We have now but one thought—­is it possible for Buller to force his way across that line of hills overlooking the Tugela?  The nearest summits are not more than ten miles away.  We could ride out there in little more than an hour and join hands with our countrymen and the big world outside.  Yet the barrier remains unbroken.  Firing continued nearly all day, except in the extreme heat of afternoon.  We could watch the columns of smoke thrown up by the Boers’ great gun, still fixed above that niche upon the horizon.  The Dutch camps were unmoved, and at the extremity of the Long Valley a large new camp with tents and a few waggons appeared and increased during the day.  Some thought it was a hospital camp, but it was more likely due to a general concentration in the centre.  Here and there we could see great shells bursting, and even shrapnel.  The sound of rifles and “pom-poms” was often reported.  Yet I could not see any real proof of advance.  Perhaps fever and sun blind me to hope, for the staff are very confident still.  They even lay odds on a celebration of victory next Sunday by the united forces, and I hear that Sir George is practising the Hundredth Psalm.

     February 8 to February 24, 1900.

I had hoped to keep well all through the siege, so as to see it all from start to finish.  But now over a fortnight has been lost while I have been lying in hospital, suffering all the tortures of Montjuich, “A touch of sun,” people called it, combined with some impalpable kind of malaria.  On the 8th I struggled up Caesar’s Camp again, and saw parties of Boers burning all the veldt beyond Limit Hill, apparently to prevent us watching the movements of the trains at their railhead.  On the 9th I could not stand, and the bearers, with their peculiar little chant, to keep them out of step, brought me down to the Congregational Chapel in a dhoolie.  There I still lie.  The Hindoo sweepers creep about, raising a continual dust; they fan me sleepily for hours together with a look of impenetrable vacancy, and at night they curl themselves on the ground outside and cough their souls away.  The English orderlies stamp and shout, displaying the greatest goodwill and a knowledge of the nervous system acquired in cavalry barracks.  Far away we hear the sound of Buller’s guns.  I did not know it was possible to suffer such atrocious and continuous pain without losing consciousness.

Of course we have none of the proper remedies for sunstroke—­no ice, no soda-water, and so little milk that it has to be rationed out almost by the teaspoonful.  Now that the fever has begun to subside I can only hope for a tiny ration of tea, a brown compound called rice pudding, flavoured with the immemorial dust of Indian temples, and a beef-tea which neighs in the throat.  That is the worst of the condition of the sick now; when they begin to mend it is almost impossible to get them well.  There is nothing to give them.  At Intombi, I believe it is even worse than here.  The letters I have lately seen from officers recovering from wounds or dysentery or enteric are simply heart-rending in their appeals.