ries written about the wants and contrivances of the goldhunters. Sir Stephen Lakeman and Kaffirland had furnished us with some valuable lessons; and Sir Richard England at least knows something of the causes which had brought about our deep disgrace in Affghanistan. Yet we have wilfully neglected everything in a manner which it is most lamentable to witness, the more so because Englishmen are not given to complaining of mere personal suffering; and among all of those whom I see around me, there is a gallant (I might have written touching) determination to put a bluff gay face upon things.

Therefore, we sit (there were four of us) curled up in various attitudes, and joking about the state of things in general, over short clay pipes almost as black and dirty as ourselves. We sit waiting for dinner, and our host every now and then shouts out lustily to a servant who is preparing it somewhere outside within hearing. As the servant does not appear, however, to make much progress, and our appetites goad us at last into extreme measures, we go out to help him, or worry him into greater speed.

Our cook is a tattered, lantern-jawed, hollow-eyed fellow, who would not be recognised as a soldier by any servantmaid in Knightsbridge. We find him in a state of that despondency which is, I think, peculiar to the cooking Englishman. He is kneeling down on the damp ground, and blowing testily at some wettish, smoky shrub roots, crammed in a manner, inartistic enough, into an impromptu fire-place. He looks a fine illustration of shame and anger-he dislikes his job, and he does not know how to perform it. Let us help him. I know somebody who is not a bad cook at a pinch, and if we can only get some charcoal, of which there is no scarcity, I dare say, we shall do very well. We are not badly off for prog. There is some ration pork, a lean fowl, some eggs, potatoes, and honey. We have also got an old iron kettle, and a coffee-pot, with the lids thereto belonging. They are worth their weight in gold, and I hope we know how to appreciate them.

Modesty prevents us telling, at length, how, by frying the pork in the lid of the kettle, we obtained enough grease to poach the eggs and fry the fowl-how a mess of bread and