has hollowed out a noble, ecclesiastical burrow.  On the hills the soldiers are still at work completing their shelter-trenches and walls.  I think the Rifle Brigade on King’s Post (the signal hill of a month ago) have built the finest series of defences, for they have made covered pits against shrapnel.  But perhaps they are more exposed than all the others except the Devons, who lie along a low ridge beside the Helpmakaar road, open to shell from two points, and perhaps to rifle-fire also.  The Irish Fusiliers, under Major Churchill, have a very ingenious series of walls and covers.  The main Manchesters’ defences are circular like forts; so are the Gordons’ and the K.R.R.’s.  All are provisioned for fourteen days.

I spent the afternoon searching for a runner, a Kaffir the colour of night, who would steal through the Boer lines in the dark with a telegram.  In my search I lost two hours through the conscientiousness of the 5th Lancers, who arrested me and sent me from pillar to post, just as if I was seeking information at the War Office.  At last they took me—­the Colonel himself, three privates with rifles and a mounted orderly with a lance—­took me to the General Staff, and there the absurdity ended.  But seriously, what is the good of having the very highest and most authoritative passes possible—­one from the War Office and one from the head of the Intelligence Department here—­if any conscientious colonel can refuse to acknowledge them, and drag a correspondent about amid the derision of Kaffirs and coolies, and of Dutchmen who are known perfectly well to send every scrap of intelligence to their friends outside?  I lost two hours; probably I lost my chance of getting a runner through.  I had complied with the regulations in every possible respect.  My pass was in my hand; and what was the good of it?

But after all we are in the midst of a tragedy.  Let us not be too serious.  Dishevelled women are peering out of their dens in the rocks and holes in the sand.  They crawl into the evening light, shaking the dirt from their petticoats and the sand from their back hair.  They rub the children’s faces round with the tails of their gowns.  They tempt scraps of flame to take the chill off the yellow water for the children’s tea.  After sundown a steady Scotch drizzle settles down upon us.

     November 7, 1899.

To-day the melodrama has begun in earnest.  “Long Tom” and four or five smaller guns from Bulwan, and a nearer battery to the north-west, began hurling percussion shell and shrapnel upon the Naval batteries at half-past seven.  Our “Lady Anne” answered, but after flinging shells into the immense earthworks for an hour or two without much effect, both sides got tired of that game.  But the Boer fire was not quite without effect, for one of the smaller shells burst right inside the “Lady Anne’s” private chamber and carried away part of the protecting gear, not killing any men.  Then “Long Tom” was deliberately turned