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"This book is a masterpiece. Mr Steevens writes an English which is always alive and alert.... The description of the battle of Omdurman reaches, we do not hesitate to say, the high-water mark of literature."--_Spectator._
It must be said that the Boers made war like gentlemen of leisure; they restricted their hours of work with trade-unionist punctuality. Sunday was always a holiday; so was the d...
6. Chapter 6Even when we could ride out ten or a dozen miles into the country, there was little that was new, nothing that was interesting. Now we lie in the bottom of the saucer, and stare...
3. Chapter 3A hop, a splutter, a rattle, and then a snarling roll of musketry broke on the question,--not from the hill, but far on our left front, where the Dragoon Guards were scouting. O...
4. Chapter 4The sodden tents hung dankly, black-grey in the gusty, rainy morning. At the entrance to the camp stood a sentry; half-a-dozen privates moved to and fro. Perhaps half-a-dozen we...
2. Chapter 2British and Dutch salute and exchange the news with lazy mutual tolerance. The British are storekeepers and men of business; the Boers ride in from their farms. They are big, be...
1. Chapter 1"This book is a masterpiece. Mr Steevens writes an English which is always alive and alert.... The description of the battle of Omdurman reaches, we do not hesitate to say, the...
7. Chapter 7"Steevens, a few days before death, had recovered so far as to be able to attend to some of his journalistic duties, though still confined to bed. Relapse followed; he died at f...
8. Chapter 8"What Mr Kipling has done for fiction Mr Steevens did for fact. He was a priest of the Imperialist idea, and the glory of the Empire was ever uppermost in his writings. That alo...