So runs the argument, but it would be preposterous to assume that General Joubert thinks he can reduce British troops to submission or bring about an evacuation by such feeble means.  Sir George White has, from humane motives, yielded points to his adversary which most of us would have thought worth fighting for, but he is every inch a gallant soldier, as we who have watched him under heavy fire all know full well, and nobody here needs to be assured that he will never surrender Ladysmith or abandon its stubborn defence as long as there is any reason for holding it.

Ample provision is made for the safety of all non-combatants, where they will not be exposed to shell fire from any quarter, or other dangers except unlikely accidents, and against these no foresight can guard entirely.  There are some people who continue to take all risks rather than forsake their property by day or night.  These, however, are comparatively few.  The great majority got away while there was yet time, leaving their houses, full of furniture, locked up or in charge of Kaffir servants.  Curiously enough, they were in many cases the first to suffer loss by shell fire, and are probably now congratulating themselves on the timely desertion that enabled them to escape worse evils.

Mr. Fortescue Carter, the most famous of Ladysmith’s townsmen, whose History of the Boer War in 1881 is well known, had scarcely left his home, next door to the Intelligence Department’s headquarters, when shells began to fall in his beautiful garden among rose trees, hollyhocks, dahlias, verbenas, and other familiar English flowers, which he cultivated with much care.  Neighbours might be content to surround their houses with fences of almond-scented oleander, and let the hundred varieties of South African shrubs bloom in wild profusion under the shadowing eucalyptus tree, but his gardens were laid out with well-ordered primness, and in them he delighted to see growing the fragrant flowers that reminded him and his visitors of home life in England.  All this is in danger of becoming a shell-fretted wilderness now.  “Long Tom” once having turned his attention in this direction continued to pound away until two shots struck the house itself, and, bursting inside, shattered the dainty contents of several rooms to atoms.

Meanwhile, in a picturesque, vine-trellised cottage, not fifty yards off, ladies went about their domestic duties as usual, apparently oblivious of all danger.  One I saw quietly knitting in the cool, shaded stoep, and her busy needles only stopped for one moment, when a shell burst in the roadway beyond, then went on again as nimbly as ever.  After the first shock, some people, who seem least fitted to bear a continuous strain on their nerves, become so accustomed to the hurtling of huge projectiles through the air that they show no sign of fear when danger is close to them.  Women are often braver than men in these circumstances.  There is one whose courageous example alone keeps native servants and coolie waiters at their posts, but she, when little more than a child, saw some of the horrors of the Zulu War, and she speaks with pride of her father as one of the few farmers who, refusing to quit their homes, kept wives and families about them, and fought like heroes in defence of all they held dear.