>/-J
 
 FEB 1 V 
 25Mar'6<
 
 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 TO SOUTHWEST AFRICA
 
 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 TO SOUTHWEST AFRICA 
 
 A NARRATIVE OF THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 BY 
 
 GUSTAV FRENSSEN 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM TIIE ORIGINAL 
 
 WITH THE CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET MAY WARD 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 (iEfre ftitoerjsibe Jpxtsf Cambn&ge 
 
 1908
 
 COPYRIGHT IQ06 BY ANDREW HENSHAW WARD 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September iqo8
 
 c./£<?5 333 
 
 u 
 
 This book is dedicated with tender and loving memo- 
 ries to the cause which the translator hoped it might 
 aid, the cause for which she was always ready to 
 give her abounding strength, and to the service of 
 which she brought the wisdom of a loyal nature 
 and a noble mind, — to the cause of PEACE. 
 
 A. H. W.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 I have always felt that all war stories dwell too 
 much on the glory and glamour of war, and too 
 little on the hardships and horrors and the unneces- 
 sary cruelty of it ; and so when I read a little German 
 book about the Southwest African war of 1903-04, 
 I wished that every one else might read it. To me 
 it was absorbingly interesting and beautifully told. 
 This summer I have translated it in the hope that 
 it will affect other people as it affected me. 
 
 Margaret May Ward. 
 Temple, New Hampshire, 1907.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. Peter enlists 1 
 
 II. Peter volunteers for Africa . 5 
 
 III. The Voyage 12 
 
 IV. By Railway to the Capital . . 88 
 V. The Journey inland on Foot . . 54 
 
 VI. Brothers, or Slaves? ... 66 
 
 VII. Peter is promoted .... 81 
 
 VIII. A Memorable Easter ... 91 
 
 IX. Destitution and Misery . . . 107 
 
 X. Homesickness and Fever . . 114 
 XI. Civilization and a Bath . . .124 
 
 XII. Another Expedition . . . 134 
 
 XIII. A Dangerous Mission . . .155 
 
 XIV. The Flight of a Nation . . 173 
 XV. A Dry and Thirsty Land . . .189 
 
 XVI. The Limit of Endurance . . 198 
 XVII. Last Days in Africa . . .236
 
 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY TO 
 SOUTHWEST AFRICA 
 
 PETER ENLISTS 
 
 When I was a little boy I wanted to be a 
 coachman or a letter-carrier; that pleased my 
 mother very much. When I was a big boy I 
 wanted to go to America; then she scolded 
 me. So when my school-days were at an end 
 I said one day that I should like best to be a 
 sailor; then she began to cry. My three little 
 sisters wept, too. 
 
 But on the day after I left school, before I 
 knew really what was happening to me, I was 
 standing at the anvil in my father's shop, and 
 our apprentice, who had strayed out of Saxony 
 to us and had already worked a long time 
 with my father, was saying to me: "See! 
 there you stand, and there you will stand till
 
 2 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 you are gray" ; and he laughed. As we had a 
 good piece of work, making a gate and paling 
 in front of a fine new building on Broad 
 Street, I was contented, and remained three 
 years in my father's workshop and worked 
 with him and the apprentice, and went even- 
 ings to the trade-school. Twice I took a first 
 prize. 
 
 In the second year of my apprenticeship, when 
 I was seventeen years old, I met Henry Gehlsen 
 on the street. I sometimes used to play with 
 him as a boy. He was the son of Gehlsen the 
 teacher, who had formerly held a position in 
 our school and was now a principal at Ham- 
 burg. Henry was some years older than I and 
 was a student at Kiel. While we were walking 
 together down Breitenburg Street, he told me 
 that he wanted to enlist in the autumn of 1903 
 for a year in a naval battalion. I asked him 
 why he wanted to enlist in that especially. He 
 replied : " It is fine company. And then, too, 
 it is possible that one can travel at the expense 
 of the government, for if an insurrection 
 breaks out in any of our colonies, or if any-
 
 PETER ENLISTS 3 
 
 thing is the matter in the whole world, the 
 naval force is the first of all to be called out." 
 
 I did not say anything further on the sub- 
 ject ; but I thought to myself that I also might 
 later go into the marine corps. I had already 
 been several times at Kiel and I liked the uni- 
 form. What he said about traveling across the 
 seas pleased me too. But at that time I did n't 
 know how I was going to bring it all about. 
 
 One day, in the following year, I learned 
 from an older schoolmate who was serving at 
 Kiel in the 85th regiment, that the navy was 
 enlisting volunteers for three years. That same 
 evening, while I was clearing up and my father 
 was passing through the shop with his short 
 pipe in his mouth, to look out on the street a 
 little, as he always did of an evening, I asked 
 him if I should apply. That pleased him, for 
 he had served with the 31st in Altona till he 
 had reached the rank of non-commissioned 
 officer. He said nothing more than, " Your 
 mother will be frightened at the word 'sea.'" 
 
 "Yes," I said; "she has the three girls, 
 though."
 
 4 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 " Go and put your case before her," he 
 said; "she is in the kitchen." 
 
 Meanwhile she had come out of the kitchen 
 into the shop, and she said, as if she mistrusted 
 something : " What are you two putting your 
 heads together about?" She suspected some- 
 thing because it was the night before a holi- 
 day and the work was done. 
 
 My father replied : " The boy wants to vol- 
 unteer for the naval corps in Kiel. You must n't 
 be afraid. It 's called the sea-battalion because 
 it has to protect the coast fortifications. And 
 besides, if he doesn't volunteer he may be 
 sent to the Russian frontier, and that is a long 
 way off." 
 
 She went silently into the kitchen and said 
 nothing more about it. But in the fall she 
 gave me my clothes all whole and clean, as 
 they should be, and mostly brand new. And 
 she was quite contented, because Kiel is so 
 near Itzehoe. Our storekeeper, who had rela- 
 tives in Kiel, had told her, too, that many sons 
 of good, skilled workmen serve in the marine 
 corps.
 
 II 
 
 PETER VOLUNTEERS FOR AFRICA 
 
 I liked being a soldier, especially when we 
 had our training behind us. We had nothing 
 but a good sort of fellows in the room, and the 
 subordinate officer was disagreeable only when 
 some one was lazy or dirty. The lieutenant we 
 did not judge rightly in those days. After- 
 wards, however, we learned that he was a hero. 
 In the beginning of my second year of ser- 
 vice, in the Christmas holidays, 1903, I was 
 spending my furlough with my parents at 
 Itzehoe, and I danced at a ball the night after 
 Christmas with Marie Genthien. I had known 
 her as a child, but had never met her since. 
 I did n't even know that for two years she 
 had been out to service in Holtenau Street in 
 Kiel. When we were dancing together for 
 the third time we laughed and said, both at 
 the same moment, " That goes well ! " We
 
 6 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 neither of us had the slightest thought that 
 anything serious would come of it. On the 
 day after New Year's I went back to Kiel, to 
 my service. 
 
 Two weeks later — it was the fourteenth of 
 January — I was walking with Behrens and 
 another comrade through Danish Street, when 
 Gehlsen, who was now really serving his year, 
 and in my company, came toward us and said : 
 " Have you read the paper ? " 
 
 "What is it?" I said. 
 
 " In southwest Africa the blacks, like cow- 
 ards, have treacherously murdered all the 
 farmers and their wives and children." 
 
 I am good in geography, but at first I 
 was completely bewildered and asked : " Are 
 those murdered people Germans? " 
 
 " Of course," he replied, " Schlesians and 
 Bavarians and all the other German peoples, 
 and three or four from Holstein, too. And 
 now what do you suppose we marines — " 
 
 Then I suddenly recognized from his eyes 
 what he wanted to say. 
 
 " We have to go ! " I said.
 
 PETER VOLUNTEERS FOR AFRICA 7 
 
 He raised his shoulder. "Who should, if 
 not the marines ? " said he. 
 
 I was silent a little while ; a great deal was 
 going through my mind. Then I was done 
 with thinking, and I said : " Well, then we '11 
 at it ! " And I was glad. 
 
 As I went along I looked at the people 
 who were passing, and I wondered if perhaps 
 they knew and if they could see in us that we 
 were going to the Southwest to be revenged 
 on a heathen people for the German blood 
 that had been spilled. 
 
 One morning it really came to the point. 
 The major made a long speech in the court- 
 yard of the barracks. This and that had 
 happened out there. A regiment of volunteers 
 was to be sent out. Who would go ? Nearly 
 all of us stepped forward. The physicians ex- 
 amined us to see if we were fit for service in 
 the tropics. They found me capable of ser- 
 vice. That same afternoon we had dealt out to 
 us the high yellow boots and the short blue 
 jackets or litewkas. Thus equipped we went 
 immediately into the city.
 
 8 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 What a bowing and calling to one another 
 there was then ! Though usually soldiers who 
 do not know one another pass without so 
 much as a greeting, this time we were spoken 
 to by everybody. The 85th were very reserved 
 because they had to stay at home ; the sailors 
 spoke with dignity, as if every one of them had 
 already traveled three times around the world. 
 Many citizens spoke to us, too. They said it 
 would be a very interesting journey and would 
 be a pleasant memory for us as long as we 
 lived, and they wished us a safe return. 
 
 The next day, when we were to take the 
 train at night for Wilhelmshafen, father and 
 mother came over from Itzehoe for two hours. 
 I met them at the station and walked with 
 them along Holsten Street as far as the 
 Schlossplatz. My father asked all sorts of 
 questions : whether there were wild animals 
 there; whether the enemy all had guns, or 
 whether they still used bows and arrows ; 
 whether it was very hot and malarial there, and 
 such things. I could n't answer very much 
 to all this because I did n't know much about
 
 PETER VOLUNTEERS FOR AFRICA 9 
 
 it. I took it for granted, however, that it was 
 all as he said, and agreed with him in every- 
 thing. We sat for an hour in a restaurant 
 near the station, looking out of the windows 
 at the people who were passing, but we 
 did n't talk much. My mother hardly spoke 
 at all. She stared at the floor with great set 
 eyes, and, when she looked up, regarded me as 
 though she should never see me again. When 
 it was time I took them back to the station. 
 
 When the train for Hamburg came, and 
 they had to get in, my father begged me to 
 bring him home some trifle, — a horn, or some 
 ornament worn by the enemy, or some such 
 thing. I believe he had saved up his request 
 so as to have something to say at the last mo- 
 ment. But my mother suddenly threw her 
 arms about me and held me, weeping. As she 
 had n't embraced me since my earliest child- 
 hood, I was startled, and said : " What are you 
 doing, mother ? " 
 
 She replied : " I do not know whether I 
 shall see you again, my son." 
 
 I laughed and shook her hands, saying:
 
 10 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 " There is no danger. I shall come back 
 again." The parents of Behrens were at the 
 station, too. 
 
 When I came back in the dark to the bar- 
 racks, everything was alive there. Parents, 
 brothers and sisters, relatives, sweethearts, and 
 friends had come. They were dancing, drinking 
 and talking. Among them was one old man who 
 had worn the Iron Cross since 1870, and was 
 now a foreman at the dock ; his boy was going 
 out with us. He stood up and spoke a few 
 words about bravery and fidelity to the flag, 
 just as if we were to fight a serious enemy, 
 and we enjoyed listening to him. Yes, indeed, 
 at his words we became all fire and flames and 
 readily forgot that we knew we were going 
 to fight against crossbows and clubs of wood. 
 We wanted to fight honorably, and, if it had 
 to be, even to die for the honor of Germany. 
 
 At midnight the battalion formed and we 
 marched through the city with a full band. If 
 I live to be a hundred years old I shall never 
 forget that hour, when thousands of people 
 followed along with us, pressing into our
 
 PETER VOLUNTEERS FOR AFRICA 11 
 
 ranks, calling out to us, greeting us, waving 
 and throwing flowers at us, and carrying our 
 arms all the way to the station. The square in 
 front of the station was black with people. 
 
 On the journey to Wilhelmshafen I slept 
 and dozed. The others were tired, too. When 
 we arrived, I went with some others into a 
 small restaurant and bought for a great deal 
 of money a very little poor food. At four in 
 the afternoon we formed again and marched 
 double-file, fully equipped, down the long 
 narrow flight of steps leading from the quay 
 to the deck of the ship, gazed at all the time 
 by crowds of people gathered from all the 
 country round. It was a clear, bitter cold, 
 winter day.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE VOYAGE 
 
 We went down two short flights of stairs and 
 came into a rather large, low room, which was 
 filled with an amazing number of beds. They 
 were arranged close together in pairs, one 
 above and one below. Very narrow passage- 
 ways ran between them and along the wall. I 
 got a lower berth. 
 
 We now put on our beds everything we had, 
 our firearms, knapsacks, and clothes-bags. We 
 packed and bustled about among our things, 
 and from time to time looked out the port- 
 holes at the water. We were lively and in 
 good spirits, as soldiers always are in new 
 quarters, reminded only by the continual 
 tremor felt throughout the ship from the mo- 
 tion of the engine, that these quarters were 
 carrying us far away. We ate at long tables 
 on one side of the same room, and that night 
 we had pea soup and coffee.
 
 THE VOYAGE 13 
 
 Later I went upstairs for a little while, and 
 stood by the rail in the lee of the first cabin 
 and looked over to the coast. In the darkness 
 I saw only a yellowish, blurry glow from the 
 ship-lights on the black, restless waves, and 
 in the distance some motionless lights, prob- 
 ably those of lighthouses or lightships, and 
 in the heavens the stars. Then I became op- 
 pressed by the thought that I should be carried 
 off and could not help myself, and that I 
 should have to endure all sorts of frightful 
 things in a foreign land. I got help by swear- 
 ing to God that I would be good and cheerful 
 and brave, whatever happened to me. 
 
 The next morning, as far as the eye could 
 reach, there was nothing but the dark, gray 
 ocean. On the horizon there were some clouds 
 of smoke and some little sails. We went on 
 deck for roll-call, and each of us got a uniform 
 of light brown linen called khaki, and a great 
 pot-shaped, light brown cork helmet, called 
 a tropical helmet. We laughed and admired 
 each other, then went to our sleeping-room 
 and tried on our helmets amid all sorts of
 
 14 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 nonsense. After that we fastened buttons on 
 our uniforms. 
 
 We stood a great deal at the portholes, 
 looking out, and were occupied all day ; some 
 of us were already writing picture post-cards. 
 
 Late in the afternoon I stood for a long 
 time forward in the bow with Henry Gehlsen 
 and talked with him about our childhood. 
 Then some other one-year volunteers came 
 up, among them a physician, as I afterwards 
 learned, and began to talk to him. As they 
 were soon talking of learned things I went 
 off. As time went on I was often with him. 
 He was small in stature, and had a delicate 
 face ; but he was every inch a man. Later, in 
 the bush, he showed himself prudent, inge- 
 nious, and brave. 
 
 On the second day we stood at the star- 
 board rail and looked over to the coast of 
 England, which rose mighty, steep, and rugged 
 out of the water not far off ; and we watched 
 the fishing-boats, which, with their gray and 
 black sails, lay in great numbers on the broad, 
 ever-moving ocean. As I looked at this great,
 
 THE VOYAGE 15 
 
 extended picture, I thought that in just such 
 or even smaller vessels our forefathers had, 
 thousands of years ago, traversed the same 
 rough way that we now followed, straight over 
 the waves, or rather between them, and I 
 imagined the wild struggles that they had to 
 go through before they had built their huts 
 and found a home on these forbidding shores. 
 I thought of all this, and was glad that I had 
 had such a good teacher and that I was prob- 
 ably the first of all my schoolmates at Itzehoe 
 who had seen this part of the world with his 
 own eyes. 
 
 While I stood there the staff physician 
 passed me, and with him the first lieutenant 
 of the marines. They were going, probably, to 
 visit a sailor who was sick. We had on board 
 an officer in command of the sailors who was 
 going out as a substitute to the Habicht. They 
 stood a while at the railing not far from me, 
 and I heard the first lieutenant say to the other 
 man : " We seamen think differently about the 
 Englishmen from the people who live inland. 
 We meet them in all the ports of the world
 
 16 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and we know that they are the most respect- 
 able of all the peoples. There behind the high 
 chalk cliffs dwells the first nation of the earth, 
 — distinguished, wise, brave, united, and rich. 
 As for us — well, one of their qualities, bravery, 
 we have had for ages ; one other, riches, we 
 are slowly acquiring. Whether we ever acquire 
 the others — that is our life problem." I won- 
 dered over that speech, but afterwards the 
 old African settlers, whom I came to know, 
 also spoke with the greatest respect of the 
 English. 
 
 The weather was cold, clear, and windy. We 
 saw small boats tossing up and down on the 
 waves, but our great ship didn't roll much and 
 only a few of us were a little seasick. I could 
 n't bear to look up the long deck and see how 
 it slowly rose and then sank. It seemed to me 
 so unreasonable and unreal, and it gave me 
 an oppressed feeling in my head and body. It 
 had the same effect on others, too ; but when 
 I pulled myself together and straightened up 
 and walked up and down, looking out over the 
 sea, it passed off. When we got out of the
 
 THE VOYAGE 17 
 
 English Channel, though, opposite the realm 
 of Spain, it suddenly got bad. 
 
 I was just standing thinking by my bed 
 with Gehlsen near me. We were both looking 
 at a picture of his parents which they had 
 given him to take. At that moment the floor 
 suddenly pushed itself up diagonally under 
 our feet, while a fearful creaking and smash- 
 ing and falling and shouting began on all sides 
 of us. We fell over each other onto the bed and 
 tried in all directions to find some firm hold. 
 With some difficulty we got on our feet again 
 and clung to the iron posts which supported 
 the berths, while the other side of the ship 
 went way up against the opposite row of beds. 
 We tried to get away from between the rows 
 of beds as though that would be our salvation ; 
 but I had taken only a few steps when I be- 
 gan to feel just as I did when I was twelve 
 years old and had just smoked my first cigar. 
 A heavy feeling of oppression weighed on my 
 head and my stomach came up and up, right 
 into my throat. My courage and all desire to 
 live vanished and drops of sweat fell from my
 
 18 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 forehead. Stumbling and wretched, I went 
 back down the passage and flung myself on 
 my bed. It was lucky that I didn't have to 
 get into an upper berth. 
 
 It was a bad night. Whenever I think of it 
 now, after two years, it gives me an awful feel- 
 ing, and I have to swallow. My ! what gagging 
 and vomiting on all sides ! Many moaned as 
 though their last day had come. Just one fel- 
 low, who probably had drunk sea-water from 
 his nursing bottle, or in some other way had 
 acquired the stomach of an ostrich, laughed 
 aloud from time to time and was cheerful and 
 in good spirits; just as if an angel among 
 hordes of the damned were laughing in its 
 beautiful and safe blessedness. 
 
 When I woke, towards morning, out of a 
 dull, heavy sleep, it was somewhat smoother. 
 Still, many were groaning. He of the cast-iron 
 digestion was whistling softly and comfortably. 
 Then I was angry and scolded myself. I sum- 
 moned all my will-power, and noticed the 
 rising and falling of the ship, and thought to 
 myself: " See ! Here it goes and there it goes !
 
 THE VOYAGE 19 
 
 It can't do otherwise, and everything on it and 
 in it must go, too, and there is nothing to 
 be done to prevent it. It is nonsense to buck 
 against it. Go with it. That 's it ! Can't you 
 go any further ? Then back again. That 's it ! 
 No further? Then back again to the other 
 side." Talking that way to myself, I began 
 to feel brighter. I listened to the fellow with 
 the cast-iron digestion and observed that in 
 his whistling he was keeping time with the 
 motion of the vessel. 
 
 Then I noticed that I was better and at the 
 same time that the air in the room was hor- 
 rible. I sat up in bed very deliberately and 
 cautiously put my feet down. Three times I 
 got on my feet and three times I sat down 
 again. Then I went stumbling along slowly 
 and as carefully as if I had a stomach made of 
 thin glass, and arrived safely outside. I fell 
 against the rail, and clung to it with both arms 
 while I breathed the fresh air and stared dully 
 and stupidly into the gray twilight. 
 
 And then, while I stood there, mindful of 
 the throbbing of the ship and its heavy roll,
 
 20 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and staring at the huge, rushing, foaming 
 waves, I had a piece of great good luck. I saw 
 an immense sailing-vessel gliding along not far 
 from us. With all its monstrous sails set it lay 
 over before the wind, so that in the gray morn- 
 ing light I could see the whole deck and the 
 helmsman wrapped in a thick coat sitting com- 
 fortably on the skylight with his short pipe 
 in his mouth. The ship rose and fell heavily 
 and powerfully from bow to stern. Out of two 
 of the windows came a bright glow. So the 
 mighty vision passed in the gray dawn, down 
 the wild dark path of the sea, without sound or 
 effort, beautiful, as though filled with a great, 
 peaceful soul. I have never seen anything 
 more beautiful made by man. It made me well. 
 It grew warmer now every day, not because 
 spring was coming, but because we were going 
 south all the time and the sun's rays fell more 
 vertically upon us. The sea was smooth, the 
 sun shone, and we were very busy every fore- 
 noon. A beam had been set up at the stern 
 with a target fastened to it for us to shoot at 
 with our new rifles. The officers shot, too, with
 
 THE VOYAGE 21 
 
 revolvers, and each one bragged about his own 
 weapon. Afternoons we sat about on deck 
 cleaning our guns or washing and mending 
 our clothes, and we talked and sang while we 
 worked. Evenings we sat in a circle and told 
 barrack-room stories, or each one told some- 
 thing about his own home. Some of them 
 could declaim pieces that they had learned or 
 made up. All this went on in High German, and 
 they teased us from Holstein because, they said, 
 we took the letter "s" between our teeth as if 
 it were a needle. I was glad that all the na- 
 tives of Schleswig-Holstein on board happened 
 to be good, orderly men. There are, of course, 
 even in our province, troublesome people. 
 
 We naturally talked a good deal about the 
 near future, and it made us angry to think 
 that the insurrection might perhaps be subdued 
 before we arrived, and we should n't even leave 
 the ship. We wanted at least to land, so that 
 afterwards we could tell at home about the 
 African forests, the herds of monkeys and 
 antelopes, and the straw huts under the palms. 
 
 Some of the men played " skat" all the time,
 
 22 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 their enthusiasm continually waxing greater 
 and their cards dirtier. It made no difference 
 to them what was going on around them. 
 They never looked up, whether we said to 
 them, " Here, you fellows ! see the flying-fishes ! 
 they are wheeling just like a squadron ! " or 
 " A big English steamer is coming ! " or "Just 
 look up and see what a fine sunset ; the whole 
 sea is gold and green and the waves have dark 
 blue crests ! " or " We see the back of a whale ! " 
 or " Have you seen the phosphorescence ? just 
 go to the stern and see the waves all full of 
 warm, red fire" ; they would just shake their 
 heads impatiently, or say, " Go and look at it 
 yourself," and play on. They were not playing 
 for money. 
 
 There were quite a good many young boys 
 among us, twenty years old or younger. I think 
 many of them were pretty homesick. And some 
 of them, it seemed to me, were frightened at 
 the newness of everything they saw. Every- 
 thing was so astounding to them, almost un- 
 canny, and they got more and more silent. I 
 used to wonder how these young, quiet ones
 
 THE VOYAGE 23 
 
 would do if we went into a really hard war. 
 We went afterwards into a really hard war, and 
 every one of them made a splendid record for 
 himself. Others sat in a corner and practiced 
 by the hour to get up a band. One had a comb, 
 another had clappers, a third whistled through 
 his fingers, our musicians contributed flutes 
 and a drum, and a little Schlesian was the 
 leader. It was he, too, who always started the 
 songs which we sang together every evening. 
 There was one song we used to sing that rang 
 out sadly far over the water : " Nach der 
 Heimat mocht' ich wieder ! " To this day, when 
 I see in memory the faces of those who used 
 to sing it, my heart stands still and I have to 
 press my lips together. 
 
 It was getting warmer and sunnier all the 
 time, and we had reached the entrance to the 
 Strait of Gibraltar. We took off our blue 
 clothes and put on our khaki things. All the 
 time, day and night, the ship throbbed with 
 the motion of the engine as the human body 
 does with the beating of the heart. God knows 
 how many times the wheels revolved.
 
 24 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 So we went on, always to the south, with 
 the sea always sunny and glistening. I was 
 astonished that the world was so big. One day 
 I saw by the chart, which hung in the compan- 
 ionway, and on which our position was marked 
 each day, that we should soon come to the island 
 of Madeira. And indeed, very early the next 
 day, when I went to take a look around on deck, 
 where many were already assembled, there lay 
 before us, not far away, a bright-colored island. 
 
 Rough rocks rose stern and bald before 
 us, and the middle ones wore as a crown the 
 broad old fortifying walls. In front a rather 
 large city, with white, flat-roofed houses, 
 stretched itself back toward the heights at the 
 foot of the old fortification till it was lost in 
 luxuriant green, in forests and fields of flowers. 
 
 We were coming nearer this wonder all the 
 time. We stood and marveled, and glided into 
 the bay just as curious children edge up to a 
 picture-book, until we lay directly before the 
 city.. Then we heard shouting and calling 
 under us, and looked down into boats close by 
 the ship, which were filled with men looking,
 
 THE VOYAGE 25 
 
 with their dark skins and brilliantly colored 
 clothes, like Italians. They stood in the 
 boats and held up baskets of fruit and called 
 to us ; but we did n't buy anything, for we 
 knew that we should land. 
 
 In the afternoon I went, with a lot of others, 
 down the narrow wooden steps that were let 
 down over the side into one of our big boats, 
 and was rowed ashore. How novel and gay 
 everything was ! Our lieutenant had said to us 
 in warning : " I want to say one thing to you. 
 Don't go and buy everything you see. Not 
 everything that is bright is beautiful or real. 
 And look out how you drink the wine." But 
 it was n't long before groups of twos and 
 threes were standing in the low, wide-open 
 shops buying blouses and shawls made of glis- 
 tening silk, in the most lovely colors, for sisters 
 and sweethearts. And they called to me : " You 
 must get a souvenir to take home, Moor. Per- 
 haps the insurrection will be over and we 
 shan't land. If you say afterwards at home 
 that you were with us and have nothing to 
 show, no one will believe it." That seemed
 
 26 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 reasonable, and I went in and bought two little 
 silk scarfs for my two oldest sisters, for I had 
 no sweetheart and my mother would never put 
 on anything so bright. As we were coming out, 
 the same lieutenant who had said so grandly, 
 " I warn you," came by, and he already had a 
 package in his hand. I had to laugh a little, 
 and he did, too. 
 
 It was just as though we all, upon landing, 
 became intoxicated with a charmed wine: 
 everything shone in such splendid colors, the 
 sun seemed so beautifully bright and soft, and 
 all the people were so happy. I thought to my- 
 self : " Keep your eyes open and see what you 
 can ; who knows if you will ever again get so 
 faraway from home?" I went through several 
 streets and wondered over everything I saw, 
 even over a long-eared horse that was going 
 along in front of his truck, till I realized 
 suddenly that it was a mule such as I had 
 sometimes seen in pictures. I looked at the 
 foreign words on the signs over the shops and 
 I learned some of the names on the wares. I 
 watched the women, with their gay head and
 
 THE VOYAGE 27 
 
 shoulder shawls, and the men, who wore bright 
 scarfs around their bodies, and I was surprised 
 at the pride shown in the lines of their mouths 
 and at the dark fire in their eyes. A soldier 
 came along, a handsome fellow, but wearing a 
 slovenly uniform. He raised his hand to his cap 
 and looked at me in a friendly fashion, and I 
 greeted him in the same way. 
 
 After I had walked about alone awhile, I 
 came down again to the shore and found some 
 of my comrades sitting in an open wine-room, 
 close to the street, almost on the sidewalk. 
 They were at little tables, zealously writing 
 picture post-cards and drinking at the same 
 time from small glasses. I sat down with them, 
 ordered a glass, and wrote a card to my par- 
 ents. I wanted to write one to my uncle in 
 Hamburg, but I didn't get to it. I had to 
 look around me all the time. My mother had 
 often scolded me for my curiosity when I used 
 to open every box and drawer in her work- 
 table ; but when she once complained of this 
 to my teacher, he laughed and said : " That 
 is desire for knowledge."
 
 28 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 After a time some of our men came by 
 singing noisily and reeling a little. I begged 
 the others to go along. The landlord, in a 
 red waistcoat and shirtsleeves, didn't know 
 a word of German, but he did know the Ger- 
 man money. When I saw the lieutenant stand- 
 ing on the quay, I was curious to know if hje 
 had bought the nice wine as well as the pretty 
 shawls; but when I came near him I could 
 see that his eyes were drunk only with all the 
 beautiful gay, friendly things he had seen. 
 For a whole day, when we were again on the 
 ocean, I saw in a dreamy memory the hand- 
 some people walking on the gay, sunny streets, 
 and in the background the soft hills rising in 
 their lovely fresh fertility. 
 
 On the third morning after this I was stand- 
 ing, rather early, by the rail, waiting for the 
 morning drill and looking off over the water, 
 absorbed in thinking whether I could discover 
 in the distance one of the Cape Verde Islands, 
 in the neighborhood of which we were. It 
 seemed a useless search, for it was still misty. 
 Then Behrens, who was standing near me,
 
 THE VOYAGE 29 
 
 looked up suddenly, and said : " Look there ! 
 What an extraordinary white cloud that is ! " 
 I looked up, and saw high in the sky a heavy, 
 motionless, snow-white cloud, with a soft sheen 
 on it like white feathers. I stood gazing and 
 thinking, " What a wonderful cloud that is!" 
 when Gehlsen came running forward, quick as 
 he always was, and said, in his brisk, daring 
 way : " Do you see it already ? Look ! That is 
 the Peak of Teneriffe. It rises out of the sea 
 to that height and its summit is white with 
 snow in the burning glare of the sun." X was 
 so startled that I trembled, — it took such a 
 hold upon me, this marvel that God had set 
 here in the midst of the broad expanse of 
 water under the scorching sun. We all stood 
 and gazed, some speaking aloud, but many of 
 us silent ; and as we looked we saw the mist 
 up there on the monstrous height part and re- 
 veal the smooth, horribly steep rocks which 
 were piled one above another like huge old 
 ramparts. On the topmost broad, crumbling 
 wall lay the eternal snows. Slowly we glided 
 by the stony base.
 
 30 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 We were still going south night and day. 
 It is wonderful how big the world is. The 
 hand slips easily and quickly on the map from 
 Hamburg to Swakopmund ; but how the en- 
 gine works, monotonously, untiringly, day and 
 night, for three long weeks ! What strength 
 and will men have, who are willing to go so 
 far away to live and trade and explore and 
 govern ! 
 
 We had target practice now every morning 
 and popped away by the hour. We drilled a 
 little, too, and the spirit was always good. We 
 were steering southeast to the African coast, 
 where we were to take on board, in passing, 
 seventy negroes, as most of the ships do which 
 go to Swakopmund. These negroes are stokers 
 and trimmers and helpers of all sorts on the 
 way down, and they load and unload at Swa- 
 kopmund and then go back again with the 
 ship and are set ashore on their own coast. 
 
 On the seventh day after we passed Tene- 
 riffe, we saw the coast of Africa rising. It was 
 just exactly as we had imagined it, — pretty 
 huts under palms, many beautiful tall trees on
 
 THE VOYAGE 31 
 
 gently rising slopes; and it swarmed with peo- 
 ple. That all these people were black we could 
 not then see. 
 
 When we were at no great distance, Gehlsen 
 came and told me that the fathers and grand- 
 fathers of these negroes had been slaves in 
 North America, and that the government there 
 had brought them back to their home again 
 and was helping them to maintain a free re- 
 public. When he had told me this, he went 
 forward to see better, for we were getting 
 pretty near now ; but I ran down to the cabin 
 to write a card, for the mail was going ashore. 
 While I sat absorbed in my writing I heard such 
 a shouting and exclaiming and stupid shrieking 
 and such a slipping and pulling and sliding 
 that I sprang up and went out. I was so aston- 
 ished that I stood staring with my mouth open, 
 for over both sides were climbing like cats and 
 writhing like snakes, the negroes, old and 
 young men and little boys. They were tall, 
 black, and half naked, with large exposed 
 teeth and wild, laughing human eyes, wearing 
 about their breasts and bodies little bright-
 
 32 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 colored cloths and carrying sacks and pots 
 and chests. They ran joking and laughing 
 over the deck, quite unmindful of our amaze- 
 ment, and crawled down in the hold, where 
 they established themselves. We lay to, at 
 that place, only a few hours, and then went 
 on again, always to the south, day after day 
 and all through the bright nights. 
 
 On one of these days I went up to the third 
 engineer, who was a native of Eckernford, and 
 asked him to take me down to the engine- 
 room. We went through many passageways 
 and rooms which I did not even know were 
 there, and down short iron staircases which I 
 had n't seen, getting deeper and deeper into 
 the hold, where it shook more and more vio- 
 lently under my feet, and where I could hear 
 the heavy movement of the great shafts and 
 pistons more and more plainly. Then he opened 
 an iron door and I stood before the engine. 
 The biggest engine I had ever seen up to this 
 time was one in a brewery in Hamburg. This 
 one was five times as big, with pistons as long 
 and broad as the body of a ten-year-old boy.
 
 THE VOYAGE 33 
 
 They swung easily in the cylinders, and the two 
 mighty shafts, on the ends of which are the 
 screws, revolved busily. A man in middle life, 
 rather fat and oily, whom I had never seen 
 before, although we had lived now three weeks 
 on the same boat, stood quietly on a grated 
 iron platform, which trembled violently, and 
 looked about him in the midst of all the rising 
 and falling and driving machinery as placidly 
 as a farmer in a cow-barn surveys his munch- 
 ing herd. I went, also, carefully along the 
 platform and down a flight of stairs through 
 an open trap-door, to the reddish-brown fur- 
 nace-room, in which half-naked men were 
 standing surrounded by coal, iron-barrows, 
 and hissing valves, in front of the boilers 
 under which the great fires glowed. I looked 
 sharply and quickly around and would gladly 
 have stayed longer, but I felt ashamed to be 
 idly watching those men working so hard in 
 the hot room. 
 
 In my free time I used often to watch the 
 black men, and I noticed how peacefully they 
 sat together and talked in gurgling tones, and
 
 34 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 how they squatted around the great pots of 
 food, stuffing quantities of rice into their 
 mouths with their fingers, and devouring with 
 their great, beast-like, crunching teeth their 
 meat, bones, and all indiscriminately. It did 
 not seem to occur to them to eat anything 
 on account of the taste, but merely to fill 
 their stomachs. It seemed to me like this : 
 that the people of Madeira, although they are 
 strangers to us, are like cousins whom we 
 seldom see ; but that these blacks are quite, 
 quite different from us, so that there could 
 be at heart no possible understanding or re- 
 lationship between us. There must always be 
 misunderstandings instead. 
 
 As at the beginning of the journey, we 
 talked now a great deal about our expectations, 
 about the palms and the monkeys we should 
 see, and the hides and the birds and the 
 baskets we should take home. We spoke again 
 about the probability that the rebellion would 
 be over before we got there. 
 
 As we came near the equator there was a 
 lot of joking about it. Those who were a little
 
 THE VOYAGE 35 
 
 embarrassed or dreamy were teasingly told to 
 look out and see the line on the water, and 
 to hold on tight when we went down hill, and 
 all that sort of thing. I took no part in 
 this teasing, for I am not inclined that way 
 and I was sorry for the fellows who were the 
 butt of it. They were, indeed, far from being 
 stupid and thoughtless ; but often those who 
 made sport of them were the stupid and 
 thoughtless ones who were always talking big. 
 So I used to draw their ridicule to myself and 
 pretended not to see it. If I wanted to I could 
 shake off the dogs, and I used to laugh to 
 myself over their barking and biting. Toward 
 evening we began to sing, and oftenest we 
 wanted to sing the third stanza of a well- 
 known song which rang out beautifully over 
 the darkening ocean : — 
 
 Doch mein Schicksal will es trimmer, 
 Durch die Welt ich wandern muss. 
 Trautes Heim, dein denk' ich immer . . . 
 
 At night it was almost intolerably hot in 
 the cabin. Some of the men scolded about 
 it, but the more reasonable understood that it
 
 36 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 could n't be otherwise. If any one once woke 
 up it was nearly impossible for him to go to 
 sleep again. Once, when I was lying there 
 sleepless and restless, it seemed to me that the 
 little Schlesian — the one who liked to sing 
 and who sang so well and whose berth was 
 close at my right hand — sobbed aloud. When 
 I asked what was the matter he was silent at 
 first and then said, in a gentle, quiet voice : 
 " This traveling is getting tiresome, don't you 
 think so? Always, day in and day out, I don't 
 know how many miles — it does n't seem pos- 
 sible that we shall ever find our way back." 
 Then he lay quiet again. 
 
 On the seventh day after the negroes had 
 slipped over the rail, a sailor told us in the 
 morning that we should reach Swakopmund 
 that day. So we stood by the hour at the bow, 
 looking out ; but a fog hid the coast. Toward 
 noon, however, the fog lifted, and we saw on 
 the horizon some great steamers and behind 
 them an endless strip of reddish-white sand 
 lifting itself out of the ocean. The harsh, glar- 
 ing sun burned down on the dunes and sea,
 
 THE VOYAGE 37 
 
 and we thought at first that it was a bar 
 which lay off the shore so that the great city 
 of Swakopmund and the palms and lions 
 would n't get their feet wet; but soon, when 
 the fog had entirely receded, we saw in the 
 glittering light some white houses and bar- 
 racks and a lighthouse on the bare sand. Then 
 all stood amazed and delivered their opinions. 
 Many looked silently and soberly upon the 
 inhospitable, barren land; others jeered and 
 said : " To come so far for a country like 
 that!" 
 
 We were not disembarked that day. Some 
 said we were n't going ashore at all, that the 
 revolt had already been put down ; others said 
 that it would last a long while yet. There was 
 great uneasiness and talking back and forth 
 among us. Flag signals were energetically ex- 
 changed until nightfall between us and the 
 cruiser Habicht. We lay that night, rocking 
 in a pretty heavy swell, off Swakopmund.
 
 IV 
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 
 
 Very early the next morning we got over the 
 rail and climbed in order down the rope-lad- 
 der to the great flatboat which rose and sank 
 certainly seven yards on the heavy waves. 
 Each man had his knapsack and his white 
 sleeping blanket on his back, his gun on his 
 shoulder, his cartridge-belt, from which hung 
 the water-sack, around his waist, and his 
 bread-bag and army flask hanging from a 
 strap. We had to look out that we let go the 
 rope-ladder at just the right time, when the 
 boat was on the crest of a wave ; but although 
 I did it right I fell heavily against the gun- 
 wale. When the flatboat had twenty or thirty 
 men in it, it was fastened to a little low tug- 
 boat and we were towed to land. 
 
 The nearer we came to the shore the rougher 
 became the water. The boat flung itself more
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 39 
 
 and more violently through surging, leaping 
 surf. We lay often between two billows which 
 ran so high that we could n't see anything of 
 the steamer in front of us. The next moment 
 we were on top of a wave and thought we 
 should be pitched down into the trough. At 
 last we went through mere froth and foam, 
 which leaped high around us and threw spray 
 over us till we were wet through and through. 
 For a time the boat was so pounded up and 
 down on the heavy, choppy wa^es that I 
 thought it would be dashed to pieces. Many 
 of the men were taken suddenly and violently 
 seasick and lay deathly pale on the bottom of 
 the boat. But after a while we got out of that 
 part into smooth water and went ashore. 
 
 Through everlastingly deep, hot sand, un- 
 der a scorching sun, with about sixty pounds 
 apiece on our backs, we marched inland. We 
 had thought that all Swakopmund would be 
 standing on the beach, overjoyed that help 
 had at last arrived ; but not a single human 
 being was there. We passed isolated houses 
 which stood there on the bare sand, but not
 
 40 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 a soul showed himself to offer us a friendly 
 greeting. When we chanced to get sight of 
 any one near by or far off in the shadow of a 
 veranda, it seemed to us that he looked at us 
 indifferently and even scornfully. Behind us 
 we could hear the pounding of the surf, — it 
 already sounded almost lovely to us, — and 
 around us as far as we could see there was 
 nothing but barren, hot sand, on which the 
 sun burned with a hard glare. We could hardly 
 keep our eyes open, and a hot, dry feeling 
 cramped our throats. We were pretty quiet. 
 
 We reached the big sandy station and 
 watched our train with astonishment and mis- 
 trust as it drew in, rattling and creaking. It 
 was made up of an endless string of little 
 rough sand-cars, in front of which were at- 
 tached five or seven tiny engines. We were 
 divided among the cars and got in. Then, 
 amid puffing and joggling and rattling, the 
 train started slowly toward the interior. 
 
 We went up grade all the time, hour after 
 hour. As far as we could see ahead and on 
 both sides there was nothing but yellowish
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 41 
 
 white sand dunes, which sometimes rose to a 
 great height. We stood and squatted and sat 
 tightly crowded in the little open cars. As the 
 oppressive heat made us thirsty all the time, 
 we were continually and improvidently open- 
 ing our water-sacks. We were just as improvi- 
 dent in throwing away the coffee we had 
 brewed in the station at Swakopmund when 
 we tasted it and found it had got sour. 
 Once or twice we stopped in order to limber 
 up our legs, which were lame with standing or 
 sitting. Late in the afternoon the grade be- 
 came so steep that the train was divided into 
 three sections, so that, part by part, it could 
 get up the steep heights. As we all pushed, 
 this was accomplished without accident. Then 
 we went along somewhat faster again, still 
 through the yellow sand dunes and still up 
 hill all the time. 
 
 In the evening we reached the top of the 
 ascent. Behind us the yellow, sandy road de- 
 scended to the sea, about twenty-five miles in 
 the distance. Right before us stood a mon- 
 strous, horribly wild mountain range. I had
 
 42 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 never seen mountains. Not only I myself and 
 the other North Germans, but also the Bava- 
 rians were amazed at the sight. Quite close 
 in front of us and also receding into the dis- 
 tance, huge naked rocks rose to the sky. Some 
 were lighted up by the evening sun and shone 
 bright and hard ; others, gloomy and fearful, 
 hung menacing, often directly over us. On all 
 sides were evidences of the mighty powers 
 that had ruled of old*, that had knocked off 
 pieces of rock and precipitated them into the 
 depths, and had left other pieces, already split 
 away, hanging at a frightful height, as though 
 they might plunge down at any moment. Lit-, 
 tie powers could not exist here. We did n't see 
 a shrub or even a spear of grass, and not an 
 animal. We, the only living beings, were roll- 
 ing along through this immense, dead wonder- 
 work, on our little creaking cars, ridiculous to 
 look upon. 
 
 We stopped at a little station, a house made 
 of corrugated sheet iron, and boiled some 
 coffee and rice for ourselves. When we got 
 on board again we were ordered to take the
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 43 
 
 barrel-covers off our guns and to load. I did 
 it with a very disagreeable feeling. We pro- 
 ceeded amid loud confusion, which resounded 
 harshly and hideously into the light gray 
 night. We were passing along a deep, nar- 
 row valley between high rocks on both sides. 
 Many of us were crouching, drunk with sleep ; 
 some were standing, others sitting on the edge 
 of the car ; every one had his white woollen 
 blanket around him. We didn't say much. 
 Many were probably at home in thought or 
 saw themselves coming home and telling- of 
 all the wonders they had seen. Many, very 
 likely, were thinking how the enemy could shoot 
 down from every rock upon our little hand- 
 ful of men, while we slowly passed by, almost 
 defenseless. So we brooded, weary, hungry, 
 and all used up. In the broad, clear sky num- 
 berless twinkling stars shone out of a bright 
 blue ground. That was indeed a beautiful, 
 sublime picture. Still it was not as beautiful 
 nor as impressive nor as peaceful as in my 
 native land. We traveled all night, and it was 
 disagreeably cold.
 
 44 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 During the greater part of the next day, 
 which again was hot and sunny, we were still 
 passing through the valleys of that horrible, 
 bare mountain range. As we thought we 
 should be able to refill our water-sacks at one 
 of the next stations, we drank until our sup- 
 ply was gone. But when at noon we really did 
 stop at a station for the engine to take in 
 water, and we were permitted to take water 
 for ourselves, we could not drink it, for it was 
 repulsively salt. By that time we were out of 
 bread, too. We boiled a handful of our rice 
 half tender and ate it, and we cleaned out our 
 utensils a little with sand. Then we went on. 
 Many a one seized upon the strong potion 
 which he had in his knapsack, although it was 
 forbidden to touch it. But thirst was much 
 worse than hunger. We had no moisture in 
 our mouths to wet our lips a little. Our breath 
 came dry and hot through our parched mouths, 
 and the burning dryness penetrated, as though 
 with spurs and prickles, ever deeper into our 
 throats. 
 
 In the afternoon we emerged at last from
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 45 
 
 the mountains into a wide plain. We stretched 
 our necks as far as we could when we came 
 out, for we thought, now that we had finally 
 left behind us, first the rising dunes and then 
 the wild mountains, that groves of palms 
 must appear. But what we saw was a broad 
 plateau of reddish yellow earth, sparsely grown 
 with coarse, yellow, dry grass, which waved 
 like rye as high as a man's knee. In the grass 
 were scattered, at first thinly, then more 
 thickly, tough, thorny bushes, ranging from 
 the height of a man to three or four yards. 
 At last they were so close together that their 
 tops touched one another. 
 
 In the distance we suddenly saw isolated 
 cones of mountains, rising, here and there, 
 abruptly out of the broad plain. Once or twice 
 we saw before us in the far, far distance, 
 raised a little from the plain and glistening in 
 the hot, trembling air, that which we longed to 
 see, — high, fruitful trees and blue surfaces 
 like ponds. But they vanished again ; they 
 were mirages. 
 
 Although we were far from being pleased
 
 46 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 with what we saw, we were in a somewhat 
 better mood. There was always something to 
 be seen. A strange, deer-like animal chased 
 in herds through the long, waving, yellowish 
 grass; or an unfamiliar, brilliantly colored 
 bird flew up. The pointed mountain cones 
 stood out sharply in the sun, and we saw 
 plainly on their slopes or at their bases jagged 
 heaps of stones which had slid down from the 
 heights. As we advanced, the grass and bushes 
 got a little softer and the prospect a little 
 more pleasing. Everything we saw, whether 
 near or far, was sharply outlined in the won- 
 derfully clear air. 
 
 We had become rather more cheerful, in 
 spite of our thirst, when we arrived at the 
 first stopping-place which the negroes had 
 destroyed. They had burned out the modest 
 house, torn down the tin roof, smashed the lit- 
 tle household furniture, and taken everything 
 else with them. In the meagre little garden, 
 where one could still see traces of the care 
 with which German hands had tended it, lay 
 a heap of white stones. There, buried three
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 47 
 
 feet deep in the barren soil, lay the settler and 
 his wife, who had been attacked and killed by 
 the negroes. The five or six sailors from the 
 Habicht, who at the time held possession of the 
 place, had nailed together a cross out of pieces 
 of boxes and had written upon it with a dull 
 pencil the names of the killed and the words, 
 " Fallen by the hand of the murderer." The 
 windows they had fortified with tin cement 
 tubs and with sacks full of sand. 
 
 The sailors were very serious and quiet. 
 Their uniforms were dirty and entirely spoiled. 
 One of them stepped up to the car in which I 
 sat, and said : " You '11 find a good deal of 
 work to do still. We have n't been out of our 
 clothes for three weeks." 
 
 I said : " We know very little ; what is the 
 state of things?" 
 
 " What is the state of things ? " he repeated. 
 " We have had heavy losses." 
 
 "Dead?" asked one of our number. 
 
 "Dead ! " said the sailor, surprised. " In the 
 last weeks we have lost more than forty dead. 
 They shoot well and with good guns, — with
 
 48 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 those, in fact, sold them by us, or taken from 
 our magazines, or off our dead." 
 
 " Is that so ? " we said. 
 
 " I wish you all may get back to your 
 mothers," he said. 
 
 The day's journey was again long and 
 thirsty, and we were completely exhausted. 
 Toward evening we came to a larger station, 
 and slept on the ground, wrapped in our blan- 
 kets with our knapsacks under our heads, in 
 barracks built of corrugated iron. When I 
 awoke, early, before dawn, my next neighbor, 
 a little quiet Thuringian, noticed it and said 
 to me in a low voice : " I don't know what will 
 happen if I never get home again. I am the 
 eldest, with five brothers and sisters, and my 
 father is sickly. When he dies I must be there 
 to take care of all the others." 
 
 " You will get home, all right," said I. 
 
 " I must," he replied. 
 
 Then he lay still, and when I turned my 
 head a bit to one side he was looking up with 
 wide-open eyes. I don't believe he saw the tin 
 roof at which he gazed, but instead he saw
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 49 
 
 the living-room and the barn of his parental 
 home. 
 
 That morning, when I was walking about 
 the station building, I saw the first of the 
 enemy, a prisoner and his wife. He was a tall 
 man with a strong, proud body, half-naked, 
 with a vacant, indifferent expression in his pas- 
 sive but dismal face. The woman was elderly 
 and very ugly. At noon the next day we con- 
 tinued the journey through the same flat land, 
 which was now, however, somewhat more fer- 
 tile and had long yellow grass, and bushes, and 
 even occasional trees growing on it ; but every- 
 thing was still dried up and of a grayish green 
 color. The stations we now passed were almost 
 all destroyed, and near many a one lay a heap 
 of white stones which indicated a grave. In 
 the middle of the night we reached a great sta- 
 tion building, the windows of which had been 
 walled up into loopholes. In three or four 
 sheds of corrugated iron a lot of provisions 
 had been piled up. In the square court of a 
 fortification which was there we had at last a 
 real meal, — pea soup, and meat and rice.
 
 50 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 On the next day, the fourth and last of our 
 journey, the country became more fruitful and 
 more attractive. Near by and in the distance 
 groups of tall trees which looked like oaks 
 were to be seen from time to time in the high 
 grass. Among them ran a broad strip of yel- 
 low sand, the dried-up bed of a river. There 
 for the space of three days in December of the 
 year before waves had danced along, leaving 
 traces still to be seen in the sand; but now it 
 was entirely dry, and would stay so for a year, 
 and perhaps for three. It was just so with all 
 the rivers we had come across in this country ; 
 they were strips of sand half a yard or a yard 
 lower than the plain. 
 
 I rather liked the landscape through which 
 we passed on this fourth day. Two kinds of 
 antelopes, a smaller and a larger, like deer, 
 would sometimes run alone, or in herds, across 
 the bare places in the brush. Strange gray-and- 
 white-speckled birds, somewhat bigger than 
 partridges, flew over the bushes and down 
 again. Clumps of beautiful, stately trees stood 
 in the midst of the soft green, and from a dis-
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 51 
 
 tance the green mountain slopes formed a 
 far from unpleasing sight. But my comrades 
 didn't like the country; I think it was n't 
 strange and wonderful enough for them. They 
 wanted Africa to look entirely different in 
 every particular from their native land. 
 
 In the afternoon we reached the capital 
 city. It was small, spread out, and quite irregu- 
 larly built. Here and there on the sandy gray 
 earth were flat-roofed white houses, among 
 which stood occasional sorry-looking trees. We 
 panted under our heavy packs through sand 
 and sun up to the fort, which was situated on 
 a moderately high hill, and there in the court- 
 yard, which was full of life, we broke ranks. 
 
 What a life it was that we now entered upon ! 
 For four days we hadn't had our clothes off 
 or washed ourselves, and for three days we 
 hadn't had a really good swallow of water. 
 Here in the wall of the courtyard were fau- 
 cets with warm, almost hot water from the 
 mountain running out of them. How quickly 
 we got our clothes off and how joyfully we 
 washed, and played the water over ourselves !
 
 52 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 How quickly we forgot our thirst and dirt ! 
 And how curiously we looked about us ! 
 
 The home guards were going about in their 
 cord uniforms : brown velvet coats, full trou- 
 sers and riding-boots, and soft gray hats. Most 
 of them had already been for years in the 
 country. Sick or wounded, or detailed to ac- 
 company us to the enemy, as guides, they were 
 walking back and forth, some idle and some 
 occupied. We talked to them while we were 
 washing ourselves, and asked them how mat- 
 ters stood. They were somewhat stiff, as old 
 campaigners are, especially if one asks them 
 all sorts of silly questions, as some of us did. 
 However, when I addressed one of them, a ser- 
 geant, with intelligence and respect, he told 
 me of the enemy's cruelty toward the farmers, 
 of the heavy losses in the last fight, and of 
 the position of the enemy. The sergeant was 
 a Hamburg man named Hansen. Just then a 
 lot of our men came up. 
 
 There were some women captives in the yard 
 of the fort, and some of them were young and 
 not ugly ; but most of them were faded and
 
 BY RAILWAY TO THE CAPITAL 63 
 
 hideous. They took washing to do for the 
 soldiers, and lounged about with short pipes 
 in their mouths, and were very dirty. I did n't 
 like it that some of our men went right up to 
 them and joked with them by means of signs 
 and some English and Low-German words. 
 
 There were Boers there, too, stately, brown, 
 long-bearded men in khaki or cord uniforms. 
 The German government had engaged them 
 as wagoners. Strong four-wheeled wagons, 
 called Cape wagons, covered with linen hoods, 
 stood outside in front of the court. These 
 wagons were to go out with us next day and 
 drag provisions and fodder for us into the 
 wilderness. 
 
 We slept that night in the yard of the fort. 
 Before I went to sleep I thought for a long 
 time of my parents, and of Itzehoe, and of my 
 life up to now. It came to me that it was 
 probably more than a whole year since I had 
 said my prayers, and I resolved to begin again.
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 
 
 The next morning, while it was still dark, 
 we broke camp. We were to surround the 
 enemy to the northeast in a great arc, so that 
 they couldn't escape into English territory 
 with their own and their stolen herds of cattle. 
 For the present, only one company with four 
 small cannon was marching ; the others were 
 to follow in a few days. 
 
 Our guides, the home guards, went on 
 ahead, mounted on pretty good shaggy horses, 
 their guns resting in leather pockets on the 
 right leg. They were for the most part old 
 African settlers, farmers, who had been called 
 out as militiamen. Next rode the captain with 
 the officers. Then came the long row of 
 wagons and the artillery. 
 
 The great wagons, drawn by long teams of 
 oxen, rumbled clumsily along. Now the high,
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 55 
 
 heavy wheels would grind into the deep sand ; 
 now a wheel would climb up on a stone lying 
 in the rut and would fall back into position 
 while the wagon creaked and groaned in every 
 part. Black drivers ran alongside, calling to 
 each ox by name and cracking the enormous 
 whips which they held in both hands. Behind 
 each wagon, which with its team was perhaps 
 fifty yards long, marched a division, in dust 
 and sand (when possible just outside the 
 wagon track), with guns slung over their 
 shoulders and cartridge-belts around their 
 waists. Single horsemen, officers, rode along 
 at intervals near us. Last came the so-called 
 rear guard, half a platoon. The country was 
 for the most part covered with more or less 
 dense brush as tall as a man. So we proceeded 
 in an everlastingly long train along a road 
 which was indicated only by old and new 
 wagon-tracks. From time to time a wagon 
 stopped because the harness of the oxen had 
 got out of order, or because a wheel had sunk 
 too deep into a rut, or because an ox had 
 collapsed and had to be unharnessed.
 
 56 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 Already, on this first day, the sun shone 
 dry and hot. The road was quite hilly and 
 full of unevennesses besides. At eleven o'clock, 
 when the heat was becoming unbearable, we 
 fortunately reached a beautiful shady place, 
 where we halted. Not far from here a fine, 
 stately farmhouse had been totally ruined by 
 the blacks : the windows had been torn out ; 
 the heavy, well-made furniture had been 
 smashed to pieces ; and many books were 
 strewn about, soiled and torn. We boiled, each 
 mess company for itself, a little rice for din- 
 ner, and lay down to rest in the shade of 
 the wagons. In the afternoon we went on, 
 marching till late in the evening. 
 
 In a clearing we formed a camp and forti- 
 fied it by stationing the wagons in a square 
 around it. Besides that, we built, about fifty 
 yards outside the wagons, at each of the four 
 points of the compass, a little crescent-shaped 
 barricade of bush with the big curve pointing 
 out. In each barricade were placed an under 
 officer and three men. The officer had to stand 
 in the middle of the barricade, with two of
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 57 
 
 the men lying diagonally back of him, and 
 the third man had to walk back and forth 
 through the bushes to the next barricade, a 
 distance of about four hundred yards. It was 
 known that many of the enemy were in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 I belonged for the night to post number 
 two, and lay until eight o'clock on the ground 
 behind the under officer, and listened, my gun 
 at hand. From a distance out of the bush 
 came the howling of strange wild animals. It 
 began soft and low and grew higher and 
 hoarser. Between whiles resounded another 
 sort of howl, coarser and more jerky. Now 
 and then a dry branch cracked. Is it the 
 sentry returning from the other post ? Is it 
 the enemy ? Is it an animal ? The sentry comes 
 up slowly and cautiously. He bends down a 
 little and reports, in a low tone, inside the 
 barricade, " Back from patrol. All clear." It 
 was a very dark night. 
 
 Shortly afterwards it became my turn to walk 
 up and down till morning. I got up and groped 
 carefully along, often standing still and strain-
 
 58 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 ing my ears toward the dark bushes surround- 
 ing me. When I came to the next post, I 
 reported and came back the same way. Often 
 I thought surely that a dark body was cower- 
 ing there somewhere by a bush in the grass. 
 My heart beat wildly. A branch broke behind 
 me. I retreated with light, careful tread, so that 
 I had a bush at my back, and watched atten- 
 tively on all sides. When all was quiet again 
 I went cautiously on. My eyes turned hastily 
 this way and that like mice in a trap. 
 
 On my third trip a shot fell in front of me 
 in the direction of the next post. The short 
 report pierced the still darkness of the night. 
 I fell on one knee, raised my gun, and waited 
 till I should see an object to aim at. As I lay 
 there the men ran out of the wagon fort to 
 the aid of the post. I heard their voices; then 
 their shots flashed at one side of me. The 
 whole camp was in motion ; I heard commands 
 and hot firing. I lay and waited certainly half 
 an hour or more and did not fire, for I saw 
 nothing to aim at. Then it was still. 
 
 I rose and went on slowly and cautiously,
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 59 
 
 that I might not be accidentally taken for an 
 enemy and be shot. I reached the barricade 
 safely and reported. There was only one man 
 there. I asked him softly where the others were. 
 He replied just as quietly that they had gone 
 out at the first shot to help the men who were 
 attacked, and had not returned. Then I went 
 back again. 
 
 So I wandered back and forth in the quiet 
 night as I had been told to do, and each time 
 I came to the other post I stooped and looked 
 into the barricade and found always only the 
 one man, who stood erect, his gun on his arm, 
 and peered into the darkness. When I asked 
 him softly, "The others?" he turned his head 
 quickly toward me, raised his hand warningly, 
 and looked out again into the night without 
 saying a word. Then I thought that there had 
 been some mishap. 
 
 I went up and down till the darkness began 
 to grow grayer and grayer, and little voices 
 began to chirp in the bushes, and in the east 
 the morning light began to mount in five rosy 
 stripes. Then came the relief for the sentries.
 
 60 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 When I came into camp and was going to 
 my mess division, who were sitting around the 
 hole where they had their fire, and I was look- 
 ing casually about me, — for the whole picture 
 was new to me, the great heavy wagons, the 
 old Africans in high boots and shirtsleeves 
 around their fire-holes, the two tents of officers, 
 the black drivers squatting in a corner, talking 
 and laughing, — and was about to open my 
 mouth and ask cheerfully and braggingly : 
 " Well, what was the firing about last night ? " 
 — just at that moment the whole camp sud- 
 denly stood up and looked with earnest, wide- 
 open eyes toward one end, where many soldiers 
 were gathering and gazing down at the ground. 
 And some one said : " You see ? There it is." 
 
 I knew then what had happened. I went 
 with them to where the crowd was, — and my 
 feet were very heavy, — and there I saw three 
 comrades lying on the ground, their breasts 
 bloody, their mouths open, and their eyes star- 
 ing and dull. A subordinate offtcer who had 
 come up behind me said : " Those are the men 
 from post number three." We stood and looked
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 61 
 
 down upon them. More joined the crowd. We 
 did not speak a word. An officer came and 
 sent us away. 
 
 Some hours later the dead, wrapped in their 
 woollen blankets, were buried on a little hill. 
 Eight men shot into the air over their open 
 grave in their honor. The captain said the 
 Lord's Prayer. Then we sat silent and de- 
 pressed around our cooking-holes. 
 
 We stayed three or four days in this place, 
 for orders had come for us to wait here for the 
 major, who was following with the other com- 
 pany. We had to have a lot of drill; musketry 
 practice, practice in bush fighting, and the like. 
 Moreover, our cooking made a good deal of 
 work, for we were awkward and unnecessarily 
 particular about it. Every mess — there were 
 in each at most six men — made itself as fine 
 a cooking-hole as possible, and with much skill 
 and much more talk, dug a knee-deep gutter 
 in a circle around it, into which each of us 
 could stick his feet, so that we could sit quite 
 comfortably. Some of the mess companies 
 prided themselves mightily on such earthworks.
 
 62 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 Then one fellow — and it had to be one with 
 a good grip and the gift of gab — had to 
 fetch the rations from the wagons : rice, meat, 
 wheat flour, salt, and coffee. Others had to 
 collect dry wood from the bush around the 
 camp, and still others had to fetch water from 
 deep water-holes in the steep, black rocks. 
 Thus every one had his share of the work. 
 
 One difficult matter was bread-baking. One 
 of us remembered this, and one that ; and 
 every one knew something about it. Some 
 looked thoughtfully at the ground, and then 
 getting a lucky inspiration would pour forth 
 what had come to them. One, a native of 
 Holstein, apparently had spent the greater part 
 of his childhood standing near his mother in 
 front of the oven, which was in a corner of 
 the garden by the wall ; and he even asserted 
 that his mother had several times inadvertently 
 set him on the shovel and pushed him into the 
 oven. He knew, therefore, not only how it 
 feels to be a bread-baker, but also to be the 
 loaf of bread. He was a rogue, and we did n't 
 listen to him.
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 63 
 
 We were very anxious to learn. The sour 
 bread, especially, caused us much thought ; but 
 after long and heated discussion and much 
 running to and from other divisions, we made 
 bread of rum and flour. Some stood waiting, 
 with shirtsleeves rolled up, ready to knead it. 
 One advised that they should wash their hands 
 first, and he got a sharp hint that he had 
 made a ridiculous suggestion. There was no 
 water for washing hands. They kneaded the 
 dough industriously and laid it carefully in the 
 cooking-pan over a gentle fire. It rose a little, 
 and browned a little, but even then it was 
 sticky and not properly baked. 
 
 Evenings we sat around the dying fire and 
 talked over the position of the enemy and the 
 progress of the campaign, — for wild and won- 
 derful rumors were current at times, — and we 
 reverted always to the last fight. We talked of 
 how we had found not a single dead enemy 
 and of the possibility that our three killed had 
 been shot by our own men, and we shook our 
 heads and gazed into the embers; and then 
 some one would stoop and stir up the fire a
 
 / 
 
 64 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 little. Next we got to talking of Kiel and of 
 home, and each one told something about his 
 life or his childhood and praised it. The Swa- 
 bians, especially, talked a great deal, and talked 
 big about what they had and what they could 
 do. Then we lay down just as we were sitting, 
 in a circle about our cooking-hole, and pulled 
 our blankets over us and slept. 
 
 On the fourth evening, when it was already 
 dark and we were sitting around the fires, we 
 saw flashes of light in the east. Immediately 
 afterwards, it flashed in the west also. We 
 became very much excited; we thought the 
 enemy were giving signals about attacking us. 
 The light hovered a moment like a white star 
 on the horizon and then vanished and appeared 
 again immediately. It seemed quite near. 
 The next morning Gehlsen told me that the 
 signals had been from our own men, who were 
 situated in a fortification in the far east in the 
 midst of the enemy. They had signaled way 
 over us to the west to the capital and had 
 received an answer from there. 
 
 Very early the next morning, the fifth, our
 
 THE JOURNEY INLAND ON FOOT 65 
 
 outposts saw the major advancing. Many of 
 us climbed on the wagons and watched the 
 long procession, which wound slowly up out of 
 the ravines of the mountains; and we talked 
 as if we were already old Africans, although 
 we were merely four days and three dead ahead 
 of them. And one of us said to another, " The 
 old fellow is surprised. Marching here is dif- 
 ferent from in Kiel." So we stood and watched, 
 and were especially pleased when we recog- 
 nized the old officer. For the first time we 
 were superior to him.
 
 VI 
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES? 
 
 We were to surround the enemy in an arc 
 to the north and corner them, just as one runs 
 in a circle and corners a colt so that it runs 
 back where the boy is waiting with a halter 
 in his hand. We were to make forced marches 
 with fewer and lighter wagons, which meant 
 smaller and lighter rations, and with less and 
 lighter clothing. We were about three hun- 
 dred men, — marines, sailors, and the home 
 guards, who were leading us. 
 
 The troop of old Africans again went 
 on ahead, officers and common soldiers, all 
 mounted. Then came the old major with one 
 officer; then we foot-soldiers in a long, thin 
 line veiled in dust. Here and there in our line 
 were the thirty great Cape wagons, loaded with 
 the light fieldpieces and each drawn by from 
 ten to twenty-four long-horned oxen, which
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES? 67 
 
 were driven, with much shouting, by negroes. 
 On both sides of the way was more or less 
 dense, grayish green thorn-bush, the wood of 
 which is as hard as bone, and which grows to 
 the height of a man, and sometimes twice that 
 height, and has curved thorns as long as one's 
 ringer. In such wise and through such country 
 we now traveled day after day and week after 
 week. And day by day and week by week our 
 progress became more painful. For soon came 
 the time when we began to suffer from hunger 
 and want, when the oxen began to fall from 
 exhaustion, and when some of the clumsily 
 rumbling wagons were full of the distress of 
 the wounded or very sick. 
 
 When the sun mounted high over us, almost 
 to the zenith, and the sand was scorching, and 
 eyes and throats were burning, the van would 
 halt at a clearing where there ought to have 
 been water, but the water was not always 
 there. Then suffering terribly from thirst, we 
 had to dig holes to see if we could find a little 
 water slowly filtering through. Often it was 
 salt or milky from lime, or smelled vile ; and
 
 68 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 oftener we didn't find even this miserable, 
 loathsome water, and we had to go on again 
 thirsty, far into the night. If we did find 
 water, we would make a barricade of thorn- 
 bush around us. Then each mess division 
 would get its meagre supply of food ; a little 
 meat from a freshly killed ox which had fallen 
 exhausted, a little flour, and a little rice. The 
 meat or flour we stirred up in a kettle with 
 the bad water, and set it over the fire, calling 
 it meat soup, or bouillon with rice, or pan- 
 cakes, which they called " Plinsen." The cook- 
 ing utensils were cleaned with sand. After 
 that we lay for an hour in the shade of the 
 wagons or of a canvas that had been set up, 
 and then started on again. 
 
 Weary and indifferent, we marched on till 
 evening and often into the night, and I don't 
 know that in those weeks we ever sang. The 
 moonlight lay wonderfully pale, like bright 
 spider webs, over the broad, bushy land, and 
 the unfamiliar stars gleamed strangely confused 
 and restless. The gun-straps pressed on our 
 shoulders, our feet stumbled in the uneven
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES? 69 
 
 track, and our thoughts were slow and dull. 
 When we had reached water in the night and 
 had had dealt out to us one or two, or, if it 
 was more plenty, even three cook-pan covers 
 full of the miserable stuff, we were too tired to 
 cook properly. We stirred up together a little 
 of whatever we got and ate it half cooked. We 
 had orders to bring the water to the boiling- 
 point before we took it ; but I have seen the 
 officers, and for that matter even the physi- 
 cians themselves, drink it just as it was. We 
 were too tired and apathetic. 
 
 So it went on every day for four weeks. 
 The country was always flat and bushy. We 
 did n't see a single house and we did n't meet 
 a human being. 
 
 It was bad that we could n't take provisions 
 enough with us. If we had been able to, many 
 more would have seen their homes again. We 
 did n't notice it ourselves, but the doctors and 
 officers probably saw that we were gradually 
 getting flabby and weak. If we had even had 
 time and inclination to cook properly, it would 
 have been better; but the water was often so
 
 70 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 repulsive that it was no pleasure, and we had to 
 use it so sparingly that our utensils got foul. 
 I rubbed them with sand and I rubbed them 
 with grass, but they did not get clean. And it 
 was bad that we had only thin khaki uniforms. 
 In the morning we marched up to our knees 
 in wet grass, at noon in hot sand, and all day 
 through thorny brush, so that the lower part 
 of our trousers fringed out and soon hung 
 in shreds. When, as sometimes happened, a 
 thunder-storm or a shower came up and then 
 night came on, we were horribly cold. There 
 were some very cold nights. 
 
 Thus it had to come about that we soon 
 became very weak, even though we did not 
 notice it ourselves. I used to think sometimes 
 with surprise, " There was so much talk and 
 squabbling among us on shipboard, and so 
 many jokes among us ! Where are they, and 
 why don't we sing ? How pale and yellow and 
 thin Behrens has grown ! How sunken and 
 feverish our under officer's eyes look ! What 
 awfully thin beards we young men have!" 
 There were many among us not yet twenty.
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES? 71 
 
 Once we came upon a great covered wagon 
 left deserted on the road. A farmer or a 
 trader had wanted to escape and had packed 
 his most valuable possessions in the wagon, 
 harnessed his oxen to it, and driven the rest 
 of his flocks before it. He had come as far as 
 this. His bones lay eaten by beasts, his goods 
 were stolen, and round about the wagon were 
 strewn the only things which the enemy 
 could n't use, his letters and books. We buried 
 the bones in the bush, tied a cross together 
 with string and set it on the grave, and took 
 some letters and remnants of books, read 
 them, and threw them away. 
 
 Another day we discovered, hidden in the 
 bush, on a hill by the way, many deserted 
 huts of the enemy. They were like great bee- 
 hives made of a skeleton of branches and twigs 
 plastered over with cow-dung. Although we 
 were so tired, we took the time to set fire to 
 these, and afterwards stood on a rise in our 
 road and looked back. The glow dyed the 
 evening sky for a great distance. 
 
 Besides this I don't know that anything
 
 72 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 special happened to us. We marched contin- 
 ually along the sandy road in a cloud of dust, 
 on both sides of us brush that from time to time 
 was thinner, or that yielded to make a majestic 
 clearing. 
 
 Our horsemen, the old Africans and the 
 officers, rode often an hour in advance of us 
 and tried to spy out the enemy. When they 
 came back the news would often spread through 
 the ranks or at night from fire to fire : " We 
 are close to the enemy now ; to-morrow or the 
 day after we shall meet them." Then we re- 
 joiced and each man sat and looked over his 
 gun and examined his cartridge-belt. But a 
 new day came and still another, and we grew 
 weaker and more exhausted, and we saw 
 nothing of the enemy. 
 
 So it went on for four weeks, further and 
 further. It was bad that we never had our 
 clothes off and could never wash ourselves, 
 and seldom, and then not thoroughly, even 
 our faces and hands ; but what was worse, we 
 could never get enough to eat any more. They 
 had given to me the task of getting the rations
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES ? 73 
 
 for our mess. I brought less and less to the 
 cooking-hole ; a little rice, a little flour, a little 
 canned meat, and a little coffee. There was no 
 more sugar, and one day I came back from the 
 wagon with no salt. Then I baked pancakes 
 made of dirty water and flour. The water we 
 drank with our food tasted disgustingly of 
 Glaubersalz ; often it was as yellow as pea soup 
 and smelled vile. The nights were cold. 
 
 I cannot say that we were cast down. We 
 did n't grumble, either. We perceived that it 
 could n't go any other way and that the offi- 
 cers endured all that we did. We were very 
 quiet and sober, though. We held ourselves 
 together with the thought: "We shall soon 
 now come upon the enemy and beat them and 
 finish up the campaign, and then, oh! then, we 
 shall go back to the capital and get new clothes 
 and have a bath. We '11 spring into the water, 
 and we'll get a new handkerchief, a really 
 clean, red checked one, and a great lot of good 
 meat and a handful of white salt, and a great, 
 great mug of clean, crystal-clear water — how 
 it will glisten ! And we '11 have a long, long
 
 74 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 drink and hold out the empty mug, and again 
 the water will pour into it, and we '11 drink 
 and drink. And then after a few days we '11 
 travel back to the coast and we '11 start for 
 home ! What shan't we have to tell about this 
 monkey-land ! " 
 
 Our boots fell apart; our trousers were 
 nothing but shreds and rags at the bottom ; 
 our jackets got full of great holes from the 
 thorns and were horribly greasy because we 
 wiped everything off on them ; our hands were 
 full of inflamed places because we often had 
 to seize the thorns with them. 
 
 Our lieutenant often talked to us. " Keep 
 up your courage," he would say ; " we shall 
 have a fight and throw the rascals back to the 
 west into the jaws of the main division. And 
 in July we '11 be at home again." I marveled 
 at him, that he, though not much older than 
 we, and suffering all the hardships that we 
 did, was always uniformly calm, while we were 
 often good-for-nothing and got angry and 
 grumbled. It was n't because he had learned 
 more than we; I think it came from the fact
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES? 75 
 
 that he was at heart a cultivated man ; that is, 
 he had his soul and mind in control so that he 
 could value justly, and could make allowance 
 for the things about him. His will would have 
 it so, and it came to pass. And I have noticed 
 that will power is worth ten times more than 
 mere knowing. We never said a word of how 
 much we thought of him and watched him. 
 He was a small man and rode a strong East 
 Prussian horse, and always wore his felt hat a 
 little over the left ear with the brim tilted up 
 on the left side. 
 
 The old major came sometimes and ad- 
 dressed us. While doing so he looked at each 
 man as closely as though he wanted to find 
 out if he were having any sort of trouble. We 
 all felt that he was a wise and wide-awake man 
 and that he had a gentle, sympathetic heart. 
 We felt, therefore, safe under him, and we 
 knew it could not be any different from what 
 it was or he would have changed it ; and we 
 would run like so many rabbits if we could do 
 any little service for him. When any one had 
 run that way, we used to jeer at him and say :
 
 76 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 "Are you trying to burst yourself, man?" 
 But when the turn came to any one else he 
 would run just the same. 
 
 Sometimes when we were all sitting about 
 our fire-holes, I would take myself off over to 
 the old Africans, who always had their fire by 
 one of the wagons which Sergeant Hansen 
 conducted. Then Hansen would motion to me, 
 for he liked me since I had talked to him in 
 the courtyard of the fort. They always sat by 
 themselves, not entirely out of pride, but also 
 because they were mostly from five to twenty 
 years older than we were. Some of them had 
 been already ten years or more in the country. 
 
 I used to sit down quietly with them and 
 listen with great eagerness to their talk. Some- 
 times they talked of the wild fifteen years' 
 struggles in the colony, in all or part of which 
 they had shared, and of the fighting in the 
 last three months. They recalled the scene of 
 many a brave deed, and named many a valiant 
 man, dead or living. I was surprised that so 
 many hard undertakings, of which I had never 
 heard or read so much as a word, had been
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES ? 77 
 
 carried through by Germans, and that already 
 so much German blood had been lavishly 
 spilled in this hot, barren land. They touched, 
 too, upon the causes of the uprising ; and one 
 of the older men, who had been long in the 
 country, said : " Children, how should it be 
 otherwise ? They were ranchmen and proprie- 
 tors, and we were there to make them landless 
 workingmen ; and they rose up in revolt. They 
 acted in just the same way that North Ger- 
 many did in 1813. This is their struggle for 
 independence." " But the cruelty ? " said some 
 one else, and the first speaker replied indiffer- 
 ently : " Do you suppose that if our whole peo- 
 ple should rise in revolt against foreign oppres- 
 sors it would take place without cruelty ? And 
 are we not cruel toward them?" They dis- 
 cussed, too, what the Germans really wanted 
 here. They thought we ought to make that 
 point clear. " The matter stood this way : there 
 were missionaries here who said : * You are our 
 dear brothers in the Lord and we want to 
 bring you these benefits ; namely, Faith, Love, 
 and Hope.' And there were soldiers, farmers,
 
 78 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and traders, and they said : ' We want to take 
 your cattle and your land gradually away from 
 you and make you slaves without legal rights/ 
 Those two things did n't go side by side. It 
 is a ridiculous and crazy project. Either it is 
 right to colonize, that is, to deprive others of 
 their rights, to rob and to make slaves, or it 
 is just and right to Christianize, that is, to 
 proclaim and live up to brotherly love. One 
 must clearly desire the one and despise the 
 other ; one must wish to rule or to love, to be 
 for or against Jesus. The missionaries used to 
 preach to them, ' Ye are our brothers/ and 
 that turned their heads. They are not our 
 brothers, but our slaves, whom we must treat 
 humanely but strictly. These ought to be our 
 brothers ? They may become that after a cen- 
 tury or two. They must first learn what we 
 ourselves have discovered, — to stem water 
 and to make wells, to dig and to plant corn, 
 to build houses and to weave clothing. After 
 that they may well become our brothers. One 
 does n't take any one into a partnership till 
 he has paid up his share."
 
 BROTHERS, OR SLAVES ? 79 
 
 One old freight-carrier, who mixed many 
 English and Dutch words in his speech, said 
 it would be better if the colony were sold to 
 the English. " The Germans are probably use- 
 ful as soldiers and farmers," he said, "but 
 they understand nothing about the govern- 
 ment of colonies. They want this and they 
 want that." A younger man, who had been in 
 the country only three years, said, in answer: 
 " There '11 have to be a thousand or two Ger- 
 man graves in this country before that happens, 
 and perhaps they '11 be dug this year." 
 
 Over these conversations it got to be late at 
 night ; the fires still glowed a little, and in the 
 uncertain light I saw the faces that had become 
 browned and weatherbeaten from the burning 
 of the African sun. 
 
 In these hard, hot days of marching and 
 cold, moonlight nights, when we were advan- 
 cing painfully, but still not without courage, 
 one week after another, through the wild, 
 bushy land, — there was not a house, not a 
 ditch, not a tree, not a boundary in the burn- 
 ing sun by day or the pale moonlight of the
 
 80 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 clear nights; when I was plodding along, 
 hungry and dirty and weary by the sandy, 
 uneven wagon track, my gun on my shoulder ; 
 when I lay in the noon hour in the shadow of 
 the great Cape wagons, and in the bitter cold 
 nights, hungry and restless, in a thin blanket 
 on the bare earth, and the strange stars shone 
 in the beautiful blue heavens, — then, I be- 
 lieve, even then, in those painful weeks, I 
 learned to love that wonderful, endless country.
 
 VII 
 
 PETER IS PROMOTED 
 
 Toward the end of the fourth week some 
 horsemen, who had been sent on ahead, came 
 in with the report that the enemy were close 
 by ; so we made a better camp than usual. We 
 set up the old major's tent under a big tree, 
 made a strong barricade of thornbush around 
 us, established outposts, and slept for the night. 
 Early the next morning, when I was coming 
 from guard duty, I heard that all our horse- 
 men, not only the old Africans but also most 
 of the officers, were to go out as a scouting 
 party and ascertain the position of the enemy. 
 Soon after that I saw that they were saddling 
 and harnessing oxen to the one two-wheeled 
 wagon and the machine-gun. Then they started 
 out of camp, in all about forty mounted men. 
 The major, with his straight little figure and 
 his searching glance, rode in the midst of them,
 
 82 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 as did our lieutenant. I was vexed that he had 
 taken the corporal with him instead of me. 
 Still, I gazed after him till the narrow sandy 
 path disappeared in the bushes. He was wear- 
 ing his hat over his left ear. 
 
 After they left, we began a grand wash, for 
 in this place there was quite a lot of water in 
 deep holes which had been dug in the bright 
 gray limy earth. We made a broad ditch by 
 our fire-hole, spread a water-tight tent-cloth 
 over it, poured water into it, took off our rags 
 and washed and scrubbed them with great zeal. 
 Then we hung them up on bushes to dry. In 
 this way we spent the day rather more cheer- 
 fully than for a long time, and we talked of 
 our cavalry and when they would come back. 
 Toward evening I went to our commissariat 
 wagon and got the share for our mess and made 
 a flour mush ; and we sat about our cooking- 
 hole, as usual, and ate. 
 
 While we were sitting there we suddenly 
 saw that the next mess division were stretching 
 their necks and getting up. At the same time 
 we heard shouting from the other end of the
 
 PETER IS PROMOTED 83 
 
 camp. We sprang up and saw galloping to- 
 ward us, on the same path which our scouting 
 party had taken in the morning, a single rider. 
 He was so exhausted by his exertions that he 
 swayed from side to side with every leap of his 
 horse, and the horse was shiny with sweat and 
 bespattered with foam. They helped him dis- 
 mount, but he either could not or would not 
 speak. The captain came out of his tent and 
 led him away with him. 
 
 At that moment two more riders, old Afri- 
 cans, came in, one shortly behind the other. 
 One was a native of Schleswig, a capable, ear- 
 nest man. They called to the captain without 
 dismounting and said, in a thick voice : " More 
 than half are dead." 
 
 Then we all called out together : " Who is 
 dead? What? Who is left? Where 's the old 
 man? Is Peter dead? Is our lieutenant dead? 
 Speak, can't you?" But they said nothing. 
 Then the first one came out of the tent and 
 said : " The cart will come immediately with 
 several officers who have been wounded." 
 
 We got our guns ready, strengthened our
 
 84 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 outposts, and sent out an expedition to meet 
 the wagon, and waited, brooding and talking 
 in low voices. We felt as though we had been 
 struck on the head. 
 
 Soon we heard from a distance out of the 
 bush the cracking of whips ; then we saw the 
 white canvas top of the wagon shimmering 
 through the bushes. The harness of the oxen 
 was in disorder and several of them were 
 wounded. On the chest in the middle of the 
 wagon sat the wounded officers ; several others 
 lay near them as though dead. The old major, 
 however, stood upright in their midst. His hair 
 was bloody and his face was pale. The hospital 
 aids came running with woollen blankets, cov- 
 ered those who were lying in the wagon and 
 carried them away. Blood trickled in great 
 drops from the tail-board. After considerable 
 time, fifteen more men came in one by one, 
 among them Sergeant Hansen. That was all 
 that came back. 
 
 I went over to my mess and sat there awhile 
 despondently. The old Africans were sitting 
 not far from us, but I did not venture to go to
 
 PETER IS PROMOTED 85 
 
 them, for they had become a small company. 
 At last, however, I went and seated myself 
 silently a little at one side. 
 
 " He wanted to come back," Sergeant Han- 
 sen was saying, staring into the fire, " but he 
 had a bad shot in his leg, so he had to stay 
 lying there." Another man was mentioned. 
 " He had luck," said the man from Schleswig. 
 "He got a shot in the breast and lay quite 
 still." I asked in a low voice for our lieutenant. 
 " I don't know," said one. The other one said : 
 "He went into cover in the bush and Karl 
 saw him fall there." One of them told of the 
 old major : " As long as I live, I shall hear his 
 placid voice amidst all the distress and shots. 
 It is a wonder that he escaped alive." Another 
 said : " They all did well. They held their 
 ground lying or standing, and they charged 
 and took their death wounds like brave men." 
 The Schleswiger shook his head and brought 
 his hand down heavily on his knee. " To 
 think that that could have happened to us ! " 
 he said. They mentioned two more good names 
 of old Africans who had led and fallen.
 
 86 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 I spoke up now in a loud voice : " There is 
 a remarkably large number of dead and few 
 wounded " ; but Hansen said : " Don't be so 
 stupid. They don't make prisoners. We don't, 
 either." Then they said again that we should 
 most likely have a battle now, and, if we did, 
 it would be a very severe one. 
 
 While I was still sitting with them and lis- 
 tening, balls of red and white fire were shot as 
 signals out of great pistols, from the middle of 
 our camp up straight into the evening sky. 
 Many of us stood up on the wagons and on 
 branches of trees and watched out over the 
 vast, dark, silent bush to see if an answer came 
 from the main division. But no answer came. 
 
 When quiet was commanded in camp, I went 
 back to my division. Our corporal had not 
 come back. The next day I was promoted to 
 be corporal. The buttons which Gehlsen gave 
 me I sewed on with white thread. There was 
 no black to be had. 
 
 We remained several days more in this place. 
 Several scouting parties went and came every 
 day ; but none of them saw anything of the
 
 PETER IS PROMOTED 87 
 
 enemy. And still no messenger or signals came 
 from the main division. We talked a great deal 
 about our situation, and thought the enemy, 
 forced to the east by the main army, would 
 some day come upon us with their thousands, 
 and would run over us in order to break through 
 into the wilderness. That might well be a hard 
 position for us. 
 
 After a few days the water got scarce and 
 bad; so we broke camp one afternoon and 
 marched with great caution, for it was to be ex- 
 pected that the enemy, who on account of their 
 numerous herds of cattle needed a great deal 
 of water and had possession of the next water- 
 holes, said to be very plenteous ones, would 
 defend them zealously. Some sections had to 
 make sallies on both sides, slinking crouched 
 down among the bushes, with their guns ready 
 in their hands. I was ordered to this work. 
 
 As our main body advanced swiftly on the 
 unimpeded way, we who had to be always ahead 
 of them at one side were obliged to run, slink, 
 duck, leap, and keep continually on the alert. 
 This went on for seven hours. When I was
 
 88 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 relieved, I was dead tired. The soles of my 
 boots, -which had been torn for two weeks 
 already, were loose and my feet were sore. Be- 
 fore we went on again, I tied up my soles with 
 thongs of fresh ox-skin and pulled great thorns 
 out of my hands and arms. 
 
 We marched well into the night, which was 
 particularly dark. In the middle of the night 
 the command came suddenly from the head of 
 the column to halt and push up together. The 
 wagons came up together in haste, and we knelt 
 in a square around them, facing out with our 
 guns ready. We thought the attack was com- 
 ing now. We were all eager for it. But it 
 did n't come and soon the command was given : 
 "Stack arms, and take blankets." We sta- 
 tioned guards and camped there for the night. 
 
 Early the next day we went on unhindered 
 and reached the water place about noon. It 
 was a rather large field, white from the limy 
 soil. In several deep holes there was quite a 
 good deal of good water. There we camped. 
 
 Next morning our company set out to find 
 the place where the big scouting party had
 
 PETER IS PROMOTED 89 
 
 fought and been half annihilated. After a long, 
 difficult march through thick bush and past 
 several shallow ponds containing good water, 
 we saw, toward noon, numberless eagles and 
 vultures perching on trees, or hovering in the 
 air over the brush-field. We went toward them 
 and came to a cleared space, which at one end 
 ran up a little slope where the brush was grow- 
 ing again and where, already partially con- 
 cealed by the new growth, stood some huts 
 of the enemy. On this slope, in the long, dry 
 grass in front of the huts, lay the naked, muti- 
 lated, half-devoured bodies of many of our men. 
 Some of us were silent; some gnashed their 
 teeth, doubled up their fists, and cursed ; others 
 mocked and said : " How long will it be before 
 we are lying that way ? Then we shall have 
 no more suffering." 
 
 We placed men on guard in the bush about 
 us and began to search for the other dead, 
 especially those who had made an attack into 
 the bush and had fallen there, and we found 
 them all. Then some dug graves, others wove 
 wreaths of the dry grass, others made crosses
 
 90 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 of pieces of wood, and still others cut the 
 thorn bushes, which were hard as horn, with 
 knives or side-arms. Then we laid the dead in 
 their graves, shoveled the earth over them, 
 laid the thorny branches we had cut as a bar- 
 rier over the place so that the wild animals 
 and men would leave them in peace, and re- 
 turned again to the camp.
 
 VIII 
 
 A MEMOKABLE EASTER 
 
 This evening or the next morning a recon- 
 noitring party came back with the news that 
 it looked as if the enemy intended to break 
 through toward the east at the south of us. 
 As this movement would threaten our pro- 
 vision line, and as, moreover, no news had yet 
 come from the main division, and without it 
 our small number could hardly withstand the 
 onslaught of thousands, the major decided to 
 go back about three days' march to our old 
 water place and to lie in wait in a fortified 
 camp until news should come. 
 
 So we started on the return journey. We 
 were all depressed ; many were weary and dull. 
 When we came, after some hours' marching, 
 to a beautiful great forest with trees which 
 looked like German oaks, we were strongly 
 reminded of our native land, and we became 
 a little brighter and more lively while passing
 
 92 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 through it. We crossed the dry, sandy bed of 
 a river, which lay a yard deeper than its banks, 
 and then on again through quite narrow bush 
 paths. 
 
 While we were encamped that night, we at 
 last saw signals to the southwest of us. They 
 flashed out five or six times in red or white 
 rockets and aroused and excited us. We 
 thought they were signals from the main divi- 
 sion, and that now we should start out and 
 charge the enemy. Weeks afterward we learned 
 that it was the enemy, who, finding some rock- 
 ets near our dead, had shot them off for sport. 
 We were quieter than usual this evening. It 
 was the night before Easter. 
 
 This evening Behrens bequeathed to me, in 
 case he fell, his pistols, which he had brought 
 with him from Kiel ; and I bequeathed him 
 my watch and chain, which I had earned by 
 voluntarily helping in the workshop when I 
 was a fourteen-year-old boy. Otto Hargens, a 
 one-year volunteer from Ditmarsh, a bright 
 young fellow who was promoted to be under 
 officer that evening, was witness.
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 93 
 
 The next morning, while it was still dark, 
 we made a fine Easter fire of dried thorn-bush 
 in the middle of the camp, and all stood about 
 it and gazed into it and were glad that we were 
 still alive, although our life was so dirty and 
 friendless and painful; and we thought of 
 home, picturing how the mother was giving 
 out the Sunday clothes, and how clean the 
 living-room was, and how festive the morning 
 coffee, and how the church-bells were ringing 
 out over the houses. 
 
 Just at this hour, in the gray of the morn- 
 ing, a great company of the enemy was really 
 moving to the east, not in order to break 
 through into the wilderness, but in order to 
 lie in wait for us in an especially bushy part 
 of the road we should pass that day. 
 
 About six o'clock, when the Easter sun had 
 risen bright and clear, we broke camp. We 
 proceeded in the following order: first, the 
 little group of cavalry which still remained to 
 us, on their emaciated, wounded, and rough- 
 coated horses ; then a company marching ; then 
 our cannon ; then our fifty wagons, each with
 
 94 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 a team of twenty-four oxen ; and then my com- 
 pany. I went in the first platoon. Behind this, 
 as the rear of the whole column, at a distance 
 of about three hundred yards, marched a half- 
 platoon. The whole column was about two 
 miles and a half long. On the narrow, dusty 
 road, which wound in many curves through 
 the thick bush, only a small part of it could 
 be seen at a time. But one heard from the 
 cracking of whips and the shouting of the 
 negro drivers, " Work, Work, Osse ! " how the 
 procession was going forward. 
 
 I was passing, in my thoughts of home, 
 through our whole house. I went to the door 
 and looked down the street where the people 
 were going to church, and I turned back into 
 the kitchen where mother was inspecting my 
 little sisters to see if they were properly dressed 
 for going to church. How peaceful and clean 
 and lovely it all was there ! And I was really 
 here and tired, hungry, clad in dirty rags, 
 marching through a foreign land, far, far away 
 from my home, in the midst of a wild, heathen 
 enemy. So I mused, and I believe I heard the
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 95 
 
 Easter bells as they pealed slowly and waver- 
 ingly out over the city. 
 
 Then two bullets fell not far behind me. I 
 woke up, and I thought at first that an officer 
 had gone into the bush and fired at some game. 
 
 We went on, but the next moment — while 
 now shot followed upon shot behind us, and we 
 turned around with our guns ready to fire — 
 a man came by breathless, running to the front 
 and calling : " The rear is under fire ! " The of- 
 ficers immediately ordered us to press forward 
 into the bushes. I was already running with 
 Behrens and Gehlsen into the bush and then to- 
 ward the shots in the direction from which we 
 had come. I had pressed forward a little way 
 when I saw two clouds of smoke rising among 
 bushes in front of me. I hastily raised my gun 
 to my cheek and fired standing. At that same 
 moment I saw something at my side fall heav- 
 ily, as a log falls. When I had fired, I saw 
 that Behrens was lying there in convulsions. 
 I sprang diagonally forward behind the next 
 bush, with others following, dropped on one 
 knee, and delivered a furious, rapid fire in the
 
 96 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 direction of the smoke at some dark thing 
 which was moving behind the bush. I don't 
 know how many times I fired. Then my other 
 comrade, who was kneeling beside me, fell, and 
 in falling dropped his gun. He groaned aloud. 
 I threw myself down and fired quickly in order, 
 as had been previously arranged, to call the 
 attention of other comrades to where I lay 
 hard pressed. They sprang up, threw them- 
 selves down at intervals and shot as I was do- 
 ing at an enemy of whom we saw nothing but 
 little clouds of smoke here and there among 
 the bushes. We were lying like logs. Close by 
 me was an under officer whose left arm was 
 bleeding badly. He had propped his gun on a 
 dry branch and was firing at short regular in- 
 tervals. Bullets were coming from in front and 
 both sides. Now I saw something strange com- 
 ing at us. In a mass it lay and kneeled and 
 slipped through the bushes. I saw no single in- 
 dividual, only a group. It came quite near, and 
 the balls splintered the bush around me. I 
 shouted as loud as I could : " Here, this way ! " 
 I almost think that we could have held our own
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 97 
 
 in that place till reinforcements had arrived, 
 but just then came the command from the cap- 
 tain, " Keep low and fall back ! " I sprang up 
 with four companions and ran back one or two 
 bushes and flung myself down again. Three 
 of us reached there ; one, who was hit as he was 
 leaping, stumbled and fell. He tried to creep 
 after us, moaning piteously. I lay and shot 
 over him and moved a little to one side because 
 he was raising his arms in agony. Again we 
 sprang up, and while on the run, the man next 
 me clutched at his breast, let his gun fall, leaned 
 sideways against a bush, and while still stand- 
 ing said, with a look at me : " Give my brother 
 the book." Then he fell heavily and did not 
 stir again. I could not search for the book, for 
 at that moment as I turned to shoot, I saw here 
 and there in the gray-green bushes, strange 
 men in cord uniform rising like snakes out of 
 the grass. Glancing around me, I saw that I 
 was alone. Then I sprang up and in three or 
 four leaps joined some other soldiers, who were 
 now going forward stooping, and turned and 
 knelt among them to shoot. I saw not far from
 
 98 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 me a black, half -naked figure like an ape, hold- 
 ing his gun in his mouth, and climbing with 
 hands and feet into a tree. I aimed at him and 
 screamed aloud for joy when he fell down the 
 trunk. 
 
 When I wanted to fire again and was bend- 
 ing my forefinger, my hand suddenly became 
 powerless. I got very angry and looked at it 
 in a rage. Then I saw blood running out of 
 my ragged sleeve and I felt that my arm from 
 the elbow down was wet. I heard a dull, wild 
 screaming and calling of the enemy in a half- 
 circle around me. There was no one near me 
 any more. I recalled then the words which my 
 father had so often said to me, " When you 
 stick your nose into anything, you forget 
 everything else." I crept hastily back for a 
 little distance on all fours, and then springing 
 up, ran on in a crouching position. There was 
 still one man running near me, all hanging 
 over to one side, with his body bleeding. I 
 seized him under the arm as we ran, but he 
 fell groaning on one knee and bent together 
 as he knelt. I took his gun so that it might
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 99 
 
 not fall into the hands of the enemy. My own 
 I had thrown over my shoulder. I ran on in 
 this way and came, with my comrades, who 
 were pressing forward, into a clearing. 
 
 There I saw the old major standing straight 
 and placid in the middle of the place, with 
 some officers and men about him. Sections 
 kept breaking through from the other side of 
 the road and dispersed themselves at a motion 
 of his hand round about him in the clearing, 
 and throwing themselves upon the ground fired 
 at the enemy. Behind the men who had come 
 up running came the cannon in all haste ; in 
 obedience to his motion they were turned 
 about just in front of him and were fired over 
 the companies lying in front, into the enemy. 
 Near a revolving cannon both my guns fell 
 from my grasp, my knees lost their strength, 
 and I collapsed. I looked in despair at my 
 bloody arm. While I was cowering there, I 
 reached for the roll of bandage that I had in 
 my coat and I managed to get it ; but when I 
 wanted to tie it around my arm, the blood 
 would not stop and a sailor helped me. Some
 
 100 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 wounded men were already lying and kneel- 
 ing there, and others with faces drawn with 
 pain came creeping up and lay down behind 
 the cannon, which were firing steadily. 
 
 Soon after, when the ammunition wagons 
 and ambulances came galloping up, I stood up 
 and tried to pull along a chest of ammunition 
 which had been knocked open with axes. I 
 could help only for a while, I don't know how 
 long, for suddenly my knees, which I had 
 held firm by main force, gave way under me. 
 I slunk back again to the other wounded men 
 and sat with them, stemming with my left 
 hand the blood which was pouring from my 
 wounded arm. Sometimes I would look up ; 
 and when I did, I always saw the old major 
 searching the whole clearing with his eyes. 
 
 The other men stood or lay in a half -circle 
 around the wounded and the sick — who had 
 been removed from the wagons and were lying 
 indifferent with flushed faces under their 
 blankets — and fired furiously at the enemy, 
 who were pressing up close. They came so 
 near that I saw them. Most of them wore the
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 101 
 
 uniform of our home guards ; but some had 
 European summer suits on and some were 
 half naked. Their limbs seemed remarkably 
 long, their motions remarkably smooth and 
 tortuous. They slipped and glided and leaped 
 through the bush toward us. Two or three 
 times the artillery fired with shrapnel. It 
 roared through the air like a cataract ; then 
 it rattled and crackled, and the enemy gave 
 way. In this way our men, lying and standing 
 about us, held out for two hours against a 
 wild onslaught, but were unable to advance a 
 step. 
 
 Finally, however, they began to press for- 
 ward in the bush, forced back the enemy, 
 and pushed their way to the place where we, 
 the rear company, had fought, hoping prob- 
 ably to find some who still lived; but they 
 were all dead and stripped. They brought in 
 the bodies and laid them in a semicircle under 
 a tree. I, with some others, started toward 
 them ; I wanted to see my two dearest com- 
 rades oiice more, but we were hurried back 
 that we might not see the pitiable sight. Some
 
 102 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 comrades were already digging a grave; others 
 were barricading the camp, for we were to 
 spend the night here. 
 
 Toward evening, as the sun was setting, the 
 dead were laid in the ground; twenty men 
 fired over their open grave; the old major 
 talked of the Fatherland and God, and of 
 death and the Easter faith. I sat sore and half 
 beside myself, leaning against the side of a 
 wagon by the wounded, some of whom were 
 talking softly, others sighing painfully, others 
 sleeping from exhaustion or lying in a stupor, 
 and one or two already gasping in death. 
 Gehlsen, who also had a flesh wound in his 
 arm, sat near me, and they brought us some 
 rice and a cook-pan cover full of water, about 
 a pint. I would gladly have drunk three quarts, 
 but far or near there was no water. I felt very 
 forlorn and suffered torturing homesickness. 
 
 It was lucky for me that Hansen and Wil- 
 kins came and, taking hold of me under the 
 arms, carried me over to their companions, the 
 old Africans, and gave me secretly more water 
 and a piece of dry pancake and a blanket.
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 103 
 
 They were always somewhat better provided 
 than we were. I sat there and heard with 
 dulled senses what they were saying. They 
 said that the fight had been a slight victory, 
 for the enemy had fled ; but it was a success 
 too dearly bought. They said, also, that they 
 had not given the enemy credit for such great 
 bravery, and thought it probable that they 
 would attack us again in the morning. I also 
 heard them talk of our sick men ; they said 
 that with such miserable fare and foul water 
 many more would be sick. I wondered in my 
 half -sleep why they made so much account of 
 the sick ones and did not talk much more 
 of the two and thirty who lay in the ground 
 under the big tree, and of their parents and 
 brothers and sisters. I had grown more and 
 more weary, and had wrapped myself in my 
 blanket and had laid my burning arm on my 
 hip, and heard only now and then a word, till 
 all around me seemed quiet. Then there began 
 again to be a movement in the bushes. In my 
 troubled sleep I heard shots again and saw 
 black men round about me, climbing trees,
 
 104 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 their guns in their mouths. The old Africans 
 stood on all sides of me and hit with every 
 shot ; but there were too many of the enemy 
 and one came and seized me by the arm and 
 wanted to take away my protecting blanket. 
 Then I groaned, and half awake, half asleep, 
 heard Henry Hansen say : " Let him lie there. 
 I don't need a blanket. I have the hide of an 
 elephant." 
 
 The next morning we had a little rice and 
 water. Then the sick and wounded, two of 
 whom were unconscious, were lifted into wag- 
 ons. I seated myself on the chest in the front 
 of the wagon, my arm, which stung and burned, 
 in a sling. Behind me, in the long covered 
 wagon, in two rows, lay four wounded and two 
 sick men. The negro by the oxen raised his 
 long thin arms for the first swing of the whip 
 and shouted to the beasts. Then the wagon 
 wheel struck against the first stone which lay 
 in the rut and fell down off it, jolting heav- 
 ily, and behind me I heard painful groans. I 
 was supporting my well arm on my knee. We 
 went on in a long, long train, wagon after
 
 A MEMORABLE EASTER 105 
 
 wagon, with cannon, and comrades marching 1 , 
 scattered in between. As we passed the great 
 grave under the tree, every one cast once more 
 a long look upon it. Those that forgot it at 
 first turned and looked back. I thought as I 
 passed : " If God brings me back to my home, 
 and gives me health and a long life, I will 
 stand before that grave once more and think 
 whether I am worthy in my own eyes to have 
 come alive out of that den of fire." Then the 
 dead lay alone. 
 
 One fellow, the one who had a shot in the 
 body, was being tortured slowly to death by 
 his wound. In the morning he still spoke short 
 words in a low voice ; at noon he took a little 
 of the dirty water ; soon after you could hear 
 the heavy rattling in his throat, and later he 
 became unconscious. Toward evening he lay 
 with open mouth and set eyes, but I noticed 
 from the rising and sinking of his dirty woollen 
 blanket that he still lived. One of our one-year 
 volunteers, a surgeon, came at every stop and 
 looked into the wagon, and I saw quick sym- 
 pathy in his eyes. He was not much older than
 
 106 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 I, but he had grown a long, heavy beard in 
 the bush. 
 
 When at nightfall I waked from a half- 
 sleep, a man from the first platoon, a Rhine- 
 lander, was sitting near me on the chest. He 
 complained of weakness in his feet and knees, 
 and felt first hot and then cold. He looked at 
 me out of deep, dry eyes in a strangely con- 
 fused way, and great drops of sweat came out 
 on his forehead. The surgeon came, felt his 
 pulse, looked suspiciously at him, saying to 
 himself, " That is the twelfth in seven days," 
 and went away again. 
 
 At evening we reached our old camp, where 
 we were to remain on our guard against the 
 enemy and wait for news.
 
 IX 
 
 DESTITUTION AND MISERY 
 
 That night I couldn't sleep on account of 
 fever. I lay with open eyes near the hospital 
 and watched them caring for the sick and 
 wounded. They took a tent canvas, folded it 
 once, stuffed long, dry grass into the sack thus 
 formed, laid the sufferers upon it, and did all 
 they could for their comfort. Toward morning 
 a new patient came in; he walked with drag- 
 ging feet and half-closed eyes, pale as death. 
 In the forenoon two more came. There were 
 already about seventeen wounded and fourteen 
 sick lying there. The sick ones lay as apathetic 
 as if they had been stunned by a blow on the 
 head. If any one questioned them, they said 
 they felt no pain, but were exhausted and hot. 
 In the next three days twelve more were sick. 
 So it went from day to day. It began to be 
 said openly that it was typhoid fever due to
 
 108 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 the insufficient, poor food and foul water, and 
 to the filth and chilling in the thin, ragged 
 clothing. 
 
 When in the morning we had brewed our 
 coffee at as big a fire as we could make so as 
 to warm ourselves after the cold night, our 
 comrades would come up and practice grips as 
 if they were in the barrack-yard at Kiel. Then 
 they swarmed in squads into the bush, crept 
 and slunk and ducked, threw themselves and 
 lay ready for an attack, aimed against the sun 
 and with the sun, and sprang up and stormed 
 with " Hurrah ! " But the old Africans jeered 
 and said they were n't shouting " Hurrah ! " 
 but "Hunger." At twelve the voice of the 
 sergeant sounded from the wagons, " Get ra- 
 tions." The men to whom that duty was 
 intrusted ran up and came back under the 
 canvas with a little flour and rice and salt 
 and unroasted coffee. Then in every mess there 
 began fire-making and stirring and talking 
 and advice and spooning and eating. I could 
 n't do anything more than carry a little water. 
 At three, drill began again. The men sat in
 
 DESTITUTION AND MISERY 109 
 
 the rifle-pits in squads under corporals and 
 cleaned their arms. I sat with them. Conver- 
 sation was slow and dragging. A melancholy 
 song was started : " Zu Strassburg auf der 
 Schanz'," or " Steh' ich in finstrer Mitter- 
 nacht." But it sounded dull and soon died 
 out. It got dark very quickly evenings. We 
 used to sit in the lee of a tent canvas and talk 
 of all sorts of things and sing songs. From the 
 tent of the old major we would catch the sound 
 of a laugh or an invective. Out of the dark 
 opening of the long hospital tent flashed the 
 wandering light of the orderly as he went from 
 one to another. Here and there a light would 
 glimmer in a fire-hole. Under the trees the 
 negroes used to sit and sing in unison a choral 
 taught them by the missionaries. Then an 
 officer off duty would come by from the non- 
 commissioned officers' posts which surrounded 
 the camp, and calling shortly to the negroes to 
 hold their tongues, " Will jelle slap," would 
 go into his tent. 
 
 So passed one day like another. Wonderful 
 rumors flew continually through the camp : a
 
 110 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 thousand cavalry were on the way from Ger- 
 many to help us ; the governor had beaten the 
 negroes in a battle lasting two days ; there were 
 numberless negroes killed and their bodies had 
 been burned on pyres. Probably the conversa- 
 tion turned no less than fifty times upon the 
 subject of our dismissal and return home. That 
 was our favorite theme ! Home ! What happy 
 faces they would wear there ! What should n't 
 we have to tell ? When the little reconnoitring 
 party of five or six men on thin, worn-out 
 horses came back it was soon known at every 
 cooking-hole what they had reported, and we 
 founded great assertions on the news. Each 
 one was a staff-officer and wiser than all the 
 rest. And then when we have beaten the enemy 
 one way or another we '11 go home ! That was 
 always the conclusion. Oh, to go home ! We 
 all, every one of us, wanted to go home. 
 
 The oppressive heat of the days and the 
 piercing cold of the nights, the wretched fare 
 and the miserable water, were making more 
 and more of the men weak, sluggish, and 
 indifferent. We all spoke another language,
 
 DESTITUTION AND MISERY 111 
 
 without life and without emphasis, just as 
 though we were drunk with sleep. Some few 
 kept cheerful. Henry Gehlsen used often to 
 come and cheer me up. In spite of his 
 wounded arm he was always active and inter- 
 ested in everything new that he saw: in a bird 
 in the air, in a cloud in the sky, in the speech 
 of the black drivers, and in the fever of the 
 sick ones. Henry Hansen, the old guardsman, 
 used to nod surreptitiously to me, and in the 
 shelter of the commissariat wagon would slip 
 a morsel of cold pancake into my hand. My 
 arm, which had been shot through, was fever- 
 ish and painful, and besides that I had a hor- 
 rid oppressed feeling in my body, and I was 
 so exhausted that sometimes in broad daylight, 
 as I sat at the fire-hole and watched the life 
 about me, my eyes would shut, my chin would 
 drop on my breast, and I would slowly fall 
 over to one side and sleep. 
 
 Singing in camp was now becoming more 
 and more infrequent and conversation more 
 and more forced. We were getting continually 
 dirtier, hungrier, and sicker. Apathetic and
 
 112 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 silent, we saw every night one or two of our 
 number laid in the strange, gray earth, clad 
 in their torn, dirty rags and wrapped in their 
 gray woollen blankets. Heavily and wearily 
 those who were commanded to shoot in honor 
 of the dead raised their arms; wearily and 
 with dulled senses they shoveled the earth 
 over their comrades and laid thorn branches 
 above them. In the night I used to be wak- 
 ened by the tired, delirious talking of the 
 sick ones, and by the howling of the jackals 
 which scented the graves. 
 
 After we had been for two weeks in this 
 camp, matters had come to such a pass that 
 every fourth man was sick. They lay in full 
 uniform in two long rows on the ground, with 
 tent canvas stretched over them as protection 
 from the burning sun. They had to lie there, 
 seriously sick, not only without any sort of 
 medicine, but also without proper nourish- 
 ment. We had neither milk nor eggs. We 
 had n't even a piece of dry bread. We had n't 
 even a bit of cleanliness. 
 
 The old major conducted himself as though
 
 DESTITUTION AND MISERY 113 
 
 he had good courage still, and did everything 
 he could think of for us. The last joy on earth 
 to many a one was a kind, cheerful word 
 spoken by him. I used often to see him com- 
 ing out of the hospital tent and often was 
 gladdened by his kindly consolation. But 
 when more and more of us fell ill, and more 
 and more went indifferently about their work, 
 and still no news or provisions or hospital sup- 
 plies came, even he had to give up hope. He 
 probably thought of going on again, but he 
 realized that his little troop would no longer 
 present the appearance of an army, but rather 
 that of a transport of sick soldiers. Then he 
 sent messengers to the main division to report 
 that he was powerless and must desist from 
 harassing the enemy, and that he could not 
 any longer see this dying off of the young 
 men, and that he wanted to seek a place with 
 a better water-supply.
 
 HOMESICKNESS AND FEVER 
 
 Then they packed those who were severely 
 wounded and the sick on the wagons, while I 
 crouched inactive, with dull, confused head, 
 and inflamed and burning arm, by the wheel 
 of the ammunition wagon. 
 
 The well men marched beside and behind 
 the wagon. A few sat on worn, rough horses. 
 So we started on a depressing journey. I sat 
 in the provision wagon conducted by Hansen. 
 We used to sit side by side for hours while he 
 smoked his short pipe and spoke an occasional 
 word. 
 
 Once a man in delirium sprang right out of 
 the wagon into the bush and was never seen 
 again. Then guards had to be stationed about 
 the wagons so that no one could escape. One 
 of those who had the fever attacked a doctor 
 with his side-arms, and another who was still
 
 HOMESICKNESS AND FEVER 115 
 
 in the ranks shot wildly around him. Three of 
 the sick died on the way and were buried in 
 the bush. The one-year volunteer was surgeon, 
 nurse, and soldier, all in one. His face was 
 growing narrower and paler, but his beard was 
 getting longer and thicker. 
 
 On the third night several oxen collapsed 
 and one died. We stopped our wagon to help 
 them. I don't know how it happened that the 
 rest of the force went on. They probably 
 thought that the place for bivouac was close 
 by and that we would follow immediately. 
 But we were delayed an hour. Then we con- 
 tinued on the narrow road in the bush, in the 
 dark night, — ten sick men with three men to 
 protect them and the drivers saying they had 
 seen the enemy in the bush. I climbed pain- 
 fully into the wagon and told the two wounded 
 men, who were partly in possession of their 
 senses and had some strength, how things 
 stood with us. They half sat up and took 
 their guns and held watch with us till we 
 could go on. 
 
 On the fourth day of our retreat we reached
 
 116 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 a good water-supply. There was there a small, 
 very simple church which the mission had 
 built, and the partially destroyed house of the 
 missionary. In this building beds made of grass 
 and blankets were prepared on the ground. 
 The well men encamped some hundred yards 
 above on a hill. There we were to remain 
 until the disease had run itself out among us. 
 At that time we heard that the campaign had 
 come to a standstill for the present, because 
 the insurrection had assumed too great pro- 
 portions for the small German force which 
 was at the time available in the colony. 
 
 When we had been encamped there for 
 about ten days, provisions finally arrived, and 
 mattresses and also strengthening food for 
 the sick ; such things as wine, bouillon, white 
 of egg, cocoa, and Quaker oats, so that at last 
 they had beds and enough to eat. We, too, 
 were well fed, but we still had to go on wear- 
 ing our horribly dirty clothing. 
 
 We lived in the greatest despondency, all 
 sick, and some dying every day. I made my- 
 self useful as far as I could. Languid and
 
 HOMESICKNESS AND FEVER 117 
 
 with dull head I went about among the sick ; 
 with my sound left hand gave water to one 
 and a piece of zwieback to another, and helped 
 a third to sit up a little to attend to the needs 
 of nature. 
 
 In these miserable, gloomy weeks two com- 
 rades came especially near to me. Formerly, 
 when we were well, we had hardly known one 
 another. One was a Thuringian boy, with 
 childlike, brown eyes, who said little. Even 
 on the ship it had struck me that he was very 
 silent and looked surprised at everything. 
 Afterwards, when we had landed and pushed 
 our way into the bush, his eyes became more 
 and more timid, and his mouth more and 
 more mutely closed. For the rest he had a 
 strong body and bore everything well and 
 without complaining, and he stood his ground 
 in a fight. Now he was sick in bed. With his 
 gun and his blanket he had come down to us 
 from the camp, shivering and with dull eyes, 
 and he said, with a shy attempt at a jest, as 
 he lay down : " Now I shall be a gentleman 
 of leisure with you the rest of my days." I
 
 118 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 now talked often with him, more by signs 
 and suggestion than by means of words, for 
 our throats were dried-out tubes and our 
 thoughts had dragging feet. Then I under- 
 stood that to him everything which we had 
 experienced since leaving Kiel had been un- 
 canny and horrible, — the everlasting expanse 
 of the open sea, the forbidding, defiant coast 
 of England, the sublime Peak of Teneriffe, 
 the unfamiliar constellations, the scorching 
 sun, the bare shore of Swakopmund, the sight 
 of our dead, the dying of comrades. For all 
 these great and hard things his soul was not 
 tough enough. He died of dysentery and 
 heart weakness on the seventh day. 
 
 The other was already very sick when we 
 moved into this camp. He was born in Nurem- 
 berg and had spent his childhood there. When 
 he was fifteen years old he had left his home 
 because of a stepfather, and since that time 
 had wandered restlessly over the world. He 
 had traveled out to South America from Bre- 
 men as a steward, had gone straight through 
 to Chile, had seen Samoa, and had been a waiter
 
 HOMESICKNESS AND FEVER 119 
 
 in San Francisco. There he had enlisted in the 
 United States Navy, but not for long. A few 
 hundred marks in his pocket had enabled him 
 to travel from New Orleans to Australia to dig 
 gold, but he found little or none. When Aus- 
 tralia was enlisting volunteers to fight against 
 the Boers, he had come over as a trimmer, but 
 to help the Boers. He was captured and had 
 survived some bad days on the Island of Cey- 
 lon. From there he had returned to Cape Town, 
 and, at the first news of revolt in our colony, 
 had volunteered. I believe there are not many 
 Germans who wander so restlessly and madly 
 and with such foolish good-nature through the 
 world. The whole life of such is passed run- 
 ning indiscriminately, at the first impulse of 
 a restless, unstable mind, into the right or 
 wrong path, and after that course is run, plung- 
 ing without reflection or regret at the next 
 object which comes just then into their field 
 of vision. He railed against the English, the 
 Americans, and most of all against the Boers, 
 but I was convinced that he would have run 
 to the Japanese or the French if there had
 
 120 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 been any trouble in those quarters. It is bad 
 when a human being has no control over his 
 life. He was lying now very sick with typhoid 
 fever, indulging in all sorts of fancies, although 
 he had so confidently believed and boasted that 
 he was too well hardened to be sick. When 
 he was slowly recovering he became perfectly 
 reasonable and narrated to me his whole life. 
 For an entire week, however, he clung to the 
 delusion that both his legs had been shot off. 
 Many an hour I sat by him, and I learned a 
 great deal from his conversation. What be- 
 came of him afterwards I do not know. 
 
 I was still strong enough to keep about on 
 my feet, but once when I went out of camp, 
 as I was obliged to do many times a day, I 
 found that I had symptoms of dysentery. Then 
 I went back to the others, all my courage gone, 
 and I sat and brooded and firmly believed that 
 I should have to die here ; and I reconciled 
 myself to this fate with mournful reflections 
 and thought sadly of my parents. I said no- 
 thing to the surgeon, but there was a hospital 
 attendant there whom I asked about it and he
 
 HOMESICKNESS AND FEVER 121 
 
 said : " You have typhoid in one part of your 
 body and dysentery in another, but you have 
 a lucky nature and you '11 pull through." And 
 he gave me some pills. I took the pills exactly 
 as he directed; but I didn't believe the rest 
 of his preaching, for he was half out of his 
 mind. There were many in this campaign, offi- 
 cers, surgeons, hospital attendants, and soldiers, 
 who were still doing their duty faithfully, just 
 as an engine continues to run for a little while 
 after the steam is shut off ; but inwardly they 
 were already sick and full of confused visions. 
 One evening — I had already been for weeks 
 in the typhoid hospital — some one had re- 
 ceived a letter, I think from Swakopmund. In 
 it among other things it was said that every- 
 body in Germany was talking about the Russo- 
 Japanese war, but nobody mentioned us ; in- 
 deed, people made sport of us and our distress 
 as they do of men who are contending for a 
 ridiculous and lost cause, and they did n't want 
 to hear anything about us because they said 
 we did n't understand how to make a quick 
 conquest. I wanted at first to throw away the
 
 122 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 letter, but then I thought I would show it to 
 Henry Hansen. He did n't come, however, but 
 the next day another old guardsman came and 
 I showed him the letter, for all my courage 
 had deserted me. He read it and laughed, say- 
 ing: "What surprises you in that? Hasn't 
 it always been so? How many wives has the 
 King of Siam? What kind of garters does the 
 Queen of Spain wear? What answer did you 
 get to the post-card you sent the Japanese 
 general? See! That's the sort of thing that 
 interests the German. You just ought to hear 
 how the English on every street-corner laugh 
 at us Johnnies and boasters. The Englishman 
 asks at every turn of affairs : ' What use will 
 this be to me and to England?'" And with 
 that he went off. 
 
 I went back to my sick comrades, fetched 
 my blanket, and seated myself on the ground 
 at one side of the entrance to the hospital 
 tent. It was a cold, disagreeable evening. In 
 the thicket dry branches were snapping ; 
 vultures were flying toward the high trees 
 which rose thick and dark above the bush.
 
 HOMESICKNESS AND FEVER 123 
 
 From behind me came intermittently the loud 
 wailing of a very sick soldier. A fellow who 
 was slightly sick sat crouched down in front 
 of the provision tent on a chest that had been 
 half smashed in and sang in a melancholy, 
 weary voice, our old song : — 
 
 Doch mein Schicksal will es nimmer, 
 Durch die Welt ich wandern muss. 
 Trautes Heim, dein denk' ich immer, 
 Trautes Heim, dir gilt mein Grass. 
 Sei gegriisst in weiter Ferae, 
 Teure Heimat, sei gegriisst. 
 
 Two comrades, wrapped in their cloaks, their 
 spades on their shoulders, went across to the 
 hill, to dig a new grave.
 
 XI 
 
 CIVILIZATION AND A BATH 
 
 In the fourth week of my stay in the typhoid 
 camp I heard that fresh troops had come from 
 Germany and that still more would come, all 
 Huzzars, four thousand in all, and that now 
 the campaign was to go forward with more 
 vigor. But to me that was all indifferent news, 
 and I thought : "If you were only out of this 
 monkey-land ! " 
 
 But in the fifth week the force of my dis- 
 ease was spent. As health and strength slowly 
 returned, I thought that it was n't good to go 
 home after such experiences as I had had. 
 I wanted to be on hand for the second and 
 better part of the campaign, for the " quick 
 conquest." 
 
 It happened that a first lieutenant with a 
 little scouting party of three men came to us 
 from the east. On the way he had lost one
 
 CIVILIZATION AND A BATH 125 
 
 man, and he had to leave another as a typhoid 
 patient. One day I stopped him and begged 
 him to take me with him. He asked me if I 
 could ride. I said, " Yes/' although I had not 
 sat on a horse since the days of my childhood, 
 and even then never on a saddle. He looked at 
 me distrustfully and said : " You '11 fall off 
 your horse on the way." " At your service, 
 sir," I said, " I am as strong as a tree " ; and 
 I looked at him. He was thin as a rail, and 
 his eyes glittered under his forehead. " I have 
 led a dog's life for four months," said he. 
 "At your service, sir," I said, "so have I, 
 and for that reason I want to get away from 
 here." Then he got my dismissal from the 
 captain. 
 
 Before morning dawned I went to the 
 horses, which were already standing tied to 
 our wagons, and said to the under officer, who 
 was one of the party and was standing near 
 the horses, that I had never yet ridden on a 
 saddle. He abused me roundly at first and 
 asked me if I knew even which end of a horse 
 was the front and which the back. I thought
 
 126 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 to myself, " Don't make him quite wild," 
 and I seized the saddle, went up to the animal, 
 and recalling to mind how I had in my life 
 seen a horse saddled, put it on not so far 
 wrong. Then he began again to berate me 
 violently and to show me how to do it right. 
 Then I practiced mounting and dismounting 
 and thought : " That will do, all right." The 
 next day I learned from the other man that 
 the under officer had only a little while before 
 mounted a horse for the first time in his life, 
 and had made a great deal more fuss about it 
 than I. Then I wondered at the extraordinary 
 boarders on God's earth. Indeed, I have often 
 been amazed at them. 
 
 So on that morning, after I had been four 
 months in the bush and wilderness, I rode with 
 the scouting party to the west, to Windhuk. 
 My companions had been out here just as long 
 as I. I was very much in fear of the first trot, 
 but it went tolerably well. With light heart but 
 sore body I rode along, energetically nodding 
 my head all the time. The next day it went 
 much better. The lieutenant, a tall Rhinelan-
 
 CIVILIZATION AND A BATH 127 
 
 der, was a pleasant man ; he often talked with 
 me and seemed pleased with me. 
 
 After we had ridden for two days through 
 a barren, deserted region, we began to ap- 
 proach the city. When we saw from afar the 
 first telegraph pole, we called one another's 
 attention to it, and we surveyed the long, thin 
 thing with joyous eyes. As we rode by the 
 first house that was n't roofless and had n't 
 burned-out window-holes, we admired it very 
 much, and when we noticed that proper fur- 
 niture, a table and chairs, were standing on the 
 open veranda, we stared in astonishment and 
 turned in our saddles to look till we had passed. 
 With wide-open eyes we gazed into the garden, 
 which in former years the colonist had laid out 
 with great care. There were really the palms 
 and .arbors of which we had dreamed and 
 talked in Kiel and on the water, and there was 
 a pond ! Oh, if only we could ride into it ! 
 And there in the shade of the veranda stood a 
 German woman, and she held a little child on 
 her arm. How we looked! How we rejoiced 
 over the light clean dress she wore, and her
 
 128 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 friendly face, and the little white child ! We 
 gazed as though at a miracle from heaven at 
 a sight any one could see every day in Ger- 
 many, — just like the three holy kings who 
 came out of the desert and looked from their 
 horses upon Mary and her child. She looked 
 at us, ragged, dirty, hungry fellows, and bowed 
 in a friendly way, with big sympathetic eyes, 
 when we all, as though at a command, raised 
 our hands to our caps. 
 
 Weary, but with spirit, our horses mounted 
 the sandy road to the fort. In the yard, where 
 there were some soldiers and some Hottentot 
 women, we dismounted and looked after our 
 horses. The lieutenant went to the commandant 
 to make his report. 
 
 But I, when we had cared for our beasts, 
 walked across the yard, stretching my arms out 
 on both sides — so disgusting did I seem to 
 myself — and went into a room and had given 
 out to me a whole, new cord uniform, with 
 riding boots. I pushed back my ragged left 
 sleeve and laid the clothes over my arm and 
 went in a hurry straight over to the bathhouse,
 
 CIVILIZATION AND A BATH 129 
 
 where I tore off my rags, plunged into the 
 water, and washed and soaped and scrubbed 
 till my whole body was red. 
 
 When I came out into the yard again in my 
 fine new home-guard uniform, the lieutenant 
 was talking with a citizen and did not recog- 
 nize me. Then he laughed and said something 
 to the man about me, at which the latter turned 
 and said : " I am the husband of the woman 
 who was standing with her child on the ve- 
 randa when you rode by. She would like to 
 thank you for your friendly greeting. Will 
 you be our guest this evening?" I was so 
 pleased that I blushed. 
 
 So that evening, after I had had another bath 
 and had scrubbed myself again, I went out to 
 the neighborhood of the house and waited till 
 the lieutenant had gone in and then went in 
 just behind him. When I entered the living- 
 room the man shook hands with me, and his 
 wife talked kindly to me and showed me the 
 child ; and then I sat down with them at the 
 table and stared dumbly at the white table- 
 cloth and the plates and the bread and milk
 
 130 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and sugar; and I listened to the woman's lovely 
 voice. In that hour I could have been over- 
 happy if I had been able to keep from think- 
 ing of my sick and dead comrades. 
 
 When I took my leave after supper and 
 went up to the fort, I saw some soldiers laugh- 
 ing with Hottentot women, and one fellow 
 said to me as he passed that these women 
 were at our disposal at any time. That made 
 me angry, and I went up to the long veranda 
 that lies to the west. I stood there a long 
 time and looked over to the mountains, gilded 
 by the sinking sun ; and I thought of home 
 with violent longing. 
 
 I lived for three weeks at the fort, and from 
 the better food that I received there, and 
 from the cleanliness which I enjoyed, I re- 
 gained strength more and more. I wrote three 
 whole days on a detailed letter home, and I 
 often went to the house of the merchant to 
 play with the baby and to talk with its parents. 
 
 As the campaign at this time had come 
 entirely to a standstill, the enemy were very 
 bold. Their mounted parties came down from
 
 CIVILIZATION AND A BATH 131 
 
 the north and harassed and surprised our 
 commissariat trains, our scouting parties, and 
 our cattle guards. They even dared to come 
 close to the capital, and drove off our cattle 
 and shot several of our men. I often sat on 
 horseback with others to watch for them, but 
 we seldom got a shot at them. 
 
 I had a great deal of conversation with fel- 
 low-soldiers who were in this command, or 
 who, like myself, were at Windhuk on account 
 of illness, or who came and went ; and with 
 the Boers whom the government had taken 
 on as freight-carriers, and with farmers who 
 had fled here from the bush. 
 
 Among 1 all these various men who had 
 gathered here from all quarters, and were 
 always coming and going, the wildest 
 rumors were rife. For though in war times 
 especially distorted reports are always coming 
 to light anew and are believed and spread 
 abroad by excited minds, South Africa in 
 particular, from Congo to the Cape, on ac- 
 count of its incipient and rapidly and rest- 
 lessly developing political life, and on account
 
 132 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 of the immense distances, and the numberless 
 idle hours which trekking with oxen causes, 
 was spun over with a monstrous gossip. One 
 may say that South Africa is like a great 
 building in process of construction, in all the 
 rooms of which mechanics are pounding and 
 hammering. The noise resounds loud and 
 clear through all the great, empty rooms. 
 
 But often after such talks I used to go out 
 alone on the veranda and look off into the 
 broad country to the west and see the sun 
 set. And as it sank, I saw light, white clouds 
 descend out of the sky and spread out like a 
 garment. And I watched the garment sink 
 slowly down before the sun to the earth, and 
 I saw how the departing sun painted it all 
 the colors of the rainbow. Blended in delicate 
 stripes, they glided down to the earth. At 
 the side to the south shone a mighty moun- 
 tain range of naked stone, which reflected the 
 light like metal ; but in the parts where the 
 failing light no longer reached it, it menaced 
 hard and gloomy. I stood watching it with 
 ever new wonder until the whole beautiful
 
 CIVILIZATION AND A BATH 133 
 
 picture faded and night and the stars came 
 quickly on. And the stars were beautiful, too ! 
 How wonderfully hot they glowed in the deep 
 black sky ! But I only thought, at the sight 
 of all this splendor of the day and night : " Oh, 
 Africa, if I were only at home ! "
 
 XII 
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 
 
 At the beginning of the fourth week I felt 
 that I had entirely regained my health, and 
 the lazy life here was becoming loathsome to 
 me. Just in this week the lieutenant was pre- 
 paring himself to go north to the front ; so I 
 told him what I had at heart, that I would 
 gladly go on and make the new campaign with 
 him. He started up as he usually did, and 
 grumbled : " What ! you want to go with me ? 
 Where are the others, then?" I replied: "One 
 third are dead ; another third are sick and 
 wounded ; the rest are scattered here and there 
 in military posts." He regarded me thought- 
 fully and said : " You poor rascals ! You were 
 so smart and saucy when you arrived and you 
 have experienced nothing but suffering and 
 death. Have n't you had enough of it ? Well, 
 I '11 take you down with me." I was very glad
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 135 
 
 and bought for myself all sorts of trifles, and 
 on the third day we set out. 
 
 After a day's journey toward the coast we 
 reached a great station where all the necessaries 
 which had come from the coast for the new 
 campaign were stored : horses from Argentine ; 
 oxen and wagons from Cape Town ; horses, 
 ammunition, clothing, preserves, and hospital 
 supplies from Germany. When I had passed 
 through this place five months before, it had 
 consisted of five or six houses of corrugated 
 iron ; now it was an army encampment. In the 
 station building, where the general and his 
 staff were, officers, orderlies, and dispatch mes- 
 sengers, most of whom, not having been in 
 the bush, were pretty clean, were running in 
 and out. A crowd of young officers and pri- 
 vates were breaking a lot of horses and mules, 
 only just come from Argentine, to harness or 
 saddle. I have never in my life heard a man 
 storm and swear as did one lieutenant who, 
 with twenty men all in shirtsleeves, with long 
 ropes in their hands, was working among a lot 
 of mules which were almost as excited as the
 
 136 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 men themselves. Batteries were standing in 
 the ranks being cleaned, tried, and harnes&ed 
 up. In front of some long tents, in which enor- 
 mous quantities of food stores were piled, 
 were great covered wagons, getting their loads. 
 Black drivers were coming from the distant 
 meadow, screaming loudly at the oxen which 
 they harnessed, twelve pair to each wagon. 
 The Boer, proprietor of wagon, oxen, and driv- 
 ers, seated himself on the brilliantly painted 
 chest which stood in the front of the wagon, 
 or himself took the long whip. Then the escort 
 came up. With loud geeing and hawing the 
 procession started northward out of the camp, 
 in a cloud of dust. From the wheelwright and 
 blacksmith shop were heard pounding and 
 ringing of metal until late in the night. From 
 the canteens came loud laughter and talk. 
 
 From the front, on the north, open columns 
 were coming in daily, most of them bringing 
 along sick men. As I came up to one wagon 
 which had just arrived, the surgeon had already 
 climbed in and was talking to a sick fellow : 
 " Well, my boy, how goes it ? Oh, answer !
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 137 
 
 You can just tell me how you are, can't you?" 
 Then he turned to the man lying next and 
 said : " Why does n't he say anything ? " The 
 man spoken to gathered himself together out 
 of his confusion and said in Low German : 
 " He 's dead." The surgeon turned to the 
 guards and said : " Why did n't you bury him 
 on the way? " They replied : " We did n't want 
 to leave him there alone ; we had n't time to 
 bury him properly, and the jackals would have 
 du£ him out again." Beside the dead on the 
 hard boards of the wagon lay the living, most 
 of them unconscious or out of their heads, 
 wearing their uniforms and boots, with their 
 guns and soft hats beside them, their lips and 
 tongues parched, and their eye-sockets deep 
 and blue. In this condition they had been on 
 the road for a week. 
 
 The hospital was a long barrack of corru- 
 gated iron. I heard that an acquaintance from 
 Itzehoe was lying there, and I went in to visit 
 him. Row upon row of typhoid patients lay 
 close together, each one with a mosquito net 
 stretched around him, like a baby in its carriage.
 
 138 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 Some lay silent, with pale, sunken eyes ; others 
 cheered on the horses in loud tones, or saw 
 fire-light, or shouted commands, each in the 
 dialect of his province, Low- German, Saxon, 
 or Bavarian ; others were convalescent and lay 
 there pale, following me with their eyes. One 
 nodded to me. The man from Itzehoe was 
 unconscious. When I was again outside, I drew 
 a deep breath ; and I was depressed for a long 
 time. There was a flag on the hospital which 
 the officer on guard used to raise every morn- 
 ing, but it was no use ; every forenoon an or- 
 derly would make a short report to him and 
 the flag would be hauled down. 
 
 On the fourth day we set out with a com- 
 missariat train of six Cape wagons, with Boers, 
 drivers, and oxen, which was conducted by the 
 first lieutenant. Ten men, all mounted, escorted 
 the train as guard. I was responsible for three 
 wagons, and rode a dark brown Argentine 
 horse, which, though thin, was in good con- 
 dition. 
 
 Just as we, amid cracking of whips and 
 great hallooing on the part of the drivers, were
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 139 
 
 riding northward out of the camp between the 
 heavily rocking wagons, a scouting party of 
 the enemy succeeded in setting fire to the 
 broad, dry grass field on the mountain which 
 rose to the east of the station, in order to de- 
 prive us of the good pasturage. The whole ex- 
 tent of the mountain flamed with red tongues 
 of fire. In a fury it flung itself like a red net 
 over the field of bush ; with broad front it 
 crawled more slowly down into the plain. The 
 entire camp stood and looked at the pageant 
 and railed at the injury which the enemy had 
 done us. 
 
 Even the first day's march was very tax- 
 ing. Now it led through bottomless sand, now 
 over rough, stony ground. Many dead cattle, 
 already skeletons or half devoured or in the 
 early stages of decay, lay stinking right by the 
 narrow track. Vultures circled over us and 
 jackals howled in the bush. We rested toward 
 night in a little church which was full of sick 
 men. In the missionary's house everything 
 was smashed to bits, but over the door of the 
 living-room there still hung a piece of paste-
 
 140 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 board, on which were the words, " Love your 
 enemies." In the little churchyard not far 
 from the church lay a long row of our men 
 buried here in the last few months. On a cap- 
 tain's grave there was a palm leaf certainly 
 three yards long. 
 
 The higher we ascended the more frequently 
 lay the dead animals by the road, and the 
 worse was the pasturage. Wherever possible 
 the enemy had cut the grass or burned it, and 
 the rest our troops had used. Again, as before, 
 we saw on the march not a house or permanent 
 inhabitant ; the only things we met were open 
 columns returning to the camp, and once a 
 single horseman. I happened to be the advance 
 rider and hailed him familiarly, thinking he 
 was a comrade or at the highest a non-com- 
 missioned officer. When he came nearer I saw, 
 however, from his face, that he was a higher 
 officer. He gave me a friendly reply and rode 
 on. He was dressed like a private soldier. 
 
 This long, wearisome trekking through the 
 broad, monotonous country devoid of human 
 beings ; this lying and smoking in the resting
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 141 
 
 hours in the shade of the wagons, and the 
 familiar, comfortable, slow talking, — teasing 
 and a little bragging; this meagre food and 
 scanty drink ; a shot in the bush at a flock of 
 partridges, or, if good luck would have it so, 
 at an antelope; four hours' sleep by the flicker- 
 ing fire with my saddle under my head, — all 
 this I was now experiencing again. And it 
 seemed to me, now that I was for the second 
 time on the road, as if I had known this 
 country for a long, long time ; as if long, long 
 ago, before I was born, I had passed through 
 a wild land beside a wagon and had slept and 
 rested in its shelter. Such a feeling is due 
 probably to the fact that these are the experi- 
 ences of the forefathers, which sleep a long 
 sleep through generations and again raise their 
 hoary heads in the fancy of the child who is 
 again led in the same ways and by-paths. 
 
 On the third evening, when we reached a 
 water-place just at nightfall, we found a re- 
 turning train of three wagons already camp- 
 ing there. They were just digging a grave, for 
 one of the typhoid-fever patients whom they
 
 142 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 had brought had died. I sprang into the grave 
 and made it half a yard deeper ; they would n't 
 •wait any longer. Then we lowered him by 
 bridle-straps fastened together, in his full uni- 
 form, and we laid his hat over his face. By 
 his grave stood six Germans, burned brown, 
 eight Boers, still browner, all wearing soft 
 hats and high boots, and seventeen black men. 
 The Boers shot over him. When his mother 
 in a village in Pomerania held him on her lap, 
 she did not dream that he would go to his 
 grave so young, so far away, and with such a 
 strange following. 
 
 When, late in the evening, we went over to 
 the Boers' fire to ask them about the condi- 
 tion of affairs at the front, I noticed that a 
 good dark brown horse was tied to the last 
 wagon. I resolved to nab him for myself and 
 began to look for an opportunity. We were 
 to go on soon after midnight. When we were 
 setting out, I sneaked back ; but the Boers' 
 dog barked and there was something stirring 
 back of the wagon. I leaped away then, and 
 a shot cracked behind me. The lieutenant and
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 143 
 
 the others laughed at the long jumps I took. 
 I was always on the lookout after that to see 
 how I might capture a horse, for my Argen- 
 tiner was induced to trot with more and more 
 difficulty from day to day, and I knew from 
 the many dead horses along our route that 
 the front was badly provided with them. If I 
 did not have a horse there, I should be only 
 half a soldier, and above all I could not then 
 reconnoitre. 
 
 At evening on the fourth day we overtook 
 another provision column, which had been de- 
 layed by the oxen straying off. We rested for 
 the night at the same water-place with this 
 column and kept with it the next day. 
 
 The man who conducted this train had al- 
 ready been six years in the country. He had 
 first been for three years in the home guard, 
 then he had become a trader ; that is, he had 
 gone out from the railroad with an ox wagon 
 and had traveled about in the interior toward 
 the north, selling plug tobacco, colored calico, 
 and schnapps to the blacks, and getting his 
 pay in calves and oxen. In Windhuk he had
 
 144 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 sold these to a wholesale dealer, but had al- 
 ways put a few out to graze in the care of a 
 friendly farmer. He had already in this way 
 gained for himself a considerable capital and 
 had had the intention to go north once more, 
 but this time to buy land in the neighborhood 
 of the friendly farmer. Then the whole black 
 population round about him had revolted in 
 furious hate against their hard, sly, foreign 
 plunderers. He had saved himself with great 
 difficulty, together with all his goods, to the 
 south, and had enlisted now as a reserve. 
 
 I asked him many questions and he an- 
 swered deliberately as he lay by the wagon 
 with his short black scheck-pipe in his mouth. 
 I asked him how he went about it to establish 
 a farm. " I hunt out a place with good pastur- 
 age and good water," he replied ; " then I get 
 the government to allot me about five thou- 
 sand hectares. It is not as exact as in Ger- 
 many; the line would go from the tree to the 
 water-hole, and then to the path, and so on. 
 Then I let the few cattle that I own graze 
 there, and they feed and water themselves and
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 145 
 
 multiply just as in the time of Abraham and 
 Jacob. After two or three years I have already 
 a whole herd. Meanwhile I build myself a lit- 
 tle stone house. When I begin by degrees to 
 sell off a few cattle, I get a better house." I 
 asked him if in spite of the revolt and all the 
 devastation he would stay in the country. 
 " See! " he said, " here you can go and stay 
 and rest and trek a hundred miles and no one 
 tells you what you are to do or not to do, and 
 you have no anxiety about your neighbor on 
 the next floor or across the hall, or about the 
 paper in the living-room, or your daily bread. 
 When you have eaten one calf, you kill an- 
 other. If you don't care for veal any longer, 
 you kill a goat. Or you go on a hunt as far 
 as you please, three hours or three days, and 
 if you don't get a shot just right at anything 
 on the way, you tighten up your belt a little." 
 I asked if he would probably marry. He 
 looked sidelong at me and said : " When the 
 war is over, a girl with whom I have entered 
 into an understanding by correspondence is 
 coming out. I know her parents and I know
 
 146 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 her a little, too. The farmers' wives here have 
 a good time of it, you can believe, — little 
 work, no envy and quarreling, plenty of land, 
 cows, and oxen, a horse to ride, and no anx- 
 iety about getting enough to live on." So he 
 told me, and I was glad to hear it all; and I 
 could perfectly understand all he said. 
 
 The bush was becoming somewhat less dense. 
 Sometimes we would pass with our long train 
 through a magnificent open plain ; then again 
 our course would lead through thick bush so 
 tall that one could, if need be, ride through it 
 under the treetops, which touched each other. 
 The days were clear and hot, as almost always 
 in this country ; the nights were cold, once so 
 cold that our beards got icy and the water- 
 sacks froze. The further to the north we went, 
 the more frequent were great tracts which the 
 enemy had burned to take our pasturage from 
 us. Every evening we saw a deep glow of fire 
 to the north of us. Around the water-places 
 the fields were bare for a considerable distance ; 
 the water was poor and had been polluted be- 
 sides. More and more frequently horses which
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 147 
 
 had collapsed and oxen which had got weak 
 and had dropped in front of their wagons were 
 lying in the road. Often they used to make 
 a fire behind these flabby oxen to get them up, 
 but they lay there and died on the same spot. 
 On the eighth day there was a dead or dying 
 animal every half-mile. 
 
 In the forenoon of the eighth day we saw 
 not far to the north of us the elliptical balloon 
 that floated in the air over the camp. So at 
 noon we rested only during the worst of the 
 heat and then pushed on, reaching the camp 
 at evening. 
 
 The men there were just at their cooking. 
 In their high, yellow boots, full trousers, and 
 shirtsleeves, they were sitting or bustling about 
 the cooking-holes, and they called to us as we 
 marched through to know if we had brought 
 mail with us. They seemed to be in good spir- 
 its; the majority of them had, indeed, been 
 only a month on land. In one corner was 
 quartered a whole troop of Wittboys, hideous- 
 looking men with wild, yellow faces. They had 
 come from the south of our colony to help us,
 
 148 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and wore our uniform and were commanded 
 by German officers. In another corner the 
 great black horde of drivers were encamped 
 around their fire, laughing and talking. Wag- 
 ons and fieldpieces were standing around sin- 
 gly or in groups. But I was surprised the next 
 morning to see how full the hospital was. I 
 was surprised, too, at the horses ; not that they 
 had become rough from the cold nights, but 
 that they were so thin and worn out. Many 
 had in addition bad wounds around the mouth 
 from the dry, sharp grass, and some had on 
 their flanks great open sores covered with 
 flies. Many of the men had lost their horses 
 and were going on foot. 
 
 We were the centre division of the six great 
 divisions which were coming upon the enemy 
 in a half -circle in order to crush them, and for 
 that reason we were the headquarters. That 
 same evening I saw the general addressing a 
 scouting party, which then rode out into the 
 night. He was a decided-looking, erect man, 
 with gray hair and eyes. 
 
 We were no longer far from the enemy.
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 149 
 
 Every reconnoitring party that was sent ahead 
 and came back got sight of them. Some of 
 these parties suffered severe losses, and one, led 
 by a lieutenant, was entirely annihilated. I 
 was glad to be again in a real army among so 
 many cheerful soldiers, and I quite revived. 
 Every day we practiced industriously in the 
 bush, making sallies, slinking, and creeping 
 through, and storming ; we cleaned our arms, 
 and did our mending and cooking. Once I 
 was off all day long hunting strayed horses. 
 I found them and appropriated one, a light 
 brown East Prussian, and in exchange put my 
 Argentine among those that I found. I think 
 the lieutenant noticed it, but he didn't say 
 anything. He had taken me into his company. 
 
 In the evenings some of us who got on well 
 together and liked each other used to gather 
 under a wagon or by a cook-hole. Of my old 
 comrades I met only Gehlsen and Peters again, 
 who were now wagon conductors in the staff 
 guard. Among the new ones was one from 
 Brunsbiittel. 
 
 I sat now among almost entirely new fellows
 
 150 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and listened to their conversation. I had be- 
 come more silent after all I had gone through, 
 and from the extent and barrenness and heat 
 of the land in which I had now lived for six 
 months I had become slower and more apa- 
 thetic than was really my nature. They used 
 to like to talk about their former service or 
 their homes or their callings. At last this one 
 and that one came to speak of the reasons 
 that had led them to enlist as volunteers for 
 South Africa. Some wanted to stay in the 
 army and get promoted faster. Some wanted 
 to earn a little money from the war bounty in 
 order to help their parents or to make them- 
 selves independent in their vocations. Many 
 had been driven out by a youthful joy and 
 enthusiasm, the Germanic desire for war and 
 foreign parts. Some enlisted in order to see a 
 bit of the world at the expense of the govern- 
 ment. Some, so it seemed to me, wanted to 
 experience something about which they could 
 boast for the rest of their lives. Some were 
 silent as to the reasons which had impelled 
 them ; but those who knew them well said of
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 151 
 
 one that he had had the misfortune accident- 
 ally to kill a schoolmate while playing with him, 
 and of another that he had been thrown over 
 by his sweetheart. These two were quiet fel- 
 lows and often sat apart from the rest. But 
 we talked mostly about the enemy, about their 
 method of fighting, about their strength and 
 intentions, and about the decisive blow that we 
 wanted to inflict on them. 
 
 There were also among us some privates who 
 had formerly been officers and had in some 
 way lost their swords. As they might hope to 
 regain their rank only in a war, they had longed 
 for the outbreak of hostilities and had imme- 
 diately applied as volunteers for the Southwest. 
 Now they were common soldiers. One of these 
 talked on the very first evening, with big words, 
 a great deal about recognition of duty, self- 
 discipline, sense of honor, and such things, so 
 that I thought : " What an honorable man ! 
 How could he have lost his sword?" But 
 soon after and later I observed in the sand-field 
 that he was making these speeches for him- 
 self, for he was always sulking and grumbling,
 
 152 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 especially at those who were set over him, from 
 the non-commissioned officer up to the general 
 himself, and he shirked every sort of work. 
 Another was a lovable, helpful, and cheerful 
 comrade whom we all liked and for whom we 
 all wished the best. He was brave, too, at 
 Hamakari. But he probably never attained his 
 object, and if he had it would n't have been of 
 much use to him, for when the chance came 
 he forgot all his good intentions and drank 
 and gambled like a madman. But the others 
 — I heard about several of them — were brave 
 men, good, simple soldiers, straight and silent 
 in drill, like lions in a fight ; and several of 
 them fell, for only if they were severely 
 wounded or mentioned for distinction did they 
 win their swords again. 
 
 In another company there was one fellow 
 who had married young, so the story went, and 
 had worked up to be first lieutenant. Two 
 girls and then a little boy were born to him, 
 and he was just mad with joy over the event. 
 His old, inherited fault, which he had bravely 
 held in control, raised its head; he got very
 
 ANOTHER EXPEDITION 153 
 
 drunk and was mixed up in a street brawl. So 
 he was dismissed, and now he was here in the 
 Southwest. He sat alone a great deal, sunk 
 into himself, never uttering a superfluous 
 word. They said he never wrote to his wife 
 and children. Every one, officers and men 
 alike, showed him consideration. But once, 
 when in Okahandja a one-year volunteer came 
 up to him with a glass of wine in his hand, 
 and said to him good-naturedly, "To your 
 youngest ! " the unfortunate fellow, who 
 seemed like one under a curse, gave him such 
 a look that the volunteer stepped back with a 
 pale face and an overturned glass. 
 
 Here I finally got a letter from home which 
 had sought me a long time. They all wrote. 
 Father wrote about the business ; mother had 
 talked to Dr. Bartels about how I could best 
 protect myself against typhoid ; the small sis- 
 ters wrote about their new Sunday clothes. As 
 I read their letters, I nursed the thought that 
 I alone was grown up and that I had three 
 such little sisters. It had never occurred to me 
 till now. While I was still pondering over it,
 
 154 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 I looked up and saw by chance that a scout- 
 ing party were coming home, covered with 
 dust, their faces and hands lacerated with 
 thorns. They were riding weary, wounded 
 horses, and by their side they led two black 
 prisoners tied with a rope. Then I realized 
 where I was; I cast my day-dreams into a 
 corner and got up to look after my horse.
 
 XIII 
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 
 
 As I had been longer in the country than the 
 others, I received, on the fifth day after my 
 arrival, a commission from headquarters to 
 carry, with three men, a letter of instruction 
 to the westerly division, which, as it was the 
 last to arrive from Germany, was still some- 
 what behind in the march. 
 
 I arranged it so that the Mecklenburger 
 got a better horse, and saw to it myself that 
 the saddles were in good condition and that the 
 necessary provisions and eight pounds of oats 
 were in every saddle-bag. Then we rode out 
 toward the west in the clear night. The first 
 lieutenant had talked it all over with me ex- 
 plicitly, — the water-place, the trail, and the 
 direction I was to take according to the cross 
 which was clear in the heavens. I was to ride 
 south as far as possible and then northwest, to
 
 156 PETER MOORS JOURNEY 
 
 see how far to the south the enemy was sit- 
 uated ; but after a ride of about forty miles I 
 was to turn back whether I had accomplished 
 anything or not. 
 
 We rode briskly, first trotting the horses 
 fifteen minutes and then walking them five. 
 A blond boy, son of a Berlin cab-driver, rode 
 ahead, then I myself and a young Alsatian, and 
 behind us the man from Mecklenburg. It was 
 a cold, clear, very bright night, not moonlight, 
 but many stars shone brilliantly over the whole 
 sky. 
 
 The first three hours passed without any 
 special occurrence. The Berliner and I kept 
 sharp watch in front and to the side. The Al- 
 satian near me took strange positions in his 
 saddle from time to time and confessed to me 
 in a low voice that he had galled himself 
 badly but had been very anxious to take the 
 ride with us. The Mecklenburger trotted faith- 
 fully along in the sand behind us. It was so 
 bright that I could see the dust thrown high 
 by the horses' hoofs. Between the dull thuds 
 of the hoofs on the sand sounded from a dis-
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 157 
 
 tance out of the bush the long, wailing howl 
 of a jackal or the sharp laugh of a hyena, 
 which startled me every time it suddenly oc- 
 curred. Sometimes a horse would stumble and 
 his rider would pull him up again, swearing 
 under his breath. Now and then a hoof would 
 strike a stone so that it rang out sharply. To 
 the northwest a bright glow of fire could be 
 seen above the bush behind tall, distant trees. 
 The Berliner maintained that he could smell 
 a grass fire. The moon rose, and its clear, 
 mild light lay soft and still, far over the bush. 
 Somewhere about midnight, as we were 
 trotting up a slowly ascending wagon trail, 
 the Berliner raised his hand and pointed to 
 the right in front of us across a clearing. Not 
 five hundred yards from us, low on the ground, 
 were glowing several little covered fires, like 
 cats' eyes in the dark among the bushes. As 
 our horses snorted loudly, which they often 
 did in the chilly night air, — and the night 
 was bitter cold, — we dismounted quietly and 
 led them awhile, spying in the mean time 
 toward the fires on the right. We came soon
 
 158 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 to a place where the long grass was trodden 
 down on both sides of the road. Getting down 
 on my knees and creeping for a little way, I 
 saw tracks of innumerable children's feet, and 
 among them those of full-grown feet. Great 
 troops of children, led by their mothers, had 
 passed over the road here to the northwest. 
 I stood up and, going to a low tree by the 
 road, climbed up a few yards in my heavy 
 boots. Thence I could see a broad moonlit 
 slope, rising not a hundred yards distant, and 
 on it hundreds of rough huts constructed of 
 branches, from the low entrances of which the 
 fire-light shone out; and I heard children's 
 crying and the yelping of a dog. Thousands 
 of women and children were lying there under 
 roofs of leaves around the dying fires. And 
 away back of those, on the ever-broadening 
 slope up to the foot of the mountains which 
 reared their heights toward the blue, starry 
 sky, stood more huts, like dark and indistinct 
 lumps. The barking of dogs and lowing of 
 cattle reached my ears. I gazed at the great 
 night-scene with sharp, spying eyes, and I ob-
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 159 
 
 served minutely the site of the camp at the 
 base of the mountains. Still, the thought went 
 through my head : " There lies a people, with 
 all its children and all its possessions, hard 
 pressed on all sides by the horrible, deadly 
 lead, and condemned to death," and it sent 
 cold shudders down my back. 
 
 We advanced cautiously, first on foot and 
 then mounted. At six o'clock in the breaking 
 morning light we came to a place with high, 
 crisp grass, which the horses liked so much 
 that we loosened their saddles and let them 
 graze for an hour, while we stood by, the 
 snaffles in our hands. At the right of the 
 direction in which we were traveling rose 
 steep in mighty bulk and strength like a ram- 
 part the extended mountain, in front of which 
 the hostile people were encamped ; the morn- 
 ing sun shone warm and bright on the forests 
 lying on its ridge, and was driving away the 
 mist which still hung on the corners of the 
 woods. When we mounted again I noticed 
 how stiff and tired our horses were, especially 
 the horse of the Mecklenburger.
 
 160 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 As we saw nothing more of the enemy, and 
 as no tracks, except at most those of a single 
 traveler, were visible on the road, I believed 
 that we had the position of the enemy behind 
 us. The Berliner thought so, too. So we rode 
 on for four hours, in continually increasing 
 heat, and came then upon three deep water-holes 
 in the limy soil, beside a tall tree. The Ber- 
 liner threw in a stone and heard by the splash 
 that there was water at the bottom. I talked 
 it over with him and we decided we would have 
 a proper noon rest here on the horses' ac- 
 count, for they were about at the end of their 
 strength. We unsaddled, bound the snaffles 
 together with the fodder bags on them, and let 
 the Berliner go down and fetch up a little bad 
 but cool water for the horses. We didn't 
 drink this water ourselves, but took the last of 
 what we had in our water-sacks and filled 
 them up with the bad water. Then we went to 
 a tall tree to eat. I know still that the thought 
 went through my head that we ought to stay 
 in the burning sun because the tree stood too 
 near the bush; but I allowed the others the
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 161 
 
 cool shade and I did n't want the fellow from 
 Berlin, who was rather conceited, secretly to 
 think me cowardly ; and I depended, too, on 
 his alertness, for he was to hold the first watch. 
 Meanwhile I undertook to watch the horses. I 
 relate all this so minutely because I always 
 nursed the idea that I neglected something. 
 
 When I had stood for probably two hours 
 with the grazing horses, and was just going 
 to stoop and kill a great, stinging fly that had 
 lighted between the forelegs of my horse so 
 that he was stamping violently, I heard from 
 the clearing a short, frightful outcry, which 
 seemed immediately to lay a hard pressure 
 on my brain. Starting up, I saw that twenty 
 or thirty of the enemy, armed with guns and 
 clubs, were pressing round my comrades, who 
 remained lying under the shots and blows. 
 The Berliner, still half reclining, managed to 
 shoot ; but at the same moment that he held 
 his gun to his cheek, he received such a fear- 
 ful blow with a club that he sank back. At 
 that moment, too, came shots directed at me 
 from the left across the clearing. Loud shouts
 
 162 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and abusive words filled the air. Leaping and 
 creeping they came at me through the tall, 
 waving grass. Then I sprang, with the snaffle 
 still in my hand, upon the nearest unsaddled 
 horse, got the tired beast into a gallop, and 
 escaped along the bush. 
 
 I do not know much about the next hours. 
 I only know that my head was horribly heavy 
 and dull, as though my hat was full of lead, 
 and that I held it strangely ducked down be- 
 tween my shoulders, keeping my eyes half 
 closed and feeling all the time the terrible 
 blows I had seen. I rode along probably 
 three hours in a heavy stupor, brooding in a 
 confused, half -crazy state. How and when I 
 put the snaffle on my horse I do not know. It 
 was that wretched animal which the Mecklen- 
 burger had ridden. 
 
 When I became a little clearer in my mind 
 I bethought me of where I was riding, and I 
 did n't know. I looked at the sun, but it was 
 directly over me. Then I directed my course 
 into the light wind which had blown up from 
 the sea the night before, and rode toward
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 163 
 
 that. I rode straight ahead all the time, but 
 did n't come across a track or meet a human 
 being. 
 
 I passed cleared places and through thick 
 bush, which met over my head. My coat was 
 in rags from the thorns, and my face and 
 hands were bleeding. In order to spare my 
 horse, I dismounted from time to time and 
 led him, for he was overtired and suffering 
 from thirst. Once when I had mounted again 
 and was riding across a clearing, he stumbled 
 and fell on his knees, and after resting awhile 
 in that posture he fell over with a groan. I 
 left him and went along on foot. 
 
 I took out my knife and bound it with a 
 scrap of rope to my left wrist so as to have it 
 ready when I could no longer use my gun. I 
 preferred to take my own life rather than to 
 fall alive into the hands of the enemy. When 
 the knife was firmly fastened, I ventured to 
 shoot three times, and listened for an answer ; 
 but none came. The sun was beginning to 
 descend, and I saw now where the west was ; 
 but that did n't help me much, for I had no
 
 164 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 idea in what direction I had ridden the first 
 few hours after the attack. My tongue lay 
 heavy and thick in my mouth, my throat was 
 dry down into my chest, and my thoughts 
 were dull. I thought I must die here so miser- 
 ably and alone! How gladly had I lain instead 
 with my dear friends under that tree in the 
 far east ! I tortured myself with thought of 
 home, and in imagination gave each one my 
 hand and said I was now about to depart this 
 life and they must n't grieve so very much, — 
 life was n't worth much any way ; and I went 
 to the first lieutenant and said he had trusted 
 me in vain. I was n't a clear-headed, calm 
 fellow, but from childhood had been a dreamer. 
 I wanted to speak a word to hear my voice, 
 but I could not. 
 
 I went on, however, in my heavy boots, 
 through sand and high, sparse, hard grass, 
 climbed two or three times into trees or onto 
 an ant-heap. Once I was startled by a great, 
 heavy beast like an ox, only with two long 
 horns standing straight up like a stag's horns. 
 I didn't find out what sort of animal this
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 165 
 
 was, for I never talked to any one about those 
 hours. Once in a while a gigantic dead tree 
 would loom up before me. In the branches of 
 one such hung a dark, thickly interwoven mass 
 as large and of the same shape as the body 
 of an ox. In this lived numberless little gray 
 birds. A thick black snake writhed slowly 
 out of the nests and turned its head, hissing, 
 this way and that, as if blinded by the sun- 
 light. I ran on in a fright. Once I clambered 
 up a rock that rose suddenly ten yards high 
 out of the bush. I saw nothing, however, ex- 
 cept smoke or sunlit dust in several places in 
 the distance. Far and wide around me lay the 
 silent bush. 
 
 Toward evening I came upon an indistinct, 
 long-unused wagon trail. I rested not far from 
 this, hidden in the bush, — for I thought some 
 one might come along the road, — and I fell 
 asleep. When I woke because I was so cold, it 
 was dark. It was a clear, starry night like the 
 preceding one. I stood up and looked about 
 me in great distress and wished that I were 
 dead.
 
 166 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 Suddenly, while I was standing there, a 
 vivid, sharp flash of light came over the bush 
 diagonally before me. Again ! and now again ! 
 A signal station ; but how far off ? Probably 
 many, many miles. How bright it shone ! There 
 were comrades ! There was salvation ! It was 
 madness to run to it ; but I noticed the direc- 
 tion in the sky and ran as fast as I could. 
 
 I ran a good two hours or more, tearing my 
 clothes and face and hands on the terribly long, 
 hard thorns. Then I perceived that I was get- 
 ting nearer, for the light was plainly beginning 
 to flash higher above the bushes, but was too 
 near to be coming down from a high, distant 
 mountain. I shouted as loud as I could and 
 ran on once more, but I soon gave that up. 
 After running probably half an hour, I began 
 shouting again, so that they should not shoot 
 at me. 
 
 They were beginning to answer, " Come this 
 way ! Who are you? Come on! " I came out of 
 the bushes and ran across the clearing to them 
 where they were standing at the foot of jagged 
 rocks, and told them who I was and what had
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 167 
 
 happened to me. " Poor devil ! " they said. 
 " We can be of very little help. We are sitting 
 here ourselves in the worst case possible. Our 
 under officer, who understands giving the sig- 
 nals, went yesterday to the water-hole and did 
 n't come back ; and the corporal, who is now 
 working the lamp, is sick. We have had no 
 relief from duty for fourteen days ; no sleep, 
 no bread, only a little bit of rice, some canned 
 meat, and water ; and we are waiting for the 
 blacks to come and finish us." Two of the 
 men had remained indifferent, lying wrapped 
 in their cloaks. " They are sick," said the 
 others. 
 
 I did n't hear what they were saying ; I 
 heard only the word water and begged for 
 some. They gave me two covers full out of a 
 water-sack, but it was vile tasting and I did n't 
 take the third coverful. Meanwhile the cor- 
 poral kept calling down from above to know 
 who was there, and if relief had come. I ob- 
 served from his speech that he was a Bavarian. 
 The others said : " Go up and talk to him and 
 cheer him up. He has n't slept for two nights."
 
 168 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 I climbed laboriously up the rocks and 
 reached him. He was standing with his cloak 
 on, taking the blinder off the lamp in correct 
 time so that the flashes glared harshly out into 
 the night. The light flickered in the icy-cold 
 night wind. His whole body was shivering. 
 Now he stopped manipulating the lamp and 
 looked sharply over the dark bush toward a 
 light that flashed out on the distant horizon, 
 and he wrote rapidly on a block of paper what 
 he saw. He asked me in broken sentences 
 where I had come from and where I was going 
 and said : " We are dirty and hungry and thirsty 
 and sick, and two of us are already done for, 
 but no one comes to relieve us." I asked him : 
 "Have you connections with the new division?" 
 He replied: "Just now in the last hour"; and 
 he smiled mournfully and added : " I am going 
 mad here. Yesterday night I signaled mere 
 foolishness over and over : ' So we live, so we 
 live,' and such things ; but they did n't under- 
 stand the nonsense." He let the block fall, 
 crouched down and shook himself. He seemed 
 to think that I was to relieve him.
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 169 
 
 I wanted to brighten him up, so I questioned 
 him about the lights which flashed here and 
 there in the darkness. He pulled himself to- 
 gether and pointed out to me with a nervous, 
 hasty hand the light of each division. These 
 lay in a half-circle around the enemy, ready 
 to crush them on the morrow against the 
 broad wall of the mountain in front of which 
 they were encamped. While he was still show- 
 ing me, a new light flashed down from the 
 mountain. Vivid and bold, it suddenly ap- 
 peared there. " See ! " he cried, " they have 
 climbed up on the mountain. Now they are 
 standing up there over the heads of the enemy, 
 seeing everything and reporting what they 
 see." I gazed for a long time at the flaring 
 light, and in spite of my own plight I thought 
 of the ten or twenty comrades sitting up here 
 on these unfriendly heights expecting every 
 moment to be overwhelmed. And I looked 
 at the broad, black stretch of land that lay 
 dark among all the lights. There in the bush 
 lay the hostile people. With what thoughts 
 must they and their children see the light ?
 
 170 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 The Bavarian had again reached out to the 
 lamp and wanted to pass on what he had re- 
 ceived. He was talking softly to himself ; then 
 he sank down in a heap and again pulled him- 
 self up stiff. Just then we heard from out the 
 bush the snorting of horses, and immediately 
 after the sharp voice of an officer. I climbed 
 hastily down and stood by, and heard him ask- 
 ing what the matter was here that such crazy 
 messages had come. At that I stepped forward 
 and explained that I was Corporal Moor ; I told 
 whence I had come and said that the Bavarian 
 up there was sick and no longer quite in his 
 right mind, and that I had lost comrades and 
 horse and should like to go back to my division 
 again. 
 
 He sent a man up the hill and said it was n't 
 necessary for me to take the dangerous ride 
 again at once, for they now had signal con- 
 nection once more with headquarters. But I 
 said : " I have lost my comrades and I must 
 report how it happened." 
 
 He probably had sympathy for me, for he 
 said : " We have an extra nag among us. He is
 
 A DANGEROUS MISSION 171 
 
 not beautiful, but if you want to go on, you 
 shall have him." He went with me himself to 
 the horse, and I believe he gave me a better 
 one than he intended at first ; for I heard him 
 say in a low voice to his subordinate : " He has 
 seven hours to ride and he is riding alone." 
 
 He looked after the saddle and bridle him- 
 self, and asked if I belonged regularly to the 
 cavalry. Pulling at the girth, he said : " After 
 three hours you must tighten the girth," and 
 showed me the provisions for me and the horse 
 in the saddle-bag. Then he called up to the 
 hill : " Where are the headquarters ? " They 
 pointed them out, and he showed me the 
 direction again by the Cross, which was clear 
 in the sky, and instructed me to ride straight 
 ahead till I came to the big path. With that 
 he let me go. 
 
 On this ride, which lasted ten hours, I had 
 no sort of accident. Dead tired I reached the 
 road which my division were following, and, 
 indeed, I drank and watered my horse at the 
 place they had left two days before. I then 
 took the same road they had taken. Many dead
 
 172 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 and dying animals lay along the road. At the 
 next water-place I came upon the division rest- 
 ing. I announced myself, reported, and then 
 went to my mess company, and sitting down 
 on the ground slept like a dead man for six 
 hours. They told me afterwards that they had 
 besieged me with questions and I had looked 
 at them without saying a word and had fallen 
 back and slept. 
 
 That evening the camp was full of life. 
 Every one was busy. One was looking after 
 his gun ; another was carefully filling his car- 
 tridge-belt ; a third was caring for his horse ; 
 a fourth and a fifth were lying on the ground, 
 writing home. When we lay down to sleep 
 around our cooking-hole, the volunteer, who 
 was ten years older than we, said : " Well, boys, 
 say ' Our Father ' once more. Who knows if 
 you '11 be able to to-morrow night?" 
 
 No fire was lighted that night.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 
 
 Before midnight we advanced toward the 
 enemy. It was said that our division would 
 come upon them about morning. The Witt- 
 boys rode on ahead as spies. Then came our 
 company. One part was detached to ride at 
 the side of the road in the bush ; the other 
 part was to keep on riding in the road. I was 
 in the third platoon. Behind me in compact 
 array came the artillery. We marched as quietly 
 as possible, but still there were all sorts of noises : 
 snorting of horses, jolting of wheels, an impa- 
 tient, angry shout, or a blow with a whip. I 
 was very cold in the saddle, and, in order not 
 to have stiff fingers later, when I had to shoot, 
 I laid the reins over my cartridge-belt and put 
 my hands in my pockets. 
 
 At last morning broke, and delicate, rosy 
 stripes of light soon shot up toward the zenith.
 
 174 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 The colors grew rapidly deeper, brighter, and 
 stronger. The red was glorious in its fullness 
 and the blue beautiful in its purity. The light 
 mounted and extended itself, ascending like a 
 new world a thousand times more beautiful 
 than the old one. Then came the sun, big and 
 clear, looking like a great, placid, wide-open 
 eye. Although like a good soldier I had all 
 my thoughts fixed on what was before me, on 
 the enemy, and the bad hours I should prob- 
 ably meet with, yet I saw the splendor of the 
 sky. 
 
 Near me rode a fellow from Hamburg, a 
 fresh, quiet boy. He said once to me : " You 
 see, one has to have experienced something, 
 or how shall one become a serious, capable 
 man? That's why I came here." He was to 
 enter his father's business later. He was riding 
 just as I was, his reins over his cartridge-belt 
 and his hands in his pockets; he was frowning 
 this morning, and kept a sharp lookout before 
 him. Diagonally behind me rode the former 
 officer. 
 
 About this time of day, according to the pre-
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 175 
 
 dictions of our scouts, we ought to reach the 
 enemy, but they were not to be seen. Then I 
 thought, us did many others, that again there 
 would be no fighting, and I was annoyed. 
 Shortly after this, however, we heard the thun- 
 der of cannon coming from our right. 
 
 It got to be eight o'clock, and nine. The 
 bush was so dense that the parties sent into 
 it could not advance. They came out and 
 marched together along the road. The sun was 
 steadily mounting; it was getting to be a hot 
 day. It began to be warm riding, and the horses 
 were growing tired. A little thin lieutenant 
 with a drawn face and sharp eyes rode up 
 alongside of me and said, in a suppressed voice : 
 " We are n't a mile and a half from the water- 
 holes." Several times in the last few days he 
 had made dangerous excursions into this re- 
 gion, and he knew every bush. 
 
 Then the first shot fell ahead. With a quick 
 swing: we were out of our saddles and had 
 thrown the reins over our horses' necks. Those 
 who were to hold the horses seized them. Our 
 company was only ninety strong, and, as we
 
 176 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 left ten with the horses, only eighty men went 
 into the thick bush. The enemy were firing 
 vigorously and letting out short, wild cries. I 
 saw one of our men wounded. He stooped and 
 examined a wound in his leg. Still, I saw no- 
 thing of the enemy. Then just for a second I 
 saw a piece of an arm in a grayish brown cord 
 coat, and I shot at it. Then I lay down to spy 
 out another target. Lively firing was being 
 exchanged. When one of us thought he had 
 hit his mark, he would announce it with a loud 
 voice : " That one won't get up again ! I got 
 him in the middle of the breast ! " The third 
 man at my right, who was lying by a bush in 
 front of me, twitched convulsively. A derisive 
 voice on the other side shouted : " Had enough, 
 Dutchman?" My comrade said, in a quiet 
 voice: " I have a bullet in my shoulder," and 
 he crawled back on all fours. 
 
 I could hear through all our own shooting 
 that we were getting fired upon from the left. 
 This fire now became heavier. They were 
 coming nearer. In close ranks they came, 
 creeping and shouting and screaming. Two of
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 177 
 
 my neighbors were not shouting any more. 
 We crawled back once or twice our length. 
 The enemy shouted : " Look out, Dutchman, 
 look out ! "and laughed wildly. Others shouted : 
 " Hurrah ! hurrah ! " The bush was swarming 
 with men. I thought they would now break 
 loose upon us in a wild storm and that it would 
 be all up with us. On account of our wounded 
 men I was fearfully anxious lest we should 
 have to retreat. I was firmly resolved if the 
 command should come, to shout loudly : " Take 
 along the wounded ! " But when I had just 
 decided on this plan, a subordinate officer 
 came up with several men and cheered us on 
 with the words, " Hold your position ! I am 
 sending aid ! " Soon afterwards I heard some- 
 thing slipping and grating behind me, and a 
 quiet, soft voice said : " Move a little to the 
 side." The nozzle of a machine gun was 
 pushed forward near my face, and immediately 
 began to crackle away. The grape shot hissed 
 furiously into the bushes rattling and whizz- 
 ing. How good it sounded ! How surely and 
 quietly I shot ! " Did I hit ? Did you see ?
 
 178 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 Shoot, man, there ! there! " Cannon, too, upon 
 a slope behind us were now thundering over 
 our heads. Then it grew a little more quiet on 
 the other side, and the command of " Forward, 
 double quick ! " reached us. We sprang up 
 and plunged forward, but a horrible volley of 
 grape shot was poured against us and threw 
 us back again. 
 
 In front of me an under officer had got a 
 ball in the body, and blood was streaming from 
 the wound. He was crouching and trying to 
 stem the flow of blood with a handkerchief, 
 and was calling for help. He was a light-com- 
 plexioned, fine-looking man. Just then the 
 former officer, the one who was under the 
 official ban, came up from the side, seized the 
 wounded man by the shoulders, and dragged 
 him back, while balls were falling around him 
 and the barrel of his gun was hit so that it 
 flew rattling to one side. He then quietly lay 
 down in his place again. On the other side, in 
 the bush, they were shouting in wild zeal and 
 shrieking for very rage. 
 
 We did not advance. I don't know how
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 179 
 
 long we lay there firing. It was probably 
 hours. I wondered once why no officer was to 
 be seen with us, and I forgot it again. Sweat 
 ran like water over my entire body. Not 
 merely my tongue, but my throat, my whole 
 body, cried out for a swallow of cool water. 
 At one side a hospital aid was trying to bind 
 a rubber bandage around the bleeding leg of 
 a wounded man who begged him in South 
 German dialect : " Take me back a little, can 
 you ? " Then the aid dragged him back 
 panting. 
 
 The fire from the other side was getting 
 weaker. A voice commanded us : " Fire more 
 slowly." From the other side we heard it 
 jeeringly mimicked : " Fire more slowly." A 
 wounded man cried aloud for water. 
 
 We lay and waited, our guns pointed. Word 
 passed from mouth to mouth : " The captain 
 is dead ; the first lieutenant, too — all the of- 
 ficers — and almost all the under officers." 
 Propping my gun in position, I took my field 
 flask with my left hand and swallowed the 
 little draught I had saved up for the greatest
 
 180 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 emergency. As I set the flask aside, I thought 
 that perhaps it would be my last drink, and I 
 thought of my parents. I believed that the 
 enemy would get breath and then make an- 
 other assault. 
 
 But that did not happen. A lieutenant who 
 belonged to the staff came stooping along our 
 ranks. When he was behind me, he knelt there, 
 touched my boot lightly, and said ; " Go to 
 the general and report that according to my 
 reckoning we are about half a mile distant 
 from the last water-holes." 
 
 I got cautiously up on my knees, and then 
 ducking down ran back to the road. Near an 
 ant-hill, which was certainly three yards high, 
 a surgeon and a hospital aid were endeavoring 
 to save a man from bleeding to death ; but I 
 believe they came too late, for he lay like dead 
 on his dark red blanket. Then I saw the bal- 
 loon not far in front of me and I ran across 
 the clearing to it. 
 
 The long rows of oxen, standing in har- 
 ness in front of their wagons, raised their 
 open mouths and bellowed hoarsely, for they
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 181 
 
 scented the water-holes and panted for water. 
 The soldiers at the wagons and horses called 
 to me with dry voices : " Get ahead, you fel- 
 lows up forward ! Are we coming to water 
 soon? Are we going on?" They looked at 
 me with deep, dry eyes. Those who held the 
 horses had a great deal of trouble with the 
 thirsty creatures, which were standing crowded 
 together, swarmed over and tortured by in- 
 sects. The sun scorched down. A thick, hor- 
 ribly dry, dust-filled air lay over the whole 
 camp. 
 
 The surgeons in white cloaks stood in front 
 of the hospital wagon around a table on which 
 some one was lying. I wondered how many 
 were lying in the shade of the wagon ; five or 
 six of them were dead, among them our cap- 
 tain. A wounded officer, I think it was a lieu- 
 tenant, was giving water with his well hand 
 to the severely wounded ; his other arm was 
 bleeding badly. 
 
 At the general's wagon a man was stand- 
 ing by the heliograph. The general was near 
 by with officers and orderlies around him, all
 
 182 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 of them on foot. I reported and heard some 
 one say : " The animals can't hold out any 
 longer and the men are simply dying of thirst." 
 The next moment, just as I had turned to run 
 to the front, there came from behind from two 
 or three directions wild shouting and volleys 
 from the bush. 
 
 The outposts, who were lying and kneeling 
 on the ground all around, moved in immedi- 
 ately. The voice of an officer rang out sharp 
 and clear : " Disperse and charge in knots." 
 I ran, and saw as I ran that a hailstorm of 
 bullets was riddling the hospital wagon, that 
 the doctors were seizing their guns, and that 
 one of them was wounded. I even heard one 
 say : " We '11 take off our white cloaks, though." 
 Then I lay down by a bush and shot at the 
 enemy, who with wild shouts continued their on- 
 set through the bushes. Secretaries, orderlies, 
 drivers, guard, and officers all rushed forward, 
 lay down near one another, and protected their 
 skins. The artillery turned while firing and 
 shot away over us. Excited by my run and 
 the sudden attack, I began a violent, rapid fire.
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 183 
 
 A voice near me said : " Shoot more calmly." 
 I did fire more calmly, thinking, " Who said 
 that ? " and as I seized ~ny cartridge-belt and 
 looked to the side, there lay the general two 
 men from me, shooting coolly as becomes an 
 old soldier. The enemy were pressing on in 
 close ranks through the bush, shouting and 
 firing. But we lay quietly and shot well. Then 
 it got more quiet. The officers stood up and 
 returned to the centre of the camp again. Im- 
 mediately after that came the order that the 
 whole camp should advance two hundred 
 yards. In running by I saw them lifting the 
 dead and wounded into wagons. Then I ran 
 forward again to my place in the line of de- 
 fense. 
 
 Now as I lay there I felt how very parched 
 I was. Begging and complaining and teasing 
 for water went through the ranks. From be- 
 hind we heard the hoarse lowing of the thirsty 
 oxen. I believe that at this time, four in the 
 afternoon, there was not a drop of water in 
 the whole camp except for the wounded. 
 
 Then everything was moved to the front, —
 
 184 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 soldiers, artillery, and machine guns. A terrific 
 fire rattled against the enemy, who were grow- 
 ing weary. Then word passed from man to 
 man : " We are going to charge." Now the 
 battle-cry told. I shall never forget it. With 
 fierce yells, with distorted faces, with dry and 
 burning eyes, we sprang to our feet and hurled 
 ourselves forward. The enemy leaped, fired, 
 and dispersed with loud outcries. We ran with- 
 out interference, shouting, cursing, and shoot- 
 ing, to the good-sized clearing where the 
 ardently desired water-holes were, and across 
 it to the further edge, where the bush began 
 again. 
 
 The entire camp — the heavy wagons with 
 their long teams of oxen ; the hundreds of 
 horses; the hospital wagons with the surgeons, 
 the dead and the wounded ; the headquarters, 
 everything — followed in a rush and encamped 
 in the clearing. But we lay around it at the 
 edge of the bush to keep back the enemy, who 
 now here and now there would break through 
 the thick bushes in wild, loudly shouting par-
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 185 
 
 ties. Behind us our men were now climbing 
 down with army kettles into the water-holes, 
 which were ten yards deep, and were filling 
 buckets let down on reins and were beginning 
 to water man and beast. When about ten ani- 
 mals had had a little, the hole was empty. 
 There were about ten or twelve holes at this 
 place. 
 
 The sun went down. Some of us slipped 
 out, cut brush with our side-arms, and made 
 a stockade in front of us. The artillerymen 
 set up the cannon and machine guns behind 
 us and knelt near them. Some of the soldiers 
 were detailed to creep from man to man and 
 give each a little water. In the camp further 
 back of us, the restlessly crowding animals 
 were being watered in the dark. By the hos- 
 pital wagons nurses were going about, lanterns 
 in their hands, bending over each patient. 
 Meanwhile the enemy kept up their firing, 
 which continually flashed out of the dark bush 
 all around the camp. Not until about mid- 
 night did it become more quiet. We passed a
 
 186 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 little zwieback from hand to hand. Then com- 
 plete darkness settled upon us and the shooting 
 at last ceased. 
 
 What plan had the enemy in mind ? Here 
 we lay in the dark night, four hundred men, 
 worn out, and half dead with thirst ; and in 
 front of us and all around us a savage, furious 
 people numbering sixty thousand. We knew 
 and heard nothing of the other German divi- 
 sions. Perhaps they had been slaughtered and 
 the sixty thousand were now collecting them- 
 selves to fall upon us. Through the quiet 
 night we heard in the distance the lowing of 
 enormous herds of thirsty cattle and a dull 
 confused sound like the movement of a whole 
 people. To the east there was a gigantic glow 
 of fire. I lay stretched at full length with my 
 gun ready, and cheered my utterly exhausted 
 comrades to keep awake. 
 
 Thus morning gradually came on. Then 
 some scouts went out cautiously and we learned 
 to our great amazement that the enemy had 
 withdrawn, and indeed in wild flight. We 
 should have liked to follow them up, but we
 
 THE FLIGHT OF A NATION 187 
 
 had no news yet from the other divisions. 
 Moreover, both men and beasts had reached 
 the limit of their strength. So we rested on 
 that day, ate a little poor food, and cleansed 
 and repaired our guns and other equipment ; 
 for we looked like people who had battered 
 and bruised and soiled themselves in an attack 
 of frenzy. The madness still showed in our 
 frowning brows and in our eyes. Our dead 
 lay in the midst of us in the shade of a tree. 
 
 We had a great deal of trouble to keep our 
 animals from dying. We could not give them 
 anywhere near enough water to satisfy them, 
 and we could not give them any fodder at all, 
 because the entire region had been eaten as 
 bare by the enemy's cattle as if rats and 
 mice had gnawed it clean. The men and the 
 animals had even grubbed into the earth in 
 search of roots. It was a miserable day. The 
 sun glared down, and an odor of old manure 
 filled the whole land to suffocation. 
 
 At noon there came at last some news from 
 the other divisions. Two reported that they 
 had beaten the enemy, the third that it had
 
 188 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 saved itself with great difficulty and distress. 
 The enemy had fled to the east with their 
 whole enormous mass, — women, children, and 
 herds. 
 
 Toward evening we buried our dead under 
 the tree.
 
 XV 
 
 A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND 
 
 The next morning we ventured to pursue the 
 enemy. We left our unmounted men with the 
 sick and wounded in camp and set out towards 
 the east, two hundred horsemen in number. 
 But our horses were weak, half-starved, or 
 sick, and the region into which we were ad- 
 vancing was a waterless land and little ex- 
 plored. The ground was trodden down into a 
 floor for a width of about a hundred yards ; 
 for in such a broad, thickly crowded horde had 
 the enemy and their herds of cattle stormed 
 along. In the path of their flight lay blan- 
 kets, skins, ostrich feathers, household utensils, 
 women's ornaments, cattle, and men dead and 
 dying and staring blankly. A shocking smell 
 of old manure and of decaying bodies filled 
 the hot, still air oppressively. 
 
 The further we went in the burning sun,
 
 190 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 the more disheartening became our journey. 
 How deeply the wild, proud, sorrowful people 
 had humbled themselves in the terror of death ! 
 Wherever I turned my eyes lay their goods in 
 quantities : oxen and horses, goats and dogs, 
 blankets and skins. And there lay the wounded 
 and the old, women and children. A number of 
 babies lay helplessly languishing by mothers 
 whose breasts hung down long and flabby. 
 Others were lying alone, still living, with eyes 
 and noses full of flies. Somebody sent out our 
 black drivers and I think they helped them to 
 die. All this life lay scattered there, both man 
 and beast, broken in the knees, helpless, still 
 in agony or already motionless ; it looked as 
 if it had all been thrown down out of the air. 
 At noon we halted by water-holes which 
 were filled to the very brim with corpses. We 
 pulled them out by means of the ox-teams 
 from the fieldpieces, but there was only a little 
 stinking, bloody water in the depths. We tried 
 to dig deeper, but no water came. There was 
 no pasturage, either. The sun blazed down so 
 hot on the sand that we could not even lie
 
 A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND 191 
 
 down. On our thirsting, starving horses, we 
 thirsting; and starving men rode on. At some 
 distance crouched a crowd of old women who 
 stared in apathy in front of them. Here and 
 there were oxen, bellowing. In the last frenzy 
 of despair man and beast will plunge madly into 
 the bush, somewhere, anywhere to find water, 
 and in the bush they will die of thirst. 
 
 We rode on till evening. Then we expected 
 to reach a dry river bed and find water near 
 by. Herds of beeves, bellowing hoarsely and 
 with wild, gleaming eyes, came towards us in 
 a cloud of dust. That was a bad sign of the 
 region into which we were riding. " Do you 
 think you are wiser than the animals? Turn 
 back, turn back ! " " No, we know better. At 
 seven we shall reach the enemy, and water and 
 pasture." We kept on. Our ranks became 
 straggling. We rode each one of us as best he 
 could. There was nothing to be seen of the 
 enemy, but Wittboys who had ridden on ahead 
 came back and reported that their camp was 
 not far off. 
 
 Toward evening, when I was ordered to ride
 
 192 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 in the bush with four men as a flank protec- 
 tion, — for we were shot at now and then, — 
 we chanced to see a Cape wagon behind some 
 high bushes, and we heard human voices. Dis- 
 mounting, we sneaked up and discovered six 
 of the enemy sitting in animated conversation 
 around a little camp-fire. I indicated, by signs, 
 at which one of them each of us was to 
 shoot. Four lay still immediately ; one escaped; 
 the sixth stood half erect, severely wounded. 
 I sprang forward swinging my club ; he looked 
 at me indifferently. I wiped my club clean in 
 the sand and threw the weapon on its strap 
 over my shoulder, but I did not like to touch 
 it all that day. 
 
 The ground was everywhere bare, yellowish 
 brown and stony ; the sparse grass had been 
 eaten, burned, or trodden down. Dead cattle 
 lay about everywhere. The hoarse bellowing 
 of dying oxen quavered horribly through the 
 air. The bush got thinner, often opening into 
 a great clearing. 
 
 Entirely forsaken in the scorching sun lay a 
 two-year-old child. When it caught sight of us,
 
 A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND 193 
 
 it sat up straight and stared at us. I got down 
 from my horse, picked the child up and carried 
 it back where there was a deserted fireplace 
 near a bush. It found at once the remainder of 
 a root or a bone, and began to eat. It did not 
 cry ; it did not show fear, either ; it was entirely 
 indifferent. I believe it had grown there in the 
 bush without human help. 
 
 The hot day was drawing to a close. Our 
 horses were very tired. We had trouble to get 
 the creatures up again when they stumbled. 
 Some of us dismounted, and by evening many 
 were leading their horses. Then the animals 
 fell, and their riders threw the saddles into the 
 wagons and continued on foot. It grew dark ; 
 still nothing was to be seen of the enemy. 
 Then at last we reached the eagerly longed-for 
 water-holes. There they were, filled to the very 
 top with dead oxen. No water was there ; no 
 trace of fodder. Then we bit our lips and stared 
 ahead of us, for we knew now that we must go 
 back and that many more horses would fall. 
 We might be happy indeed if we brought all 
 our men back to the camp alive.
 
 194 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 We stayed here three or four hours in the 
 night. I tried to get a little water by forcing 
 my way down between the dead cattle and oxen, 
 and after an hour came back with half a kettle- 
 f ul of the vile liquid. We made coffee with it, 
 however, and drank it. The others in the mean 
 time had got a great rough nest of weaver birds 
 from a tree and had laid it before the horses ; 
 we gathered old cow-dung, too, and cut branches 
 from the bushes and offered them those after 
 removing the thorns. I stayed an hour by my 
 horse, rubbing him with my hand and being 
 friendly with him. 
 
 After midnight we started on our return 
 journey. At first, when a horse fell the rider 
 would take the saddle on his back and trudge 
 in his heavy boots through the sand, but soon 
 the saddles lay scattered all along. We others 
 dismounted and led our horses ; it was a long, 
 weary procession. Right under my feet a com- 
 rade staggered and fell; four of us lifted him 
 up, — he was heavy as lead. More horses were 
 falling all the time. Soon a noble beast was 
 left lying every half-mile. Now and then a
 
 A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND 195 
 
 shot cracked, but we paid no attention. The 
 older carcasses were distended ; a terrific atmo- 
 sphere exhaled from the broad field of death. 
 We set one foot before the other in silence. 
 Our mouths were hot ; the suffocating, vile- 
 smelling air passed down our throats like whips 
 and spurs. One man in front of me began to 
 talk wildly, saying he wanted to kill all the 
 enemy and drink himself full of their blood. 
 We put him on a horse and two men held him. 
 I felt no hunger, — loathing drove away hun- 
 ger, — but I was tortured by thirst, so that I 
 longed to drink the blood which I saw in the 
 veins of the fallen animals. 
 
 Morning came and with it the burning sun. 
 We came to water-holes, again full of dead 
 cattle. Nevertheless, we threw ourselves down 
 and tried to get water out of the bottom, and 
 we filled a cover with the repulsive stuff and 
 drank in turn. When my turn came and I was 
 already raising the cover to my mouth, my 
 head was pushed gently aside. As I looked 
 around in amazement, my horse stuck his nose 
 into the cover and drank. I forced myself to
 
 196 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 preserve my self-control and thought : " Do 
 you want to drink death in spilt blood? Better 
 die of thirst." And I let him have it and stood 
 up, no longer having any hope of holding out 
 till the evening of that terrible day. Our line 
 got longer and longer. 
 
 It is wonderful how much a human being 
 can endure. I walked four hours more in the 
 burning sun. I know little or nothing of those 
 hours ; I have only a recollection of having 
 passed through a flaming fire. My horse fell 
 and lay there. 
 
 Towards evening, when we were still five 
 miles distant from the camp, I was ordered to 
 mount another horse and try to see if I could 
 reach there in order that they might send out 
 fresh oxen to meet us, for our teams refused 
 to go on. I climbed into the saddle and actually 
 got the East Prussian horse into a slow, heavy 
 trot. So I rode alone along the path of death. 
 
 When I had ridden awhile, a thick, dark 
 cloud, like a thunder-cloud, came up from the 
 south. I rejoiced at the sight and watched 
 greedily as it grew broader and broader and
 
 A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND 197 
 
 broader; I almost believed I could taste the 
 rain already. Then it struck me that it hung 
 very low and approached very rapidly, exactly 
 as if it were flying. And now it was upon me. 
 Whirring and humming, a numberless swarm 
 of big grasshoppers buzzed thick about me. 
 Their shining, silver wings, which were as long 
 as my finger, glittered with marvelous beauty 
 in the setting sun. They settled in countless 
 numbers about me on the bush. I shook myself 
 in horror of this wonderful, fearfully strange 
 land, and passed through them. I reached 
 camp and reported ; I drank, dropped down, 
 and slept.
 
 XVI 
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 
 
 During the four days that we still remained 
 in this camp, we had the flesh of the oxen 
 which had given out and rice for our three 
 meals a day ; there was no other food. There 
 was, to be sure, water enough for the time 
 being ; but as the hordes of the enemy with 
 their great herds of cattle had lived for weeks 
 around these same water-holes, the water had 
 become badly polluted. Thus it happened that 
 in a few days every tenth man fell sick of 
 dysentery. I kept fairly well, but once, when 
 searching under a bush for a little grass for 
 my half-starved horse, I got wounded by a 
 thorn in my hand, which swelled up and looked 
 bad for some days. Apparently the whole place 
 was infected, — the water, the ground, the bush, 
 and the air. 
 
 Then came the news that the enemy, after
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 199 
 
 overcoming and passing the great stretch of 
 waterless country, where thousands of them 
 had perished, were situated far to the east on 
 the further side of the sand field by some 
 miserable water-holes. The general decided to 
 follow them thither, to attack them and force 
 them to go northward into thirst and death, 
 so that the colony would be left in peace and 
 quiet for all time. 
 
 We now advanced into broad steppes to the 
 east, marching, as was our usual method, with 
 an immense baggage train of ox-teams, Cape 
 wagons, carts, and drivers, which carried along 
 all our means of supporting life in the desert. 
 Of these steppes, where no white man before 
 us had ever trod, little was known except that 
 they were very poorly supplied with water. On 
 the way a large supply of fresh horses reached 
 us, so we were all mounted again. It was the 
 fourth horse I had ridden, and the lieutenant, 
 who had been on many and long reconnoitring 
 expeditions, was mounting his sixth. We were 
 four hundred men in our division. 
 
 The sand was deep and the sun was scorch-
 
 200 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 ing. At night, lying on the ground, our heads 
 pillowed on our hats or saddles, we got a 
 little sleep. The stars were clear, and an icy 
 wind blew. The food was monotonous and 
 meagre. Many had drunk the seeds of typhoid 
 fever in the infected water, and the disease 
 now broke out. The sick men had to ride back 
 all day on the floors of the hard, jolting wag- 
 ons until they came to a field hospital, where 
 they would lie for weeks on miserable grass 
 beds without proper food to strengthen them, 
 without drink to cool their fever, and without 
 cleanliness. The further on we penetrated into 
 the steppes, the more troublesome became the 
 big flies which always come at this time of 
 year, and which were so rapacious that we had 
 to pick them out of our eyes and the corners 
 of our mouths with our fingers. That they were 
 always floating in our soup had long since 
 ceased to bother us. In the second or third 
 week the new horses began to get exhausted. 
 Soon one, and then another, was lying by the 
 way. The oxen, from long marches and poor 
 fodder, were getting more and more flabby.
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 201 
 
 Our clothes, boots, saddles, and harness were 
 again torn and dirty. We looked as if we had 
 rolled in the dust. 
 
 When we had marched three weeks and had 
 reached the region where the enemy were sup- 
 posed to be, it appeared that they had gone 
 still further east and were stopping at the very 
 last of the wretched water-holes. So we had to 
 go still further. At night we would see here 
 and there to the east of us the burning grass 
 which they had set on fire, and the fires of the 
 single tribes which had detached themselves 
 from the main body and were trying to break 
 through to the west, to their old home, in order 
 to escape a cruel death from thirst. Scouting 
 parties were sent out to prevent their getting 
 through, so that they should not keep up an 
 endless petty warfare with us in their native 
 district. 
 
 At last, in the fourth week, I again left the 
 company. I rode with a party of twenty men, 
 led by a lieutenant, out of the night camp to 
 the north in order to get information about 
 this region, of which there was no map, and
 
 202 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 more especially to find some good water. 
 There were in the vicinity, to be sure, many 
 water-holes; but two out of three would be 
 found dried up and the third would contain 
 miserably little water. 
 
 We set out after midnight and rode till 
 nine o'clock in the morning. Then we unsad- 
 dled to rest. But we had not been lying long 
 in the shadow of some bushes when we noticed 
 an odor of something burning, which grew 
 rapidly stronger, so that we thought it right, 
 in spite of our indifference, to investigate 
 the cause. Just then our outposts came run- 
 ning up and said that the wind was driving 
 a mighty grass fire toward us. Cursing the 
 enemy, we got up and saddled in haste, for 
 heavy smoke and fire which gleamed through 
 it were coming toward us in a broad front. As 
 our horses were getting restless and were rear- 
 ing and plunging into one another, we walked 
 as fast as we could, leading them without any 
 concerted action toward a depression in the 
 cleared ground. We had just reached it and 
 were beginning to cut and tear up the grass
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 203 
 
 for a little space, when the flames came up 
 like a tribe of little glowing children who 
 were dancing forward holding each other's 
 hands. Here and there one would spring up 
 higher than the rest and immediately duck 
 down again. They roared as they crept along, 
 blowing a dry, hot breath before them which 
 they drove into our mouths and eyes. Some 
 of us had poured some of the cold coffee which 
 we had in our water-sacks on our handker- 
 chiefs, others crouched down behind their 
 horses, and others pressed their faces against 
 the moist water-sacks. Then there was a mo- 
 ment of great confusion : the horses reared 
 wildly ; our breath stopped ; a comrade stum- 
 bled and was pulled up again — then it was 
 past. We looked like chimney-sweeps ; and 
 we cursed and shook our heads and looked at 
 one another; and at last we had to laugh over 
 the adventure. But I especially laughed to 
 myself at the thought of that rascal from 
 Holstein who had sometimes, as he said, been 
 shoved by his mother into the oven. I would 
 not have begrudged him this adventure.
 
 204 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 In the evening we reached some dried-up 
 water-holes, which we dug somewhat deeper 
 and by which we slept that night, laying our 
 saddles in a circle and each man lying behind 
 his own. The horses were enclosed in a pretty 
 good grazing-place by thorn branches which 
 had been hastily cut and gathered together. 
 The lieutenant and the officer who had lost his 
 commission took turns watching in the circle 
 of sleeping soldiers. Two guards, who were 
 relieved every hour, walked outside the circle, 
 and one man stood with the horses. 
 
 When it came my turn to watch and I went 
 outside, the night -was so bitter cold that I 
 made all sorts of motions to keep a little 
 warmth in my body. I even climbed twice on 
 a low, tumble-down anthill and watched the 
 fires which here and there in the distance 
 shone through the darkness. While I was thus 
 gazing, however, I was struck by the fact that 
 one fire was burning not far from us in the 
 thick bush. I remembered it when I was re- 
 lieved, and told the lieutenant, who was sitting 
 on the ground by our burned-out fire.
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 205 
 
 Before dawn we got up, discovered the exact 
 place in the hush, and stealthily surrounded it. 
 Five men and eight or ten women and children, 
 all in rags, were squatting benumbed about 
 their dismal little fire. Telling them with 
 threats not to move, we looked through the 
 bundles which were lying near them and found 
 two guns and some underclothing, probably 
 stolen from our dead. One of the men was 
 wearing a German tunic which bore the name 
 of one of our officers who had been killed. 
 We then led the men away to one side and 
 shot them. The women and children, who 
 looked pitiably starved, we hunted into the 
 bush. 
 
 When we got back to the place where we 
 had spent the night, so much water had trickled 
 into the holes which we had deepened that we 
 could give a whole cook-pan full to every 
 horse and put a little in our water-sacks be- 
 sides. The water was not so bad as regards 
 taste, but, as was almost everywhere the case 
 in that sandy soil, it contained a consider- 
 able proportion of Glaubersaltz and had, there-
 
 206 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 fore, what the lieutenant called a decidedly 
 laxative effect. 
 
 All that day, to the great vexation of the 
 lieutenant, we found no good water-place, but 
 we continually rejoiced to be out of the com- 
 pany and traveling alone through the broad, 
 boundless country. While we were riding, the 
 lieutenant described to us his plan of hunting 
 up our nearest little post, which had already 
 been camping somewhere in the vicinity for 
 several weeks in order to prevent the return of 
 the hostile tribes to their homes. At this post 
 he was going to make inquiries. But towards 
 evening, before, according to our information, 
 we could possibly have arrived at that post, 
 the bushes began to be more luxuriant and the 
 grass softer; some tall trees rose from the 
 bush and some fowl flew up. In short, we no- 
 ticed that we were coming to water, and, feel- 
 ing very happy and proud at our cleverness in 
 discovery, we put our horses into a trot. And, 
 behold, there at the side of a clearing was 
 truly a little pond, or rather puddle, of clear 
 water. We came up, dismounted, and some were
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 207 
 
 already kneeling and drinking and the horses 
 were standing knee-deep in the water near us 
 when just then a strange soldier came run- 
 ning towards us down a hill, shouting : " For 
 Heaven's sake, don't drink that water ! Don't 
 drink! There's typhoid fever in it!" We 
 stopped and shrugged our shoulders. Some of 
 the men were serious, some laughed indiffer- 
 ently. Above, on the slope, was a newly estab- 
 lished army hospital which we had not known 
 of- We spent the night near by, apart from 
 the typhoid patients and the miserable pond, 
 however. But with this water, as appeared 
 after some weeks, six of us had drunk in 
 typhoid fever and two of us death. 
 
 The next morning we made a very early 
 start, and at about ten o'clock found the post 
 we were in search of. Fifteen soldiers were 
 living in a cleared space, in a little camp which 
 they had fortified with a barricade of thorn- 
 bush. Inside this barricade they had built two 
 huts of branches and had made a big cooking- 
 hole. Outside, at some distance, were their 
 horses, and cattle, namely, four cows, which
 
 208 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 they had seized and from which they got 
 milk. To do the milking and washing and 
 to gather wood they had captured an oldish 
 bush- woman. 
 
 The lieutenant in command of the post was 
 a thickset man with reddish hair, on account 
 of which and because he was so untiringly ac- 
 tive and ingenious in spying out and holding 
 up wandering hostile bands, he had won the 
 name of "The Red Freebooter." He was just 
 returning from such an expedition. If his 
 mother, the wife of a burgomaster, could have 
 seen him, she would have been horrified. His 
 head was shaved as bald as a rat, his beard 
 was stubbly, his coat filthy, his trousers badly 
 torn, and his boots trodden down. Half a dozen 
 pearl fowl, which he had shot on the way back, 
 hung by a strap of fresh ox-hide over his shoul- 
 der, and when he afterwards opened his coat 
 a little I observed that on that day at least he 
 was wearing no shirt. It was probably in the 
 wringing hands of the spindle-legged bush- 
 woman. He was very glad to see us, and, mak- 
 ing fun of himself, told us about his present
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 209 
 
 importance and his efficiency. Then he invited 
 us to dinner. 
 
 It was always the same when we met com- 
 rades from another division. We always talked 
 on three subjects : first, the enemy ; second, 
 the events in the army ; and, third, the various 
 ways of cooking. After topics first and second 
 had been sufficiently discussed, our host, with 
 an important manner, led us to a place in the 
 corner of the camp where a little thin smoke 
 was issuing out of the ground. He took a 
 piece of wood and carefully pushed aside the 
 earth. Then appeared to our view two cooking- 
 pans packed around with dry cow-dung which 
 was smouldering a little. Two men came up 
 and with great skill lifted from the hole the 
 pans, which, the lieutenant informed us, had 
 been standing in this heat for sixteen hours. 
 Then he took off the cover and with great 
 pride invited us to smell of the contents of the 
 pans. It was a fine soup and the meat was 
 well cooked, too. We had to praise it highly 
 and we also liked it, but we were somewhat 
 depressed that they and not we had made this 
 great discovery.
 
 210 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 While we were sitting around, each one with 
 his pan-cover in his hand, the red lieutenant 
 gave us another surprise in the shape of a 
 rather recent number of a South African news- 
 paper. As it had already passed from hand to 
 hand in this camp, it had become somewhat 
 dirty and ragged. Still our lieutenant clutched 
 it eagerly, spread it out, and looked, whether 
 by chance or not, at the place where the new 
 decorations are announced. Then looking up 
 suddenly at the reduced officer, who was sit- 
 ting as usual a little apart from us and staring 
 at the ground in front of him, he called him 
 by name and said : " Comrade, look here ! " 
 The man started out of his reverie and came 
 and knelt down behind the lieutenant, looking 
 at the place which the latter pointed out. Then 
 he began to breathe short and hard. The lieu- 
 tenant looked at us and said softly : " He has 
 just been suggested for decoration." At that 
 the ex-officer could no longer hold back the 
 violent sobs which he had been repressing. 
 He wept, and we pressed around him and 
 grasped his hand, our own eyes wet. Then he
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 211 
 
 wrote a post-card to his wife and children and 
 we had to sign our names : a linen-weaver from 
 Upper Schleswig, a chimney-sweep from Ber- 
 lin, a farm hand from Oldenburg, a Bavarian 
 count, a locksmith's apprentice from Holstein, 
 and others. 
 
 We were all in a state of excitement over 
 this occurrence when a guard came in from 
 the cattle and reported : " Herr Lieutenant, 
 the brindle cow wants to calve and can't." 
 The red lieutenant looked much perplexed. 
 " What ! " said he, " Can't ! Of course she 
 can." Then we all laughed at him and were 
 very jolly, and the farm hand from Oldenburg 
 helped the cow. 
 
 After that we rode on. The red lieutenant 
 knew nothing of any good water-place; he said 
 we must get used to going without water. 
 
 In the afternoon, on the way back to our 
 division, we overtook a provision train, with 
 the leader of which our lieutenant talked for 
 a while. The others chatted meanwhile with 
 the guard, but I could not take my eyes off a 
 driver who walked along near his oxen with
 
 212 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 long, dignified strides, his whip over his shoul- 
 der. Behind him walked his wife with a little 
 two-year-old child in a shawl on her back. 
 Then came still in single file, graduated ac- 
 cording to height, three more half -grown chil- 
 dren. A pipe, the common property of the 
 family, went from the man all along the line 
 to the last little eight-year-old, who, after he 
 had had a few pulls, took it back on the trot 
 to his father. Only the smallest had not yet 
 any interest in the pleasures of tobacco. From 
 his seat on his mother's back he was trying, 
 with some success, I believe, to reach her 
 breast, which hung down long and flabby. 
 
 As I rode along still reflecting on this pic- 
 ture, the lieutenant called me and told me 
 that, according to the story of the leader of 
 the column, the head doctor, sick himself, and 
 with a single sick companion and a black ser- 
 vant, had passed on this road about an hour 
 before in order to reach our division ; but now 
 no more of their tracks were to be seen and 
 it was feared that they had followed another 
 path, which would not lead to a water-place.
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 213 
 
 I was to ride on with two men in search of 
 them and escort them to the division. 
 
 I was much pleased with this commission 
 and fulfilled it with especially good luck ; for 
 when we had ridden about an hour, during 
 which time I had examined, like an old hunter, 
 every track which crossed our path, I dis- 
 covered to my great joy that three riders had 
 turned off the path, to the right, at a place 
 that was sandy enough to show their track 
 plainly. They were evidently trying to reach 
 the camp by the shortest way, straight across 
 the bush. We followed their course and soon 
 saw the three lonely riders going along in front 
 of us in the thin bush on their very weary 
 horses. On the left rode the doctor, recogniz- 
 able by his short, sturdy figure ; I had seen 
 him several times before the last fight. His 
 companion, who was riding at the right, hung 
 in the saddle as though he were asleep ; now 
 and then the doctor reached over to him as if 
 to hold him or shake him up. The black ser- 
 vant rode as leader some twenty yards in ad- 
 vance. I shook my head in disapproval of the
 
 214 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 way the doctor had to ride with such a scanty 
 escort and protection from hospital to hospital 
 straight across this pathless, waterless country 
 overrun by hostile tribes, and I put my tired 
 horse into a trot. Therefore the black servant 
 looked around and announced our approach. 
 The doctor again gave his companion a cuff, 
 turned his horse, and took his gun out of its 
 rest. Since many of the enemy used to wear 
 our uniforms and hats, and since our sunburned 
 faces looked almost black, especially as the sun 
 shone nearly vertically down on us, he took us 
 for the moment for foes; but when we took 
 off our hats, he recognized us. I now saw that 
 the other man was very sick and could no 
 longer hold himself properly in the saddle, and 
 that the doctor himself, who at the fight four 
 weeks before had looked well and fresh, was 
 very much worn, and looked wearily and fe- 
 verishly out of deep-sunken eyes. For the last 
 six weeks he had ridden from one division to 
 another, and yesterday and to-day had covered 
 about forty miles; and he had not slept for 
 tweuty hours. While he was asking me where
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 215 
 
 I came from and where I was going, and was 
 drinking out of my water-sack, scolding the 
 while at his black servant, who out of sheer 
 indifference and laziness had not filled his 
 water-sack, my men were helping his escort 
 down from his horse. Soon by main force they 
 lifted him back into his saddle and we rode 
 slowly on again. 
 
 Late in the evening we arrived dead tired 
 at our division, which was spending the night 
 by some dried-up water-holes. It was a very 
 cold, unpleasant night. A sharp, cutting wind 
 blew across the steppes and drove fine, dry 
 sand over the thirsting men and animals. 
 
 The following day we were overtaken by a 
 thunder-storm. Dark clouds rose as if from all 
 sides at once, heavy thunder rolled over the 
 broad plain, gleaming whips of lightning quiv- 
 ered across the whole sky, and rain poured in 
 torrents. But after one hour all dampness was 
 gone and a stormy wind blew the sand into 
 our faces so that we could not open mouth or 
 eyes. We protected ourselves in bivouac from 
 the biting cold by putting up canvas as a
 
 216 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 screen against the wind. Behind this shelter 
 we cooked our daily fare of tough meat and 
 rice with bad water over a miserable fire. We 
 talked little and gloomily. Far in the east were 
 great clouds of smoke and flame. . The enemy 
 on their retreat into the desert were burning 
 the sparse, dry fodder. 
 
 The next forenoon we expected to 'find 
 water at a place near the dried bed of a river. 
 We found holes, but they were empty. Twenty 
 men got down into them and dug them deeper, 
 but no water came. So we could neither drink 
 nor cook. The horses, too, could not graze 
 without being watered first, for their parched 
 mucous membranes could not digest the dry, 
 coarse grass. There was nothing to do but go 
 on. We dismounted, and, leading our horses, 
 walked in a long weary train through deep, 
 blowing sand, under hot sun, with burning 
 throats. Occasionally a horse stumbled and 
 his owner pulled him up again and talked to 
 him kindly or roughly. In this way night 
 came on and it grew dark. The ground was 
 stony and we could no longer see the trail.
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 217 
 
 We halted, stationed sentinels about us, lighted 
 a few fires, and lay sleeping heavily on the 
 ground. Our horses stood or lay near us by 
 the fires. 
 
 About midnight the moon rose slowly over 
 the broad steppes. We called in the sentries, 
 saddled, and went on ; and after three hours 
 were close to the water-place which our scouts 
 had found in reconnoitring. The moonlight 
 was so brilliant that we could see the water- 
 holes from a long distance lying like dark 
 spots in the ghostly white limy surface. At 
 one side stood single beautiful tall trees with 
 two gray ant-hills bright in the moonlight. 
 It looked like a splendid square, paved with 
 marble, in the midst of a magnificent park, 
 with statues under tall, still trees at one side 
 of the square. The horses raised their heads 
 and quickened their gait, and their sleepy, 
 half-starved, cold riders came to life. The 
 leaders of our party were now at the first 
 water-hole ; but their horses turned away and 
 went to the second and the third. Then the 
 rest of us came up and noticed the odor of
 
 218 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 carrion, which, like a wicked, hidden monster, 
 lay flat over the whole beautiful moonlit clear- 
 ing, ready to devour us. The holes were full 
 of decaying cattle. The horses stood there 
 with drooping heads, and we near them, prop- 
 ping ourselves up on our guns. Many a one, 
 dead with sleep and weak from hunger, swayed 
 as he stood. 
 
 We had to go on to make use of the cool 
 of the night. Then many a one thought : "If 
 I had only stayed at home ! If I could be at 
 home now, never again would I go away ! " 
 But his stumbling horse waked him out of his 
 dream. And then after a few more faltering 
 steps the poor animal would fall forward on 
 his knees and He there groaning. The rest 
 would pass indifferently by him and his pros- 
 trate horse, and then it meant : " Don't stand 
 there so long ! Quick ! Take off the bag and 
 sling it over your own shoulders ! " At that 
 he would get wide awake, as if some one had 
 said : " Behind you and on both sides under 
 the dry bushes follows and lurks Death. 
 Ahead, and there only, is life and a return
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 219 
 
 home." He would stoop for the pack, take 
 one more look into the eye of his horse, and 
 trudge on. 
 
 Along the path lay many little burnt-out 
 fires, and near them all sorts of abandoned 
 goods belonging to the enemy or stolen by 
 them, especially clothes and saddles and 
 Christian books which the missionaries had 
 given or sold them. The whole way was be- 
 strewn with cattle which had fallen dead. We 
 had reached the path of the enemy's flight. 
 A reconnoitring party came up with the news 
 that our other division had surprised a part of 
 the foe, pelted them with shell, and dispersed 
 them. 
 
 The next day we at last reached a good water- 
 place and here joined the other division. Com- 
 bining our forces, we were now going to attack 
 the enemy, who were at the next and last water- 
 place, and deal them a finishing blow. It was 
 the general belief that there would be a battle 
 just as severe and with as great loss as the one 
 four weeks before. The general, wishing to see 
 the united divisions all drawn up in battle
 
 220 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 array and also wishing to raise their spirits 
 in expectation of battle, ordered a parade and 
 religious services for the next day. 
 
 We took up our positions in the broad clear- 
 ing, — the horsemen, those who had to go on 
 foot, and the artillery with the cannon. The 
 oxen, the black drivers, the Cape wagons, and 
 the sky over the wide steppes looked on. We 
 stood in beautiful order, and it sounded very 
 magnificent, the " Good-morning, soldiers ! " 
 " Good-morning, your Excellency ! " But the 
 horses were thin, shaggy, and weary; our 
 clothes and boots were torn ; and hunger and 
 sickness stared many of us in the face. 
 
 At four in the afternoon we assembled for 
 the service. The chaplain had been with the 
 other division all the time, so that I had seen 
 him for the first time only a few days before. 
 He was a big, strong man, and wore a uniform 
 and high boots, just as we did. He sat in the 
 saddle with his gun by his side and his car- 
 tridge-belt around his waist. Even now when 
 he stood before the chest, which was covered 
 with a red cloth, he was in uniform and riding
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 221 
 
 boots ; but he had a gold cross hanging on his 
 breast and wore on his arm a blue and white 
 band with a red cross on it. First we sang the 
 song, " We come to pray before a just God." 
 Then he began to speak. He said that a people 
 savage by nature had rebelled against the 
 authorities that God had set over them and 
 besides had stained themselves with revolting 
 murders. Then the authorities had given the 
 sword, which we were to use on the morrow, 
 into our hands. Might every man of us use it 
 honorably, like a good soldier ! It was a serious 
 hour. It might well be that one or another 
 would not live till the next night. We would 
 seek the face of God that He might bestow 
 upon us of his eternal holiness, for to those 
 who yield themselves to Him He has promised 
 everlasting peace and rest. 
 
 We realized that the chaplain was in earnest 
 and believed himself every word he spoke, and 
 we all knew that there would be a fight and 
 that perhaps we were going to suffer a sudden 
 death or painful wounds and sorrowful trans- 
 port. And then there faced us all the hard,
 
 222 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 long, weary road through shocking diseases 
 and gnawing hunger and torturing thirst be- 
 fore we came again to our distant native land. 
 Therefore we all listened with great serious- 
 ness and then took off our hats for the prayer. 
 At ten o'clock we got started. The country 
 was rolling and covered with thin bush. We 
 went along the top of a low ridge and saw in 
 the moonlight the beautiful soft lines of the 
 hills; below in the low ground ran a broad 
 bright stripe, the sandy bed of a river. It got 
 to be four o'clock, then morning, and nothing 
 was to be seen of the enemy. We thought, 
 however, that we should see them when we 
 reached the height in front of us, and in spite 
 of the ever-increasing heat we went on. The 
 van reached the height and disappeared. Not 
 a shot. We saw that the artillery were taking 
 the dust caps off their guns. A few shots were 
 heard from a long way ahead. Now we reached 
 the top. Nothing was to be seen of the enemy 
 except below in the distance, where a heavy, 
 monstrous cloud of dust was moving swiftly 
 across the plain. Then it was clear that the
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 223 
 
 proud nation had lost all courage and hope, 
 and preferred to die in the desert rather than 
 to fight any more with us. 
 
 We rested a little by the water-holes which 
 the enemy had left, and by their fires, which 
 were still burning. Then, on weary horses, 
 we pushed forward. Towards evening, as we 
 passed along by the river bed, we came to a 
 place where there should have been water. We 
 found some old water-holes, and near them 
 hundreds of new ones dug by the enemy the 
 day before. They were twelve feet deep and 
 even deeper, but they had no water in them. 
 
 It was now reported that there was still a 
 last water-place about five hours' ride further 
 on, and that great numbers of the enemy were 
 camping there. It was decided that we must 
 drive them away ; and we wanted to, for if 
 we hunted them out of that place nothing 
 remained to them but the wilderness. At one 
 o'clock at night, tired riders and weary horses, 
 we formed for the march. In seven hours we 
 reached the place, but no water was there. 
 From a hill we saw two mighty clouds of dust
 
 224 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 moving rapidly to the north and northeast, 
 toward certain death from thirst. 
 
 But we, too, had reached our limit. Every 
 fourth man was sick with dysentery or typhoid 
 fever ; the rest were exhausted from overex- 
 ertion. Half our horses had fallen, our clothes 
 and saddles were torn. We were seven hours 
 from the nearest, poorly supplied water-holes 
 and twenty-four hours from the better ones. 
 The danger of getting hung up here on the 
 border of the desert was not remote. Then the 
 general ordered that we should give up the 
 pursuit. 
 
 Still some scouts were to try to push on for 
 a few hours more. Volunteers in plenty offered 
 themselves even for this last hard expedition, 
 as they always did for all scouting trips. As 
 I was a good rider, I got the horse of a non- 
 commissioned officer who had just slipped sick 
 out of his saddle, and I rode out of camp with 
 the party. A first lieutenant who looked like 
 a scholar led us. We rode and rode ; then we 
 rested an hour. When we had trotted pain- 
 fully for ten minutes, we dismounted and led
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 225 
 
 our horses, and we even resorted to having 
 one man lead two horses while the other drove 
 them along from behind. So we got on com- 
 paratively fast. The lieutenant's voice was 
 hoarse in his dry throat from commanding: 
 "Dismount!" "Mount!" "Trot!" 
 
 Several times we saw from some little eleva- 
 tion the mass of dust which dragged slowly 
 forward, but we got little nearer. We thought 
 they would have to rest ; then we would come 
 up to them with a last effort and frighten them 
 by our sudden appearance and firing, and drive 
 them still further into the desert. The sun was 
 burning fiercely on the broad, desert country. 
 My throat was so parched that every time I 
 followed the impulse to swallow, I groaned 
 softly with the pain. I had sometimes a sud- 
 den feeling of fear that I must get away out 
 of this terribly dry, hot air and scorching sun 
 or I should all at once, with one fearful scream, 
 lose my reason. I could not refrain from drink- 
 ing my last drop of water and moistening my 
 eyes with the damp sack. Soon after this one 
 of our twenty men began to sway in his
 
 226 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 saddle and to murmur to himself. When I 
 looked back to see how it was with the others, 
 two or three were hanging pale and insensible 
 in their saddles and others rode along with 
 deep-sunken, closed eyes. The subordinate 
 officer looked at me with a glance which seemed 
 to say : " It is madness to ride any further.'* 
 Immediately afterwards the lieutenant called 
 a halt and had five men dismount and lie down. 
 We protected them from the heat with their 
 cloaks and rode on. But after about an hour 
 five or six of the party could no longer lead 
 their horses ; their legs were like lead, and two 
 were trembling in every limb and vomiting. 
 We let them lie down and covered them up. 
 They were hardly on the ground before they 
 were sleeping like the dead. 
 
 I noticed that the lieutenant was annoyed 
 that he could not go on, although he himself 
 could hardly speak. He stood and looked with 
 the glass up the hill behind which the cloud 
 of dust had vanished, hanging now only like 
 a mist over the summit. He wanted very much 
 for us to show ourselves on the top, in case the
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 227 
 
 enemy had halted on the other side in the hope 
 that the German troops had at last turned 
 back. A home-guardsman who was in the party 
 stepped up to him and said that his horse was 
 probably strong enough to ride on two hours 
 more, especially as it was getting toward even- 
 ing. Then I, too, stepped forward and offered 
 to ride with them. We arranged with the others 
 that they should go back to the first five and 
 wait there with them till ten o'clock. If we had 
 not then returned, they were to avail them- 
 selves of the remaining night hours to reach 
 the camp. I had a secret opinion that the two 
 would not give up their plan till they collapsed 
 from over-exhaustion, and I wanted to be with 
 them, for I thought I was stronger than either 
 of them. 
 
 After half an hour we started. We gave up 
 leading our horses and stayed in the saddle. 
 After a while three cows came toward us. 
 They were awfully thin and lowed mournfully ; 
 one of them had been cut in the side with a 
 knife, probably so that some one could drink 
 the blood that flowed out. A little further on
 
 228 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 we found a goat lying by the way, and near it 
 a boy with remarkably long, thin legs, as if 
 they had stretched in death. We hardly turned 
 our horses so that they should not tread on 
 him. It is strange what a matter of indifference 
 another man's life is to us when he belongs to 
 another race. In half an hour or more we 
 neared the height. The guardsman rode on 
 ahead, his gun in his hand. The lieutenant 
 and I followed. It was slow work. As I was 
 peering by chance into some bushes about fifty 
 yards off, which grew thicker together than the 
 others, I saw among and under them people 
 sitting in crowds, shoulder against shoulder, 
 quite motionless. The heads of some drooped 
 on their breasts and their arms hung down, as 
 if they were asleep. Others sat leaning against 
 a bush or a neighbor, breathing fast and hard, 
 their mouths open ; they regarded us with stupid 
 eyes. Some, women and children, had laid them- 
 selves down across the legs and laps of those 
 who were sitting. I quietly told my companions 
 what I saw. They cast a long glance in the 
 direction which I indicated, but said nothing.
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 229 
 
 We rode on. The guardsman pointed once or 
 twice into the bushes ; I looked over there. 
 Thus we reached the summit and then looked 
 attentively out over the plain, which lay in 
 boundless extent and absolute stillness, like a 
 yellowish gray sea. The long rays of the set- 
 ting sun lay upon it like strips of thin, bright- 
 shining cloth. 
 
 We sprang off our horses, loosened the girths, 
 and lay down on the ground. The guard's horse 
 began to sniff at his face, but he did not notice 
 it; he was already asleep. The lieutenant stood 
 up again and said to me : "Get up! If we fall 
 asleep, we shall sleep all night and then we are 
 lost." I rose, and we both stood awhile with 
 benumbed senses in a state between sleeping 
 and waking. The sun sank in a dull glow ; the 
 air grew cooler, and the horses got somewhat 
 more lively and began with weary steps to 
 nibble a few little bushes. 
 
 After a while the Africander woke and asked 
 in a woe-begone voice if I had a drop of water. 
 I said: "No." He said: " The lieutenant has 
 some, then." Again I said: "No." Then he
 
 230 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 said he could hold out no longer without water, 
 — he had trusted too much to his strength, he 
 should have to die here. The lieutenant, who 
 had dozed standing by his horse and holding 
 on to the saddle, woke and said consolingly : 
 " Cheer up ! We shall start at once. Then we 
 are off for home, for the war is now really 
 over." "Yes," said the guardsman, "it is over; 
 forty thousand of them are dead ; all their land 
 belongs to us. But what good does all that do 
 me? I must die here." He begged mournfully: 
 " Have you not a single drop of water ? " The 
 lieutenant shook his head : " You know I have 
 none. Rest a little longer; it is night, and that 
 will refresh us." The guardsman got up with 
 difficulty and went with bent back down the 
 slope to one side where there were some bushes. 
 I said : " What does he want ? I believe he is 
 out of his senses and wants to search for water." 
 At that moment there came from the bushes 
 into which he had vanished a noise of cursing, 
 running, and leaping. Immediately he reap- 
 peared, holding by the hip a tall, thin negro 
 dressed in European clothing. He tore the
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 231 
 
 negro's gun from his hand and, swearing at 
 him in a strange language, dragged him up to 
 us and said : " The wretch has a German gun, 
 but no more cartridges." The guardsman had 
 now become quite lively, and began to talk 
 to his captive, threatening him and kicking 
 him in the knees. The negro crouched, and 
 answered every question with a great flow of 
 words and with quick, very agile and remark- 
 able gestures of the arms and hands. "He 
 says he has not taken part in the war." Then 
 he asked him some more questions, pointing 
 towards the east ; and the negro also pointed 
 towards the east, answering all sorts of things 
 of which I understood nothing. The guards- 
 man said : " He is stuffing me with lies." This 
 went on for some time. I can still hear the 
 two dry, shrill voices of the German and the 
 native. Apparently the guardsman at last 
 learned enough, for he said : " The missionary 
 said to me, 'Beloved, don't forget that the 
 blacks are our brothers.' Now I will give my 
 brother his reward." He pushed the black 
 man off and said : " Run away ! " The man
 
 232 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 sprang up and tried to get down across the 
 clearing in long zigzag jumps, but he had not 
 taken five leaps before the ball hit him and he 
 pitched forward at full length and lay still. 
 
 I grumbled a little ; I thought the shot 
 might attract to us the attention of hostile 
 tribes who had perhaps stayed behind. But 
 the lieutenant thought I meant it was not right 
 for the guardsman to shoot the negro, and 
 said in his thoughtful, scholarly way : " Safe 
 is safe. He can't raise a gun against us any 
 more, nor beget any more children to fight 
 against us. The struggle for South Africa will 
 still be a hard one, whether it is to belong to 
 the Germans or to the blacks." 
 
 The guardsman was leaning against his 
 horse. He had a severe pain in his chest, and 
 in a distressed voice said : " When we were 
 sitting once by our fire there in the south, our 
 captain said that two million Germans would 
 live here, and their children would ride safely 
 through the country and visit their playmates, 
 stopping on the way to water their horses at 
 these water-holes and at many new ones which
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 233 
 
 would be dug everywhere. But I shall not see 
 anything of it ; I am sick, very sick. Have n't 
 you a single drop of water ? " He supported 
 himself by the saddle and looked out with 
 fixed eyes over the steppes, above which the 
 stars were shining. 
 
 The lieutenant talked to him, prevailed upon 
 him to lie down, and covered him up with his 
 cloak. He himself stood by his horse, beating 
 time with his watch, which he held in his hand, 
 in order to keep himself awake. So we both 
 stood for a good while. Then he spoke : " These 
 blacks have deserved death before God and 
 man, not because they have murdered two hun- 
 dred farmers and have revolted against us, but 
 because they have built no houses and dug no 
 wells." Then he fell to talking about home, 
 and among other things said : " What we sang 
 the day before yesterday in the service, ' We 
 come to pray before God the just,' I under- 
 stood in this way : God has let us conquer here 
 because we are the nobler and more advanced 
 people. That is not saying much in compari- 
 son with this black nation, but we must see
 
 234 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 to it that we become better and braver before 
 all nations of the earth. To the nobler and 
 more vigorous belongs the world. That is the 
 justice of God." 
 
 The guardsman had gone to sleep. The 
 lieutenant stood erect, his watch in his hand, 
 swaying a little from time to time. I stood 
 half asleep and half awake by the side of my 
 horse. The moon rose and the night grew cold 
 and windy. After a while the lieutenant spoke 
 again : "But the missionary was right when 
 he said that all men are brothers." 
 
 " Then we have killed our brother," said I, 
 looking toward the dark body lying stretched 
 in the grass. 
 
 He looked up and said in a hoarse, painful 
 voice : " For a long time we must be hard and 
 kill, but at the same time as individual men 
 we must strive toward high thoughts and 
 noble deeds so that we may contribute our 
 part to mankind, our future brothers." He 
 gazed thoughtfully over the broad plain and 
 looked again at the motionless body.
 
 THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE 235 
 
 After a while the lieutenant signified with 
 a motion of the hand that we should break 
 our rest. He went with heavy steps to the 
 sleeping man, woke him, and with difficulty 
 set him on his feet, and ordered me to pull up 
 the girths. Then we helped the guardsman 
 into the saddle, mounted ourselves, and rode 
 away. 
 
 Those whom we had left behind we found 
 in a dead sleep ; the subordinate officer, on a 
 saddle in their midst, alone sat watching. It 
 was a tiresome ride the rest of the night. 
 Some were continually begging for water ; two 
 had to be supported in their saddles. I myself 
 know little of those hours ; my spirit was far 
 away sleeping and dreaming. An hour after 
 sunrise, when the heat was beginning to be 
 oppressive, we reached the main body. They 
 were preparing to break camp. The campaign 
 was over.
 
 XVII 
 
 LAST DAYS IN AFRICA 
 
 So we set forth out of the far east and marched 
 westward toward the capital. Many more than 
 half of us had to go on foot with packs over 
 our shoulders. 
 
 It was in the month of October, the time 
 when in that region spring is advancing over 
 the land. Rain and thunder-storms had passed 
 violently over the plain and were still occur- 
 ring. So new life was beginning to shoot 
 up out of the earth that had looked so unfruit- 
 ful. Flowers appeared in the long, yellowish 
 grass and filled the air with their sweet, mild 
 perfume. The loathed thorn-bush put on dark 
 green leaves and snow-white blossoms. Many 
 of us went up and plucked a gay branch from 
 the hated plant. The single, tall trees decked 
 themselves out with long-stemmed yellow or 
 lilac umbels; others had feathery flowers of
 
 LAST DAYS IN AFRICA 237 
 
 snowy whiteness. And high, high above all the 
 fresh green and the glorious pure white and 
 the rich yellow, arched the cloudless blue sky. 
 If we had been really well and had had enough 
 to eat and had not had to pass the columns of 
 sick transports and the new graves, it would 
 have been indeed a beautiful journey. 
 
 I had long liked the strange country, yet I 
 did not want to stay in it ; I would not give up 
 my parents and my trade. Still, my mind was 
 firmly made up to visit it again in after years, 
 and I shall do so. There were not a few among 
 us who liked the country better and better the 
 more they learned to know it, and who seriously 
 intended to stay and become farmers. If even 
 a half of those carried out their intention, 
 about five hundred of us would remain in the 
 country. 
 
 When we were still ten days' march from 
 the capital and were sitting comfortably around 
 our fire with better food — for a provision 
 wagon had arrived with bacon and coffee and 
 other good things — aud were talking again 
 about our joyous home-going, Henry Gehlsen
 
 238 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 came over to us from headquarters and told us 
 that the Hottentots, who lived in the south, had 
 risen, and that now a second campaign would 
 begin which would probably be as hard as the 
 one which had just ended ; at any rate, going 
 home was not to be thought of. 
 
 At that we became very still. Then we gave 
 vent to our amazement and began to rail. A 
 Berlin soldier who was sitting with us came 
 finally to a conclusion, saying : " Well, it is all 
 the same to me, but my mother will scold." 
 We discussed the matter for a long time and 
 went to other mess companies, where we asked 
 all sorts of questions and learned all sorts of 
 things. Late in the evening a violent thunder- 
 storm rose in the south till it reached the broad, 
 dry river bed; flickering flashes of lightning 
 filled the whole southern sky till after midnight. 
 It was as if to let us know how severe the strug- 
 gle would be which was in prospect down there. 
 Towards morning the night got bitter cold 
 and windy. 
 
 The following morning the lieutenant with 
 whom I had made the last scouting expedition
 
 LAST DAYS IN AFRICA 239 
 
 asked me if I would escort him as fast as pos- 
 sible to the capital ; he was sick, and did not 
 want to break down on the road. I was only 
 too ready, and rode with him as fast as our 
 horses could go. On the third or fourth day 
 it struck me that my heart was beating very 
 loud and hard. I often pressed my hand against 
 it and said, " What is the matter with you? Be 
 quiet ! " but it did no good. Nor did I think 
 much of it when on the fourth or fifth day I 
 fainted for the first time in my life. I had, too, 
 plenty to do in holding the lieutenant on his 
 saddle, for he had summoned the last remnant 
 of his strength to finish this ride. When on 
 the morning of the eighth day we were riding 
 through the capital, the stabbing pain in my 
 heart became unendurable. I managed to es- 
 cort the lieutenant to the door of the hospital 
 and then to ride at a walk up to the fort. But 
 there I was lifted fainting from my horse by 
 fellow-soldiers who came running up. They 
 carried me into the hospital, where the doctor 
 examined me. He said that I had contracted 
 a weakness of the heart from long overstrain-
 
 240 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 ing and especially from this last hard ride, and 
 that I could not now live in a country with 
 such a high altitude and such thin air ; I must 
 go home. 
 
 So after I had lain for a week in the hospi- 
 tal, I traveled by the little rattling railroad to 
 the coast in four uncomfortable day-journeys 
 in the small open beet cars ; and on the second 
 day after my arrival there, I clambered in my 
 guardsman's uniform with knapsack and cloak 
 up the rope-ladder to the deck of the Wor- 
 mann steamer. 
 
 We were fifty men on board, most of us sick, 
 some very sick. One had received a wound in 
 the breast, and it was still suppurating. We 
 often sat by him and carried him on his cot 
 out into the sun and tried to comfort him. 
 But he had no courage, and would lie brood- 
 ing and sometimes softly crying. I do not 
 know what became of him. Another, a day 
 laborer's son from Pomerania, had lost a leg; 
 he could already hobble about on crutches 
 and he acted as if he were in good spirits. 
 He said he could now sing the song which
 
 LAST DAYS IN AFRICA 241 
 
 they often used to sing in the village school : 
 " For all I am and have, I thank thee, my 
 Fatherland." But he frequently sat with a 
 grave face in his long chair ; he was only 
 twenty-three years old. Still another had been 
 sunstruck on a forced march and had ever 
 since had fixed notions which grew worse all 
 the time during the journey. He thought he 
 was the king of South Africa, and wanted to 
 order cannon in Germany. I have heard that 
 afterwards he entirely recovered. The rest 
 were almost all suffering from heart disease or 
 had undergone a bad case of typhoid fever. 
 We were all friendly with one another and 
 agreed very well. There was only one, a Ber- 
 liner, who became more unpopular every day ; 
 he had and knew and could do everything. 
 
 I had saved up one hundred and fifty marks 
 from my war bounty, and I spent it in pur- 
 chase of a second-cabin passage. Henry Gehl- 
 sen, who had got through a bad case of 
 typhoid fever and was also going home, had 
 suggested it to me. I was glad to do it, and 
 have never regretted it. Whoever keeps up a
 
 242 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 respectable outward appearance will by that 
 very means be helped to succeed better in 
 everything else, too. I associated mostly with 
 Gehlsen and a gunner in the navy, whose duty 
 it was to serve the armor-plated turret on a 
 man-of-war. He had been with Gehlsen and 
 me in our first bad fight. He was a broad- 
 shouldered, genial man, full of jokes and drol- 
 lery. I liked him especially because he gave 
 the benefit of his continual and great humor 
 not only to the well but particularly to the in- 
 valid fellows. Although almost all had some 
 sort of injury, we were nevertheless all joy- 
 ful over our return. As far as to the coast of 
 Spain the deck witnessed much joking, sing- 
 ing, and nonsense. I myself could contribute 
 nothing to it, but I enjoyed it all very much. 
 We were exceedingly happy when we saw 
 the coast of England again. Just after that 
 we met the first German ship, a little slender 
 cruiser of our navy, still quite new. It steamed 
 energetically by. At evening the next day a 
 Wormann steamer came toward us which had 
 on board troops for the campaign against the
 
 LAST DAYS IN AFRICA 243 
 
 Hottentots. They stood by the rail in their 
 big gray cloaks and soft hats, and shouted 
 across to us. 
 
 The next evening, about five o'clock, we 
 neared Cuxhaven ; we plainly saw it lying in 
 the twilight. Although the weather was biting 
 cold, we stood at the rail for a long time, 
 wrapped in our thick coats. Only when it was 
 quite dark did we go below. About one o'clock 
 at night we made fast to the Petersen quay at 
 Hamburg, but we stayed on board over night. 
 
 In the forenoon the physician came and 
 looked every one of us over. Then the very 
 sick men went ashore ; then we. I went with 
 permission into the city to visit my uncle who 
 lives in St. Pauli. I was to travel in the after- 
 noon to Kiel to report myself and get my 
 dismissal. 
 
 When I was sauntering along the Jung- 
 fernstieg in my worn-out, dirty cord uniform, 
 with dark, sunburned face, a middle-aged man 
 came up and joined me, and asked me all sorts 
 of questions as we went along. In the course 
 of the conversation it came out that I had
 
 244 PETER MOOR'S JOURNEY 
 
 heard of him in my father's house ; for he had 
 known my father from childhood. I related to 
 him all that I had seen and experienced, and 
 what I had thought of it all. And he has made 
 this book out of it.
 
 (St&e fltocr»ibe prcs? 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A
 
 SOUTHERN nSSLi C-Womla 
 
 "•turn if* mSn^^^ 9 ^ 4 - 1388
 
 A A 000139 550 
 
 Class v f\f. No 
 
 This Book is thi: Property of 
 
 
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