On the way towards Ladysmith are a few kopjes of large size, from any one of which the line of the Tugela can be seen, with the hills beyond, occupied by the Boer entrenchments, and over them again the hills which dominate Ladysmith. On the way towards Estcourt winds a brown road, along which an endless train of ox-wagons rumble and are lost in the wilderness of the camp.
The river which is reputed to "run" through Frere has long since ceased to run. The water is retained by certain dams, and the pools thus formed are uninviting. The water is the colour of pea-soup, and when in a glass is semi-opaque and of a faint brownish colour. The facetious soldier, as he drinks it, calls it "khaki and water."
In the lowest pool, immediately above the iron railway bridge which has been blown up by the Boers, Tommy Atkins bathes with gusto in what is seemingly a light-coloured mud. Here also he washes his socks and his shirts.
The centre of the camp is the railway station, and that of Frere is the smallest and most unpretending that any hamlet could pretend to. It is, however, crowded out of all reason, and its platform of hard earth is covered with boxes and baggage and sacks and saddles in as much disorder as if they had been thrown in panic from a burning train. Between the little goods shed and the little booking-office are several stands of rifles. A sentry, proud apparently in his covering of dust, is parading one end of the platform, while at the other end a motley crowd of perspiring soldiers are filling water-bottles at the tank which supplies the engine. In the waiting-room a tumbled mass of men are asleep on the floor, while on a bench in front of it two men-of-war’s men are discussing an English paper six weeks old.
Outside the station are ramparts of provision boxes and cases of ammunition, and iron water cisterns and mealie bags, and to the fragments of a railing which surrounds the station horses, of all kinds and in all stages of weariness, are tied.
A ragged time-table on the wall, dealing with the train service to Pretoria, and with the precise hour of the arrival of the trains there, seems but a sorry jest. The stationmaster’s house has been looted, and the little garden in front of it has been trampled out of being, save for two or three red geraniums which still bloom amidst the dirt. This house is, for the time, the general’s headquarters, and before it waves the Union Jack.