wn till noon. Colonel
Downing, commanding the artillery, said some of it was our field-guns,
and it seemed nearer than two days ago.

The Bulwan gun gave us his customary serenade from heaven's gate. He did
rather more damage than usual, wrecking two nice houses just below my
cottage. One was a boarding house full of young railway assistants, who
had narrow escapes. The brother gun on Telegraph Hill was also very
active, not being so well suppressed by our howitzers as before. When I
was waiting at Colonel Rhodes' cottage by the river, it dropped a shell
clear over Pavilion Hill close beside it. Otherwise the Boer guns
behaved with some modesty and discretion.

In the morning I rode up to Waggon Hill, and found that "Lady Anne" had
at last arrived there, and was already in position. She was hauled up in
the night in three pieces, each drawn by two span of oxen. Some thirty
yards in front of her, in an emplacement of its own, stands the 12lb.
naval gun which has been in that neighbourhood for some days. Both are
carefully concealed, even the muzzles being covered up with earth and
stones. They both command the approach to the town across the Long
Valley by the Maritzburg road, as well as Bluebank or Rifleman's Ridge
beyond, and Telegraph Hill beyond that.

While I was on the hill I saw one mounted and four dismounted Boers
capture five of our horses which had been allowed to stray in grazing.

In the afternoon a South African thunderstorm swept over us. In a few
minutes the dry gully where the main hospital tents are placed, as I
described, became a deep torrent of filth. The tents were three feet
deep in water, washing over the sick. "Sure it's hopeless, hopeless!"
cried unwearying Major Donegan, the medical officer in charge. "I've
just seen me two orderlies swimmin' away down-stream." The sick, wet and
filthy as they were, had to be hurried away in dhoolies to the chapels
and churches again. They will probably be safe there as long as the
Geneva flag is not hoisted.

_December 16, 1899._

This is Dingaan's Day, the great national festival of the Boers. It
celebrates the terrible battle on the Blood River, sixty-one years ago,
when Andreas Pretorius slaughtered the Zulus in revenge for their
massacre of the Dutch at Weenen, or Lamentation. In honour of the
occasion, the Boers began their battle earlier than usual. Before
sunrise "Puffing Billy" of Bulwan exploded five 96lb. shells within
fifty yards of my