shelling.  When the Boers thought they had sufficiently demoralised our defensive forces by artillery “preparation,” a brisk attack by riflemen began to develop against Maiden’s Castle, Caesar’s Camp, and Waggon Hill, a continuous range forming the southern key to our position, and held by the Manchester Regiment.  Brigadier-General Hamilton and his staff were there from the outset, ready, if need be, to call up the Gordons in support.  This necessity, however, never arose, though the attack, as I can testify from personal observation on the spot, was pushed for some time with great persistence, the Boers trying again and again to creep up by the western slopes of Waggon Hill, while shells raked the whole face of Caesar’s Camp to Maiden’s Castle, and burst repeatedly among the tents of the Manchester battalion, without doing serious harm.

A colour-sergeant with only fourteen men defended the crest of Waggon Hill until nightfall, when the Boers retired sullenly.  To repeated offers of reinforcements the sergeant warmly replied that he had men enough for the job, and proved it by repelling every attack, the Boers declining to face the steady fire that was poured upon them whenever they showed themselves.  Colonel Hamilton, however, had a firm conviction that the Boer movement against that flank was only a feeler for more determined enterprises to follow, and he accordingly stiffened the defensive lines there by mounting half a field battery in strong earthworks during the night, and sending up bodies of mounted infantry to support the Manchesters.

As the sun was setting in clouded splendour behind Mount Tinwa’s noble crags and peaks, throwing their dark shadows across the lower hills near us, a flash so quick, that it could hardly be seen, darted from out the gloom there, and with the crashing report that followed came a shell plump into one of our most crowded camps.  This was evidently from a gun newly mounted on Blaauwbank.  Two other shells burst in quick succession about the same place, but fortunately nobody was hit.  Then, satisfied with having got the range to a nicety, our enemy left us in undisturbed quiet for the night, but with an uncomfortable consciousness that fresh links were being forged in the chain of artillery fire by which Ladysmith is now completely girdled, for two batteries that cannot be exactly located have been shelling steadily all day from each end of Bulwaan, with accurate aim and far-reaching effect, as if to disprove all the theories that led to the error of abandoning that position.

This morning fallacious prophecies were further shattered by a shell from works placed far back on the table top of Bulwaan.  It did not demolish anything else, but it makes us very chary now about predicting what the Boers can or cannot do.  Through telescopes they had been watched building that strong fort, and everybody knew it was being thrown up as an emplacement for heavy artillery, yet few people thought that another gun, akin to “Long Tom” in calibre and range, could have been mounted there so soon, until they saw the dense cloud of smoke from a black powder charge, and heard the familiar gurgling screech of a big shell, followed by the thundering report.