For these reasons we only fired, I suppose, one shell to their twenty, or thereabouts; so that though we actually had far more guns, we yet enjoyed all the sensations of a true bombardment.

What were they?  That bombardments were a hollow terror I had always understood; but how hollow, not till I experienced the bombardment of Ladysmith.  Hollow things make the most noise, to be sure, and this bombardment could at times be a monstrous symphony indeed.

The first heavy day was November 3:  while the troops were moving in and out on the Van Keenen’s road the shells traced an aerial cobweb all over us.  After that was a lull till the 7th, which was another clattering day.  November 8 brought a tumultuous morning and a still afternoon.  The 9th brought a very tumultuous morning indeed; the 10th was calm; the 11th patchy; the 12th, Sunday.

It must be said that the Boers made war like gentlemen of leisure; they restricted their hours of work with trade-unionist punctuality.  Sunday was always a holiday; so was the day after any particularly busy shooting.  They seldom began before breakfast; knocked off regularly for meals—­the luncheon interval was 11.30 to 12 for riflemen, and 12 to 12.30 for gunners—­hardly ever fired after tea-time, and never when it rained.  I believe that an enterprising enemy of the Boer strength—­it may have been anything from 10,000 to 20,000; and remember that their mobility made one man of them equal to at least two of our reduced 11,000—­could, if not have taken Ladysmith, at least have put us to great loss and discomfort.  But the Boers have the great defect of all amateur soldiers:  they love their ease, and do not mean to be killed.  Now, without toil and hazard they could not take Ladysmith.

To do them justice, they did not at first try to do wanton damage in town.  They fired almost exclusively on the batteries, the camps, the balloon, and moving bodies of troops.  In a day or two the troops were far too snugly protected behind schanzes and reverse slopes, and grown far too cunning to expose themselves to much loss.

The inhabitants were mostly underground, so that there was nothing really to suffer except casual passengers, beasts, and empty buildings.  Few shells fell in town, and of the few many were half-charged with coal-dust, and many never burst at all.  The casualties in Ladysmith during a fortnight were one white civilian, two natives, a horse, two mules, a waggon, and about half-a-dozen houses.  And of the last only one was actually wrecked; one—­of course the most desirable habitation in Ladysmith—­received no less than three shells, and remained habitable and inhabited to the end.

And now what does it feel like to be bombarded?

At first, and especially as early as can be in the morning, it is quite an uncomfortable sensation.