was a craze, and hundreds of people were ever ready to pounce upon the projectiles that wasted their sweetness on the desert air.  The tiniest crumb of metal was treasured as a valuable memento.  The shells fell and broke as would a tea-pot, a brick, or an egg of the Stone Age.  No explosion followed; no fragments flew to hurt one’s ribs, or to play the dentist with one’s teeth.  The missiles declined to burst.

It was natural that much speculation should arise as to the cause of this anomalous state of things; and there were people to doubt its being so much due to obstinacy on the part of the shells as to inexperience on the part of the Boers.  One wiseacre held that the missiles were antique and obsolete relics of the ’eighty-one struggle.  Others questioned whether “the Boer” then knew that shells were invented.  A lot more contended that “the Boer” was unacquainted with the mysteries of a fuse, and knew as little about “timing” a shell as he did about discipline.  One or two suggested, tentatively, as a solution of the puzzle, that “he had forgotten to put the powder in.”  Another argued that he did not know how; while there were a few who doubted whether “the Boer” considered powder in any sense explosive.  There was a garrulous “bore” (from somewhere over-sea, not Holland) who advanced a still clearer elucidation of the mystery.  “What was Rhodes doing in Germany for twelve months,” he cried, “tell me that?” The relevancy of this rather startling query was a little obscure, but somebody replied:  “He was visiting the Kaiser.”  This was too much for our interlocutor; he pitied our ignorance of the world, lamented our neglected education, and, as if our weakness in arithmetic was peculiarly discreditable, deplored our inability to put “two and two together.”

Alarms were now nightmares of the past, and the people could pursue their avocations undisturbed and undistracted.  There was little firing in the afternoon—­nothing more deafening than a rifle-shot.  A Boer, on sniping bent, was hit by one of our sharpshooters; three men approached, and two only were observed to rush back with their shields.  Of what the British troops were doing we knew nothing.  Thousands of them, it was said, were congregated at Orange River (seventy miles away), and we were curious to know when they were to “move on”; only curious—­not impatient.  The summer was yet in its infancy (as also was the siege) and our patience was destined to be lost soon enough.  Meanwhile, we had not much cause for complaint in the matter of food.  Meat, some said, they found it hard to procure; one young lady asserted positively that her family had had no meat for dinner on Sunday, and that she herself had to dine off “tea.”  She was the daughter of a public house, too!  Just fancy the daughter of a public house having to do with “tea” for dinner!  Hers, however, would have been a case of exceptional hardship; there was the “half pound” for everyone who went shopping in time.