ugh reaching us from the outer world calculated to
"buck up" troops who feel the ignominy of having a passively defensive
role thrust upon them for "strategic reasons," cribbed, cabined, and
confined within a ring of hills by forces believed to be inferior to
their own, and exposed daily to shell fire, which, if not so destructive
as our enemies intend it to be, brings a possible tragedy with every
fragment of the thousands that fall about us. Counting eight hundred
bullets and jagged bits of iron within the bursting area of one shrapnel
shell from Bulwaan, a civilian expressed wonder that anybody should be
left alive in Ladysmith after forty days of bombardment. Since then the
shelling has been even hotter and more destructive; but, fortunately,
Boer guns do not fire many shrapnel, nor do the shells burst always in
places where they can do most damage. Many portions of the camp
unprotected by works in any shape cannot be seen from the enemy's
batteries, and though often searched for by shells thrown at haphazard,
our Cavalry, Artillery, and Army Service lines have frequently escaped
being hit by a good fortune that seems almost miraculous. One day three
successive shells fell and burst between the guns of a battery, but the
artillerymen, standing by their harnessed horses, did not move or seem
to take any notice of the vicious visitors. Such is the etiquette of a
service which, while firmly believing in the efficacy of its own fire,
is trained to ignore that of an enemy's guns. Nevertheless gunners, like
less stoical mortals, appreciate the value of bomb-proof shelters when
shells are flying about; and experience, during this siege of Ladysmith,
should have taught us all the dangers of carelessness when by timely
discretion many calamities might have been averted.

But many people have not the moral courage to show caution when warned
that shots are coming, so they stand still and take their chance instead
of seeking shelter; or possibly it might be more just to say that
fatalism in some form arms them with a fortitude which cannot be shaken
by shells. Soldiers on duty stick, as a matter of course, to their
posts, or go straight on with work that has to be done whatever the
dangers may be; but just now I am not thinking so much of them as of
civilians and troops in their leisure moments, for whom exposure is not
a necessity. The townsfolk can, if they choose, find almost absolute
safety by spending their days in cool ca