n gun began the New Year with energy. He sent thirty of his
enormous shells into the camps and town, eight or nine of which fell in
quick succession among the Helpmakaar fortifications, now held by the
Liverpools.

Three or four houses in the town were wrecked by shells, the most
decisive ruin being at Captain Valentine's. The shell went through the
iron verandah, pierced the stone wall above the front door without
bursting, and exploded against the partition wall of the passage and
drawing-room. Throwing forward, it cleared away the kitchen wall, and
swept the kitchen clean. Down a passage to the right the expansion of
the air blew off a heavy door, and threw it across the bed of a wounded
Rifle Brigade officer. He escaped unhurt, but a valued servant from the
Irish Rifles got a piece of shell through back and stomach as he was
preparing breakfast in the kitchen. He died in a few hours. His last
words were, "I hope you got your breakfast all right, sir."

The house had long been a death-trap. Perhaps the Boers aim at the
telegraph-office across the road, or possibly spies have told them
Colonel Rhodes goes there for meals. The General has now declared the
place too dangerous for habitation.

In the afternoon we were to have had a military tournament on the
Islington model, but the General stopped it, because the enemy would
certainly have thrown shells into our midst, and women and children
would have been there. At night, however, the Natal Volunteers gave
another open-air concert. In the midst we heard guns--real guns--from
Colenso way. Between the reflected flash on the sky and the sound of the
report one could count seventy-eight seconds, which Captain Lambton
tells me gives a distance of about fifteen and a half miles. All day
distant guns were heard from time to time. Some said the direction was
changed, but I could hear no difference.

The mayor and councillors relieve the monotony of the siege with
domestic solicitude. To-day they are said to be preparing a deputation
to the General imploring that the first train which comes up after the
relief shall be exclusively devoted--not to medical stuff for the
wounded, not to food for the hungry troops and fodder for the starving
horses, not to the much-needed ammunition for the guns--but to their own
women.

_January 2, 1900._

Soon after daylight dropping bullets began to whiz past my window and
crack upon the tin roof in quite a shower. The Boer sniper