lmost anything one could
mention on the spur of the moment.

We drank tea together and discussed the probability of our camp being
bombarded, standing, as it did, in full view of the hill whereon the
British cannon had been dragged a few days before. He had just raised
the cup to his lips when a well-known sound was heard--the shriek of an
approaching shell. Nearer and louder it came, till finally--bang!--the
shell burst not a hundred yards away. A young lineman, who had been
listening with all his soul and ever wider stretching eyes, now gave an
unearthly yell and almost sprang through the top of the tent, knocking
over the unhappy journalist and sending the hot tea streaming down his
neck. The youth's exit was somewhat unceremonious.

The office was hastily removed to the high bank of the adjacent stream.
Whilst this operation was going on the instrument buzzed out a message
ordering me to leave immediately for the Spion Kop office. I at once
said au revoir, handing over to my assistant the charge of the office,
river bank and all, as well as the task of dodging the shells, which
continued to fall around.

Riding along the steep bank for about two hundred yards, I found a
footpath leading down one side and up the other. No sooner had I started
down this than I heard a loud explosion. It did not sound quite so near,
but on gaining the opposite bank I saw floating over the spot just
quitted by me a small cloud of smoke, showing that a shell had been
fired at me with marvellous accuracy. Then a couple burst near the
general's tent, and the laager was immediately shifted behind the hill.

I reached Spion Kop, took charge of the office, and was kept so busy
that for a week there was no time to have a decent wash.

The hill next ours was daily bombarded with the utmost enthusiasm,
shells falling there at the rate of fully sixty a minute, while we
escaped with only an occasional bomb. Looking down upon the plain before
us, we could see the British regiments drilling on the bank of the
river, about two thousand yards away, probably to draw our fire, but in
vain was the net spread.

The ground of operations was somewhat extensive. For some days the
enemy's infantry had been harassing our right wing, attacking every day,
and drawing a little nearer every night. Louis Botha was almost
continually present at this point, only coming into camp now and then
for a few hours' sleep.

One evening his secretary said to me, with