the 13th of December, but on that day the doctor was not
quite sure about its being enteric, although he at once commenced with
the treatment for that disease. The following day there was no doubt
about it, and we moved him from our noisy and uncomfortable quarters in
the Imperial Light Horse Camp to our present abode, which is quite the
best house in Ladysmith. Major Henderson of the Intelligence Department
very kindly offered his own room, a fine, airy, and well-furnished
apartment, although he was barely recovered of his wound. At first I
could only procure the services of a trained orderly of the 5th Dragoon
Guards lent to us by the colonel, but a few days later we were lucky
enough to find a lady nurse, who has turned out most excellently, and
she takes charge at night.... I am happy to tell you that everything has
gone on splendidly".... After describing how the fever gradually
approached a crisis, Mr Maud continues: "When he was at his worst he was
often delirious, but never violent; the only trouble was to prevent him
getting out of bed. He was continually asking us to go and fetch you,
and always thought he was journeying homewards. It never does to halloa
before one gets out of the wood, but I do really think that he is well
on the road to recovery." Alas!

Not so much as a continued record of Steevens's illness, as in the
nature of a pathetic side-issue to the tragedy of his death, I subjoin
one or two passages from a letter sent subsequently from Ladysmith by
the same faithful friend before the end: "He has withstood the storm
wonderfully well, and he is not very much pulled down. The doctor thinks
that he should be about again in a fortnight"--the letter was written on
the 4th of January--"by which time I trust General Buller will have
arrived and reopened the railway. Directly it is possible to move, I
shall take him down to Nottingham Road.... There has been little or
nothing to do for the last month beyond listening to the bursting of the
Long Tom shells." That touch about General Buller's arrival is surely
one of the most strangely appealing incidents in the recent history of
human confidence and human expectation! Another friend, Mr George Lynch,
whose name occurred in one of his letters in a passage curiously
characteristic of Steevens's drily incisive humour, writes about the
days that must immediately have preceded his illness: "He was as fit and
well as possible when I left Ladysmith last month." (T