of ’em!” Then we went on building at the sangar, but without much spirit.  They laughed when I told them how a shell from “Long Tom” fell into the Crown Hotel garden this morning, and all the black servants rushed out to pocket the fragments.  But the only thing which really cheered them was the thought that they had only to “stick it out” till Buller’s force went up to the Free State and drew the enemy off—­that and a supply of cigarettes.

Early in the afternoon I took my telegram to the Censor as usual, and after the customary wanderings and waste of time I found him—­only to hear that the wires were bunched and the line destroyed.  So telegrams are ended; mails neither come nor go.  The guns fired lazily till evening, doing little harm on either side.  A queer Boer ambulance, with little glass windows—­something between a gipsy van and a penny peep-show—­came in under a huge white flag, bringing some of our wounded to exchange for wounded Boers.  The amenities of civilised slaughter are carefully observed.  But one of the ambulance drivers was Mattey, “Long Tom’s” skilled gunner, in disguise.

     November 3, 1900.

The bombardment continued, guns on Bulwan throwing shells into various camps, especially the Natal Volunteers.  Many people chose the river bed as the most comfortable place to spend a happy day.  They hoped the high banks or perhaps the water would protect them.  So there they sat on the stones and waited for night.  I don’t know how many shells pitched into the town to-day—­say 150, not more.  Little harm was done, but people of importance had one grand shock.  Just as lunch was in full swing at the Royal, where officers, correspondents, and a nurse or two congregate for meals in hope of staying their intolerable thirst—­bang came a shell from “Long Tom” straight for the dining-room window.  Happily a little house which served as bedroom to Mr. Pearse, of the Daily News, just caught it on its way.  Crash it came through the iron roof, the wooden ceiling, into the brick wall.  There it burst, and the house was in the past.  Happily Mr. Pearse was only on his way to his room, and had not reached it.  Some of the lunchers got bricks in their backs, and one man took to his bed of a shocked stomach.

At the time I was away on the Maritzburg road, which starts west from the town and gradually curves southward.  The picket on the ridge called Range Post is a relic of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, now in the show-ground at Pretoria.  Major Kincaid was there, only returned the night before from the Boer camp behind “Long Tom.”  He had been ill with fever and was exchanged.  He spoke with praise of the Boer treatment of our wounded and prisoners.  When our fellows were worn out, the Boers dismounted and let them ride.  They brought them water and any food they had.  Joubert came round the ambulance, commanding there should be no distinction between the wounded of either race.  Major Kincaid had seen a good deal of the so-called Colonel Blake and his so-called Irish Brigade.  He found that the very few who were not Americans were English.  He had not a single real Irishman among them.  Blake, an American, had come out for the adventure, just as he went to the Chili War.