ving been torn to pieces in a
whirlwind nearly a week ago. When the balloon soared out of reach, he
turned a few shots upon the town and camps, and then was silent.

Since the siege began one farmer has steadily continued to plough his
acres on the plain near the racecourse. He reminded one of the French
peasant ploughing at Sedan. His three ploughs went backwards and
forwards quite indifferent to unproductive war. But to-day the Boers
deliberately shelled him at his work, the shells following him up and
down the field, and ploughing up the earth all wrong. Neither the farmer
nor his Kaffir labourers paid the least attention to them. The plough
drove on, leaving the furrow behind, just as the world goes forward, no
matter how much iron two admirable nations pitch at each other's heads.

Of course percussion-fused shells falling on ploughed land seldom burst,
as a boy here found by experiment. Having found an eligible little shell
in the furrows, he carried it home, and put it to soak in his washing
basin. When it had soaked long enough, he extracted the fuse and
proceeded to knock out the powder with a hammer. Then the nasty thing
exploded in his face, and he lost one eye and is otherwise a good deal
cut about.

In the afternoon I rode out again to the howitzers on Waggon Hill. The 6
in. gun which they command from their invisible station has not fired
for six days. The Boer gunners dare not set it to work for fear of the
85lb. shells which are fired the moment Boers are seen in the sangar.
Two were fired just as I left.

From the end of the hill there was a magnificent view of the great
precipices in Basutoland, but hardly a Boer could be seen. Ninety-seven
waggons had been counted the evening before, moving towards the Free
State passes, but now I saw hardly a dozen Boers. Yet if their big gun
had sent a shrapnel over us, what a bag they would have made! Colonel
Rhodes and Dr. Jameson were at my side, General Ian Hamilton, with Lord
Ava and Captain Valentine were within six yards, to say nothing of
Captain Clement Webb, of Johannesburg fame, and other Imperial Light
Horse officers.

In the evening the Natal Carbineers gave an open-air concert to a big
audience. A good many women and girls came. As usual the sailors had the
best of it in the comic songs, but the event of the evening was "The
Queen." Though the Boers must have seen our lights, and perhaps heard
the shout of "Send her victorious," they did not fire,