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Half a mile farther down-stream the camp site was found, hoof and moccasin tracks in myriads about it, camp-kettles and débris still scattered around, empty cans, sacks, and boxes flung at the edge of the stream. Here, evidently, the traders had spent two or three days, and here, there, and everywhere were fragments of pasteboard cartridge-cases.
Gendarmes were hurrying hither and thither, often arresting the runaways, and at other times picking up weapons and cartridge-cases which had been flung away. So numerous were the abandoned weapons and equipments that cartloads of them were collected. Every now and then an estafette galloped to or from the town. The civilians whom one met wore looks of consternation.
Williams and I borrowed a camp-kettle from the Munsters, and cooked our mutton with a pumpkin which we had commandeered. The weather is a good deal warmer. We are camped near the scene of a hard stand made by the Boers, dotted with trenches and little heaps of cartridge-cases, and also unused cartridges. I found one complete packet sewn up in canvas roughly and numbered.
A formidable blockhouse had been constructed by dragging out big steel safes, looted from the various European offices in this abandoned area, and building them into a thick half-moon of stone and brick, making a shell-proof defence. On the ground brass cartridge-cases and broken straps and weapons were littered more and more thickly, but of any sign of life there was absolutely none.
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