object of giving medical care to any wounded enemies who might fall into our hands.  When Boer shells began to burst about our ears Dr. Stark was the most practical advocate of caution.  He would leave the Royal Hotel at daybreak every morning or even earlier, carrying with him a pet kitten in a basket, and sufficient supplies for a whole day up to dinner-time.  When the light began to fade so that gunners could hardly see to shoot straight, and therefore ceased firing, he would emerge from his riverside retreat and return to the hotel.  Foresight could not suggest more complete precautions against accident than he took on common-sense principles.  But, unhappily, one evening the Boer artillery carried on practice later than usual, aiming with fixed sights steadily at the Royal Hotel, in the evident hope of hitting some staff officers who were supposed to hold their mess there.  It was nearly dark when two shells came in rapid succession from the big gun near Lombard’s Kop, and the second, passing clean through Dr. Stark’s empty bedroom into the hall below, went out by an open door and hit the doctor, who was coming in at that moment.  A special correspondent, Mr. McHugh, who happened to be standing near, rendered first-aid by the application of a tourniquet; and trained nurses came quickly to his assistance, but too late to save the kindly gentleman, who had been shot through both legs, and whose life-blood was ebbing fast, though he remained alive and conscious of everything that passed for an hour afterwards.  The hand of fate seemed there, but whether it was more merciful to him or to those who, having escaped shot and shell, are now stricken by disease in an unhealthy camp, who shall say?

Incidents of this kind turn our thoughts to a serious complexion at times, and if a stranger could come suddenly into our midst in the moments of depression we should not perhaps strike him as a particularly cheerful community.  Yet war even under these conditions has its amenities, and our mirthful moods, though chastened by events that thrust themselves upon us with unpleasant insistence, are not infrequent.  For many welcome breaks in the monotony of daily life we are indebted to the officers and men of regiments that will not allow themselves or their neighbours to get into the doldrums for lack of such sports and entertainments as ingenuity can improvise.  In this respect the Natal Carbineers, Imperial Light Horse, and Gordon Highlanders have shown a praiseworthy zeal, being encamped near each other, and having so far an advantage over regiments like the Devon, Liverpool, Gloucester, Leicester, Rifle Brigade, Royal Irish Fusiliers, King’s Royal Rifles, and Manchester, which since the first day of investment have been detached for the defence of important positions, where they can hardly venture to expose themselves in groups without a certainty of drawing the enemy’s artillery fire upon them, and where the necessity for ceaseless watchfulness at night puts a severe strain on all ranks.