the rest of the siege. It has made a model ruin for future sightseers.
Unhappily the general was ill in bed with slight fever, and had to be
carried to another house up the hill in a dhoolie. This may have
encouraged the Boers to think they had killed him.

It was again a bad day for the heliograph, and the Boers have purposely
kindled a veldt fire across the line of light. But I think I got through
my thirty words of Christmas greeting to the _Chronicle_. I tried in
vain all day for a Kaffir runner, but in the late afternoon I rode away
over the plain, past the racecourse, and through the thorns at the foot
of Caesar's Camp, till I almost came in touch with the enemy's piquets at
Intombi. I saw a flock of long-billed waders, like small whimbrel, a
great variety of beautiful little doves, and many of that queer bird the
natives call Sakonboota, whose tail grows so long in the breeding season
that his little wings can hardly lift it above the ground, and he
flutters about in the breeze like a badly made kite. Riding back at
sunset over the flat I felt like Montaigne when he desired to wear away
his life in the saddle. The difference is that in the end I may have
to eat my own horse. The shells from four guns kept singing their
evening hymn above my head as I cantered along.

[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS AFTER A 96LB. SHELL]

_December 22, 1899._

The morning opened with one of those horrible disasters which more than
balance our general good luck. The Bulwan gun began his morning shell
rather later than usual. His almost invariable programme is to fire five
or six shots at the bakery or soda-water shed beside my cottage; then to
give a few to the centre of the town, and to finish off with half a
dozen at the Light Horse and Gordons down by the Iron Bridge. Having
earned his breakfast, he usually stops then, and cools down a bit. The
performance is so regular that when he has finished with our end of the
town the men cease to take precautions even at the sound of the whistle
or bugle which gives notice of danger whenever the special sentry sees
the gun flash.

But this morning the routine was changed. Having waked me up as usual
with the crash of shells close by on my left, the gun was turned down
town, smashed into a camp or two without damage, and then suddenly
whipped round on his pivot and sent a shell straight into the
Gloucester lines, about 300 yards away to my right. It pitched just on
the top of a tra