Despite the real element of danger now attending the mania, the thirst for souvenirs was unquenchable yet, and the masses of struggling humanity that seemed to drop from the clouds simultaneously with every missile to be in at its dismemberment, were as fierce as and more reckless than before in the fight for fragments.  When the shells had been wont to crumble accommodatingly, as would a clay pipe, the winning of a curio had—­I mix the metaphor advisedly—­merely involved participation in a football scrimmage.  But since the ball had, as it were, begun to turn “rusty” the popularity of the game, so far from diminishing, increased.  All day long its devotees “scrummed” and “shoved” for the coveted trophies.  Quite a brisk trade was done in souvenirs, the smallest scrap of iron fetching a tickey (threepence), and so on in proportion to weight and size as far as half a sovereign.  These souvenirs included sundry nuts and bolts which had been kicked about the neighbourhood of De Beers workshops for a quarter of a century.  Whole shells, intact, were sold for a couple of pounds each, and the hundred or so received up to date circulated a good bit of money.  One of the funny spectacles of the bombardment was a local entomologist, who had a sense of humour, endeavouring to catch the missiles with his butterfly net; the “buzzing,” he said, attracted him.  This humourist is still alive—­he caught nothing.

Healthy folk who lived to eat were at this stage beginning to complain of hunger, and to assert—­not quite truthfully—­that they got but “one meal a day.”  Eight ounces of meat was not enough for them; they could devour it all at a single sitting; they were slowly starving.  Little sympathy was felt with these uneasy gourmands.  Our sources of supply were by no means inexhaustible, and the Colonel’s restriction was intelligible to all reasonable men.  The Boers, on the other hand, appeared to possess more live stock than they needed, and it was upon this hypothesis that the plan of confiscating a portion of the one to equalise the other was conceived by the artful and gallant Colonel.  No sooner thought of than done.  From among the coloured fraternity whose love of looting had occasioned trouble in the past he selected the most expert, and commissioned them to resume their bad ways.  On the Monday night operations were commenced, and carried out successfully.  By dint of much patience and caution, the trusty looters were enabled (unperceived) silently to segregate some seventy oxen and drive them into Kimberley.  Splendid animals they were, too, and an addition to our depleted flocks and herds which gave us solid satisfaction.