auction rooms and decked with traditional magnificence and toys
ransacked from every shop. At half-past eight p.m. fairyland opened. A
gigantic Father Christmas stalked about with branches of pine and snowy
cap (the temperature at noon was 103deg. in the shade). Each child had a
ticket for its present, and joy was distributed with military precision.
When the children had gone to their dreams the room was cleared for a
dance, and round whirled the khaki youths with white-bloused maidens in
their arms. It was not exactly the Waterloo Ball with sound of revelry
by night, but I think it will have more effect on the future of the
race.

Other festivities, remote from the unaccustomed feminine charm, were a
series of mule races, near the old camp, for soldiers and laughing
Kaffir boys. The men's dinner itself was enough to mark the day. It is
true everything was rather skimped, but after the ordinary short rations
it was a treat to get any kind of pudding, any pinch of tobacco, and
sometimes just a drop of rum.

Almost the saddest part of the siege now is the condition of the
animals. The oxen are skeletons of hunger, the few cows hardly give a
pint of milk apiece, the horses are failing. Nothing is more pitiful
than to feel a willing horse like mine try to gallop as he used, and
have to give it up simply for want of food. During the siege I have
taught him to talk better than most human beings, and his little
apologies are really pathetic when he breaks into something like his old
speed and stops with a sigh. It is the same with all.

CHAPTER XV

SICKNESS, DEATH, AND A NEW YEAR

LADYSMITH, _December 26, 1899_.

Good news came through the heliograph about General Gatacre's force at
Dordrecht. There were rumours about Lord Methuen, too, for which Dr.
Jameson was quoted as authority. But the best evidence for hope was the
unusual violence of the bombardment. It began early, and before the
middle of the afternoon the Boers had thrown 178 shells at us. They were
counted by a Gordon officer on Moriden's Castle, and the total must have
reached nearly 200 before sunset. Such feverish activity is nearly
always a sign of irritation on the part of the Dutch, and one can always
hope the irritation is due to bad news for them.

I have not heard of any loss in town or camp. Our guns, with the
exception of the howitzers and Major Wing's field guns, which can just
reach the new howitzer on Surprise Hill, have hardly re