age thirty a
day, and there were 320 cases of enteric at Intombi Camp last night. Mr.
Steevens has it, and his friends were busy all morning, moving him to
better quarters. Major Henderson is about again. The Roentgen Rays did
not discover the bicycle shot in his leg, and the doctors have decided
to leave it there.

It was disappointing to hear that the Kaffir runner I sent with an
account of the night attack on Surprise Hill had been captured by the
Boers and robbed of his papers. I had hopes of that boy; he wore no
trousers. But it is perhaps unsafe to judge character from dress alone.
This runner business is heart-breaking. I tried to make up by getting
another short heliogram through, but the sun was uncertain, and the
receivers on the distant mountain sulky and wayward. They showed one
faint glimmer of intelligence, and then all was dark again.

In the heat of the day a four-wheeled hooded cart drove from the Boer
lines under a white flag bringing a letter for the General. The envoy
was a Dutchman from Holland. He was met outside our lines by Lieutenant
Fanshawe, of the 19th Hussars, who conversed with him for about two
hours, till the answer returned. Seated under the shade of the cart, he
enjoyed the enemy's hospitality in brandy and soda, biltong, and Boer
biscuit. "But for that white rag," said the Dutchman, "we two would be
trying to kill each other. Very absurd!" He went on to repeat how much
the Boers admired the exploits of the night attacks. "If you had gone
for the other guns that first night, you would have got them all." He
said the gunners on Gun Hill were all condemned to death. He examined
the horse and its accoutrements, thinking them all very pretty, but
maintaining the day for cavalry was gone. He was perfectly intimate with
the names and character of all the battalions here. Of the Boer army he
said it contained all nationalities down to Turks and Jews. He had no
doubt of their ultimate success, and looked forward to Christmas dinner
in Ladysmith. What we regard as our victories, he spoke of as our
defeats. Even Elands Laagte he thought unsuccessful. Finally, after all
compliments, he drove away, bearing a private letter from Mr. Fanshawe
to be posted through Delagoa Bay and Amsterdam.

_December 15, 1899._

In my own mind I had always fixed to-day as the beginning of our
deliverance from this grotesque situation. It may be so still. Very
heavy firing was heard down Colenso way from da