines, then, handing our horses to No. 3's, we got into close order, and the rest of his party, together with General BadenPowell, havir. 6 - arrived, Mr Seddon gave us one of his usual few minutes of the pearls of wisdom which flow from him. I remembered none, but the whole address sounded tired, which was not to be wondered at, as, during the preceding four days at Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Klerksdorp,he had been firing off speeches whenever required. During the talk Gerieral ' BadenPowell's -camera was going like a Maxim gun. and at its conclusion Mr Seddon introduced him to the assembled multitude. Major Bauchop. looking very fit and well, was of Mr Seddon's party. I must tell you of an incident in the Bothasberc fight described to mo by an eyewitness. Major Bauchop, when the firing began, turned out in a pair of boots and overcoat and nothing else. As lie stumbled up the ridge a Boer fired at him from his hip so close that the fire stung his face. The Major dropped, and the Boer pounced on him and ripped open his coat ; then, seeing him in the state in which he entered this funny world, and concluding that he had already been stripped, he let him go.

Vereeniginar looks rather pretty from our camp : a collection of red-roofed railway buildings, with a few dark-green trees to relieve them, the inevitable railway tanks, and a bridge not unlike that over the Wanganui River, — but when you get into it you can't find a township. The houses appear to be about a ouartpr of a mile apart, and there are only about a dozen of them. The intervening space is filled with military camps. Boer rofut?ees. Uie Peace Conference, and hospital camp. It is a ~reat Tanning district, but ju D t about 50 per cent, of the farms are owned by Messrs Lewis and Marks, who work many farms or l >ares with the Kaffirs. I have heard Marks described as " a silent millionaire." We ar? expecting daily to hpnr that peace has been proclaimed, but. like all other news, you will tret it first in New Zealand, aDd we shall be the last to hear it.