ions of a bombardment--A little custom blunts sensibility 92

XII. THE DEVIL'S TIN-TACKS.

The excitement of a rifle fusilade--A six-hours' fight--The picking
off of officers--A display of infernal fireworks--"God bless the
Prince of Wales" 106

XIII. A DIARY OF DULNESS.

The mythopoeic faculty--A miserable day--The voice of the pompom--
Learning the Boer game--The end of Fiddling Jimmy--Melinite at
close quarters--A lake of mud 114

XIV. NEARING THE END.

Dulness interminable--Ladysmith in 2099 A.D.--Sieges obsolete
hardships--Dead to the world--The appalling features of a
bombardment 124

XV. IN A CONNING-TOWER.

The self-respecting bluejacket--A German atheist--The sailors'
telephone--What the naval guns meant to Ladysmith--The salt of
the earth 134

THE LAST CHAPTER. By VERNON BLACKBURN 144

MAPS.

PAGE

MAP OF THE COUNTRY ROUND LADYSMITH 95

MAP ILLUSTRATING THE SEAT OF WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA _At end_

FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH

I.

FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE STRUGGLE.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS--DENVER WITH A DASH OF DELHI--GOVERNMENT
HOUSE--THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--A WRANGLING DEBATE--A
DEMONSTRATION OF THE UNEMPLOYED--THE MENACE OF COMING WAR.

CAPETOWN, _Oct. 10._

This morning I awoke, and behold the _Norman_ was lying alongside a
wharf at Capetown. I had expected it, and yet it was a shock. In this
breathless age ten days out of sight of land is enough to make you a
merman: I looked with pleased curiosity at the grass and the horses.

After the surprise of being ashore again, the first thing to notice was
the air. It was as clear--but there is nothing else in existence clear
enough with which to compare it. You felt that all your life hitherto
you had been breathing mud and looking out on the world through fog.
This, at last, was air, was ether.

Right in front rose three purple-brown mountains--the two supporters
peaked, and Table Mountain flat in the centre. More like a coffin than a
table, sheer steep and dead flat, he was exactly as he is in pictures;
and as I gazed, I saw his tablecloth of white cloud gather and hang on
hi