g
and black, but all else distinct in colourless brilliance. The top of
Bulwan is four miles from our main street. To make up for yesterday the
shells were particularly lively to-day. Before breakfast one fell on the
railway behind our house, one into the verandah next door, and two into
our little garden. Unhappily, the last killed one of our few remaining
fowls--shivered it into air so that nothing but a little cloud of
feathers was seen again. In the middle of the afternoon old "Puffing
Billy" again opened fire with energy. I was at the tailor's on the main
street, and the shells were falling just round his shop. "Thirty-eight,
thirty-four," said the little Scot measuring. "There's the Dutch church
gone. Forty-two, sixteen. There's the bank. Just hold the tape, mon,
while I go and look. Oh, it's only the Town Hall!" Among other shells
one came in painted with the Free State colours, and engraved "With the
compliments of the season." It is the second thus adorned, but whereas
the first had been empty, this was charged with plum-pudding. Can it be
a Dutchman who has such a pleasant wit? The condition of the horses
becomes daily more pitiful. Some fall in the street and cannot get up
again for weakness. Most have given up speed. The 5th Lancers have
orders never to move quicker than a walk. The horses are just kept alive
by grass which Hindoos grub up by the roots. A small ration of ground
mealies and bran is also issued. Heavy rain came on and fell all night,
during which we heard two far-off explosions.

_December 30, 1899._

Going up to Leicester Post in the early morning, I found the K.R. Rifles
drying themselves in the African sun, which blazed in gleams between the
clouds. Without the sun we should fare badly. As it is, the rain,
exposure, and bad food are reducing our numbers fast. Passing the 11th
Field Hospital on my way up, I saw stretcher after stretcher moving
slowly along with the sick in their blankets. "Dysentery, enteric;
enteric, dysentery," were the invariable answers. All the thousands of
shells thrown at us in the last two months count for nothing beside the
sickness.

On the top of the hill I found the two guns of Major Wing's battery
trained on Surprise Hill as usual. In accordance with my customary good
fortune all the enemy's guns opened fire at once. But only the howitzer,
the automatic, and the Bluebank were actually aimed our way. The
Bluebank was most effective.

It was amusing to