posted were able to hold them
off all day with a loss which did not exceed thirty killed and wounded,
while the enemy, exposed to the shrapnel of the 42nd battery, as well
as the rifle-fire of the infantry, must have suffered very much more
severely. The result of the action was a well-grounded belief that in
daylight there was very little chance of the Boers being able to carry
the lines. As the date was that of the Prince of Wales's birthday, a
salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a successful day.

The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced the
enemy that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and disease were
their allies, would be surer and less expensive than an open assault.
From their distant hilltops they continued to plague the town, while
garrison and citizens sat grimly patient, and learned to endure if not
to enjoy the crash of the 96-pound shells, and the patter of shrapnel
upon their corrugated-iron roofs. The supplies were adequate, and the
besieged were fortunate in the presence of a first-class organiser,
Colonel Ward of Islington fame, who with the assistance of Colonel
Stoneman systematised the collection and issue of all the food, civil
and military, so as to stretch it to its utmost. With rain overhead and
mud underfoot, chafing at their own idleness and humiliated by their
own position, the soldiers waited through the weary weeks for the relief
which never came. On some days there was more shell-fire, on some less;
on some there was sniping, on some none; on some they sent a little
feeler of cavalry and guns out of the town, on most they lay still--such
were the ups and downs of life in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege
paper, 'The Ladysmith Lyre,' appeared, and did something to relieve the
monotony by the exasperation of its jokes. Night, morning, and noon the
shells rained upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not
bravery. The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang of
the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears. With their glasses the garrison
could see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies who had come
down by train to see the torture of the doomed town.

The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong positions
and excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and to sweep on at
once to the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it is hard to see what
could have prevented them from riding their horses down