aside the sombre
garb that was suitable to retirement, ladies have come forth clad in
raiment that is festively bright to go a-shopping, as if there were no
such things as shells to disturb them, and no cares greater than
feminine frivolities. If the siege were at an end, and peace within
sight, we could hardly be more joyously animated, and all because two
hundred gallant fellows, led by a dashing General, have shown how Boer
positions may be captured at night, and Boer siege guns silenced for
ever with small loss.

Sir George White ordered special parades for the afternoon of all
volunteers, guides, Irregular Horse, and Frontier Police Force who had
taken part in the attack on Gun Hill. Each corps had its own appointed
place for the ceremony, and Sir George visited them in turn to
congratulate them on their brilliant achievement. For the guides, who
are attached as scouts, interpreters, and field orderlies to the
Intelligence Staff, the General had special words of praise. Without
their valuable aid the enterprise might have been doomed to failure, and
he expressed high appreciation of their gallantry, not less than of the
skill they had shown in guiding a column over difficult ground when
there was not light enough to make a single landmark visible except the
sky-line of Gun Hill. To the Imperial Light Horse he paid an equally
flattering tribute. As the men of three companies were drawn up in line
to receive him, "Puffing Billy" tried to put a spoke in their wheel by
sending a shell very near one flank, and the line was accordingly broken
into close column with a short front, so that it be hidden by house and
trees from sight of the gunners on Bulwaan. At that moment Sir George
White, with General Sir Archibald Hunter, General Brocklehurst, and a
number of staff officers, rode to the ground, and were received by a
general salute, to which the presence of two or three wounded men with
arms in blood-stained slings gave emphasis, as they had no rifles
wherewith to shoulder and present.

The officers on parade were Colonel Edwardes, commanding, Major Karri
Davis, Major Doveton, Lieutenant Fitzgerald, adjutant, Captain Fowler,
commanding F Company, Captain Mullins, B Company, and Captain
Codrington, E Company, with their subalterns, Lieutenants Brooking,
Normand, Matthias, Pakeman, Kirk, and Huntley, all of whom had been in
the fight except Major Doveton, who volunteered for it, but was
compelled to stay in camp for fie