76 A GARDEN DIARY 
JANUARY 6, 1900 
“ DULLETS—tThe air was a sieve of them. 
— They beat upon the boulders like a 
million hammers. They tore the turf like a 
harrow!” 
These three lines came out of a recent number 
of the Dazly Mazt, and they describe Elands- 
laagte. Is it, I wonder, because Literature is 
so much more familiar to me than War that 
I seem to require the aid of the one in order 
to bring home to me the reality of the other? 
These three lines are certainly literature, litera- 
ture of the impressionist kind, which, if not the 
best in the abstract, is at any rate the best for 
such a purpose. Trying to put oneself into the 
position of such a bystander as the writer of 
them, I am able to fancy that if the bullets came 
thick enough they really mgh¢ seem to tear the 
turf like a harrow. In what way exactly the air 
could be said to be a sieve of them, I am not 
clear, yet the phrase seems to live, and therefore 
