in
the shade, to wait until the boiled water cools, and as it is impossible
to boil a whole river a few thousand bacilli may quite well get into our
food through "washing up".
The Boers have almost raised trench digging to the level of a fine art,
and on every occasion when their commandants have found it necessary to
withdraw they have had an entrenched position ready for them at some
distance in the rear. At Modder River the trenches on either side of
the stream were, as far as I saw them, a series of short ditches holding
about six riflemen. These small trenches were separated from each other
in order possibly to avoid that appearance of continuity which would
have rendered their detection more easy to our scouts. In the Modder
River fight a new factor is noticeable. For the first time in the
campaign the Boers fought on level ground. Hitherto their bullets had
come from the summits of the hills, and for this reason had not proved
nearly so effective as a sustained fire from rifles raised, say, about
four and a half feet from the ground. It is of course very much harder
to hit a moving enemy when you aim from above at a considerable angle
than when you merely hold your rifle steadily at the level of his chest
and fire off Mauser cartridges at the rate of twenty a minute. The
enemy's fire was very deadly at the Modder. As Lord Methuen said in his
despatch, it was quite unsafe to remain on horseback at 2,000 yards'
range.
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