plea; and Buller (who had his hands full in Natal) was reviled for not supplying more.  The indications of a renewal of active hostilities, however, which Wednesday brought, enkindled hope again and promised a happy New Year.  It was still a sore point with us to see the exchange of signals going on night after night; to think that we—­the people!—­should be kept in ignorance of their meaning.  But it was in harmony with the Military methods in general; and some people vowed that if ever the hat went round for the Colonel they would not put a cent in it, so help them!  How much the Colonel was perturbed by this dire threat there was no evidence to show.  But a Proclamation was soon forthcoming—­which would certainly not conduce to the filling of the hat.  His (the Colonel’s) proclamations had for the most part made us swear by him; the one of which I now speak made us swear at him!  And our language will be pardoned when I explain that the decree struck at the one commodity it was in our power to get enough of.  There was such a commodity, and that was bread.  Until this atrocious edict saw the light it had been our privilege to, enjoy carte blanche in bread.  It was the last of our privileges—­too simple and sacred, one would have thought, for even an autocrat to have dared to trample on.

Flour, meal, Kafir corn, mealies, etc., were also to be controlled by the socialists (they had red flags up); but the main insult, added to the injury already inflicted by the quality of the State loaf, lay in the suggestion that we ate too much bread, and that we were in future to be limited to fourteen ounces per diem!  Already limited to nothing at all in vegetables and to a glorified bite of beef, it was not surprising that an angry chorus of protest was raised against the Government.  People asked, in their indignation, if they really lived in a British Colony?  Could such an interference with the freedom of the subject be brooked for five minutes?  Of course the query was beside the question, but everybody was beside himself with rage.  Where was the Military despotism to stop?  In the meantime, while men in the street raved, shrewd housewives were acting.  At the first note of alarm they had started scouring up their pans and determined to encourage thrift by baking their own bread.  They would thus supplement their allowance of the readymade article, and by the same token snap their fingers at that “ass” in excelsis—­Martial Law.  But they reckoned without their host; there is nothing asinine about Martial Law; a closer perusal of the proclamation would have taught them that Kekewich and Gorle were old soldiers; that anybody buying meal or flour could not buy bread, and vice versa.  Even “mealie-pap,” ad lib., we had perforce to forego; the “Law” allowed it but once a day.  Then there was a worse feature than this limitation indicated.  “Mealie-pap” without milk was bad enough; minus sugar it was unthinkable.