and men who had been fighting for
six weeks to relieve Ladysmith had supplied himself with one. The night
before, when the Ladysmith sentries had tried to halt Dundonald's
troopers in the same way, and demanded a pass from them, there was not
one in the squadron.

We crossed the bridge soberly and entered Ladysmith at a walk. Even the
ponies looked disconcerted and crestfallen. After the high grass and the
mountains of red rock, where there was not even a tent to remind one of a
roof-tree, the stone cottages and shop-windows and chapels and
well-ordered hedges of the main street of Ladysmith made it seem a
wealthy and attractive suburb. When we entered, a Sabbath-like calm hung
upon the town; officers in the smartest khaki and glistening Stowassers
observed us askance, little girls in white pinafores passed us with eyes
cast down, a man on a bicycle looked up, and then, in terror lest we
might speak to him, glued his eyes to the wheel and "scorched" rapidly.
We trotted forward and halted at each street crossing, looking to the
right and left in the hope that some one might nod to us. From the
opposite end of the town General Buller and his staff came toward us
slowly--the house-tops did not seem to sway--it was not "roses, roses all
the way." The German army marching into Paris received as hearty a
welcome. "Why didn't you people cheer General Buller when he came in?"
we asked later. "Oh, was that General Buller?" they inquired. "We
didn't recognize him." "But you knew he was a general officer, you knew
he was the first of the relieving column?" "Ye-es, but we didn't know
who he was."

I decided that the bare fact of the relief of Ladysmith was all I would
be able to wire to my neglected paper, and with remorses started to find
the Ladysmith censor. Two officers, with whom I ventured to break the
hush that hung upon the town by asking my way, said they were going in
the direction of the censor. We rode for some distance in guarded
silence. Finally, one of them, with an inward struggle, brought himself
to ask, "Are you from the outside?"

I was forced to admit that I was. I felt that I had taken an
unwarrantable liberty in intruding on a besieged garrison. I wanted to
say that I had lost my way and had ridden into the town by mistake, and
that I begged to be allowed to withdraw with apologies. The other
officer woke up suddenly and handed me a printed list of the prices which
had been paid during the