cipal Wash Houses, with a view to
economising water--_not_, as the actual results suggested, to the saving
of _starch_.

Lieutenant-Colonel Peakman had succeeded the lamented Scott-Turner, and
on Wednesday long before daybreak he led a picked force towards
Webster's Farm, to steal a march on the napping enemy. The napping
enemy, however, was alive to the propriety of utilising but one eye in
the lap of "Nature's soft nurse." He could not see much with the open
optic, but he could hear with the one ear he had taken the precaution of
keeping open also. Of the good sense of this precaution Mr. Peakman was
somewhat abruptly apprised by the crack and blaze of a hundred Mausers.
Nothing daunted he returned the salute right gallantly, and with a
doggedness that obliged the Boers to retreat, firing as they went. The
enemy's gun at Oliphantsfontein soon chimed in with some well-directed
shells, one of which failed to burst and was secured intact as a
valuable trophy. Nobody was hurt, and the force got back to town without
further molestation.

A concert was given in the evening at the Reservoir camp, the takings
(L20) going to the Widows' and Orphans' Committee. There was no lack of
entertainment at all the camps, although the men did not feel so
cheerful as their comic singing was intended to denote. Numerous
presents continued to find their way to the redoubts. Cigars and
tobacco, fruits from the De Beers horticultural department, and an odd
pint of wine from the casks of the Colussus were periodically received
to brighten the lives of the citizen soldiers. An odd bottle, or rather
an odd dozen, of "Cape Smoke" found entry at times. Impure though the
commodity was--there is no smoke without fire--a little of it on a raw
morning was not amiss. Some erred, unfortunately, in not confining
themselves to a _little_ of the lava. Eruptions often ensued. One
gentleman, on a certain occasion, was so inflamed with martial ardour
after a too copious indulgence in the "brandy" that it resulted in his
discharge from the Town Guard--for over-doing his duty. He was one night
on sentry duty and challenged an officer, one officer, whom he failed to
identify, or compute--"in the dark," as he explained. Having courteously
yelled out to the intruder to halt, and on being quietly assured that "a
friend" went there, the alert sentry presented arms and called in
solemn, stentorian accents upon his friend to "advance within six inches
of the muzzle