the convent.  At first my throat was too painful to enable me to sleep, and endless did those dreary hours seem.  We had supper usually before seven, in order to take advantage of the fading daylight, for lights were on no account to be shown at any of the windows, being almost certain to attract rifle-fire.  By eight we were in total darkness, except for the dim little paraffin hand-lamp the Sisters kindly lent me, which, for precaution’s sake, had to be placed on the floor.  Extraordinary noises emanated from those long uncarpeted passages, echoing backwards and forwards, in the ceiling, till they seemed to pertain to the world of spirits.  The snoring of the men on the relief guard was like the groans of a dying man, the tread of those on duty like the march of a mighty army.  Then would come intense stillness, suddenly broken by a volley from the enemy sounding appallingly near—­in reality about a mile off—­and provoked, doubtless, by some very innocent cause.  Many of these volleys were often fired during the night, sometimes for ten minutes together, at other times singly, at intervals; anon the boom of a cannon would vary the entertainment.  Occasionally, when unable to sleep, I would creep down the pitch-dark corridor to a room overlooking the sleeping town and the veldt, the latter so still and mysterious in the moonlight, and, peeping through a large jagged hole in the wall caused by a shell, I marvelled to think of the proximity of our foes in this peaceful landscape.  At length would come the impatiently-longed-for dawn about 4 a.m.; then the garrison would appear, as it were, to wake up, although the greater part had probably spent the night faithfully watching.  Long lines of sentries in their drab khaki would pass the convent on their homeward journey, walking single file in the deep trench connecting the town with the outposts, and which formed a practically safe passage from shell and rifle fire.  Very quickly did the day burst on the scene, and a very short time we had to enjoy those cool, still morning hours or the more delightful twilight; the sun seemed impatient to get under way and burn up everything.  Of course we had wet mornings and wet days, but, perhaps fortunately, the rains that year were fairly moderate, though plentiful enough to have turned the yellow veldt of the previous autumn into really beautiful long green grass, on which the half-starved cattle were then thriving and waxing fat.  The view from our tiny bedrooms was very pretty, and the coming and going of every sort of person in connection with the convalescent hospital downstairs made the days lively enough, and compensated for the dreariness of the nights.  The splendid air blowing straight from the free north and from the Kalahari Desert on the west worked wonders in the way of restoring us to health, and I began to talk of moving back to my old quarters.  I must confess I was never quite comfortable about the shells, which seemed so constantly to narrowly miss the building,