There were, besides meat troubles, minor grievances increasing every day.  A plate of porridge was a thing of the past; and milk of course was an antediluvian quantity!  All the tinned milk had been commandeered for the hospital.  Nobody objected to the priority of that institution’s claims; but it was complained that the quantity commandeered was excessive, unnecessarily large.  Eggs were one and a penny each (each egg!), which sum few could afford to pay, and a number, whose economic souls revolted at it, declined to pay, through sheer respect for proportion.  There was nothing to fall back on but “mealie-pap,” an imitation porridge, made of fine white mealie meal; the very colour of if tired one; white stirabout, connoisseurs opined, was not a natural thing.  There were scores who would not touch “mealie-pap” with a forty-foot spoon.  But they changed in time; “I am an acquired taste,” cries Katisha; so is “mealie-pap.”  We acquired the taste for it, just as people do for tomatoes (where were they!) or a glass of vinegar and water.  This hew porridge was not new to the natives; they dissipated on it three times a day, and were satisfied so long as they had sugar to make it doubly fattening.  It was all so unlike the piping times of peace!  Sunday was now a bore, productive chiefly of ennui.  On Monday one could at least scour the town in search of something to eat; and many a coolie shop was invaded by bluffers, dressed in the “little brief authority” of a Town Guard’s hat, who endeavoured to bully the coolie into unearthing hidden stores.  But to no avail; the coolie was not to be frightened, nor even excited, by hat or pugaree.  His stock of good things had indeed been reduced to lozenges, sugar-sticks, and other dental troubles.

Nothing startling was expected on Monday; but we were disappointed.  The noise sounded like the roar of thunder; we had heard similar sounds emanate from Modder River; but these were undoubtedly louder and nearer.  It soon became evident that they could not be thunder-claps; they were too continuous and unceasing.  We listened for six hours to the incessant booming of British artillery—­the finest in the world!  What else could it be!  Would there be a Boer left, we asked ourselves, would one survive to depict the carnage around him.  The guns in action must have numbered forty or fifty.  Soon a great rush was made for the debris heaps on the Reservoir side—­whence, through a glass, the shells could be seen bursting in rapid succession at Spytfontein.  Strong though the position admittedly was, its defenders could never resist a cannonade so awful.  It was the famous, disastrous battle of Magersfontein that was in progress.  But of that we then knew nothing.  We knew not that hundreds of the Highland Brigade lay dead, nor that while Kimberley was brimming over with enthusiasm at the prospect of immediate freedom, dismay was rampant everywhere else.  There we were, twenty miles from the scene of slaughter, looking on, not only ignorant of the truth, but entirely mistaken in our assumption that it was what we wished it to be.