its way through the hotel from roof to floor.  We all got up and crowded to the main entrance on the street.  The shell had struck a sidewall in the bar, and glanced off through the doorway without exploding.  Dr. Stark, of Torquay, was standing at the door, waiting for a place at dinner, and talking to Mr. Machugh, of the Daily Telegraph.  The shell struck him full in the thigh, leaving his left leg hanging only by a piece of flesh, and shattering the right just at the knee.  “Hold me up,” he said, and did not lose consciousness.  We moved him to the hospital, but he died within an hour.  I have little doubt that the shells were aimed at the hotel, because the Boers know that Dr. Jameson and Colonel Rhodes are in the town.  But the man killed was Dr. Stark, a strong opponent of the Chamberlain policy, and a vigorous denouncer of the war’s injustice.

The havoc of the siege is gradually increasing, and the prospect of relief grows more and more distant.  Just after midnight the Boers again aroused us by discharging all their guns into the forts or the town, and again the people hurried away to their caves and culverts for protection.  The long Naval guns replied, and then all was quiet.

     Sunday, November 19, 1899.

Another day of rest, for which we thank the Fourth Commandment.  After the Sabbath wash, I went up to Caesar’s Camp for the view.  On the way I called in upon the balloon, which now dwells in a sheltered leafy glade at the foot of the Gordons’ hill, when it is not in the sky, surrounded by astonished vultures.  The weak points of ballooning appear to be that it is hard to be sure of detail as distinguished from mass, and even on a clear day the light is often insufficient or puzzling.  It is seldom, for instance, that the balloonist gets a definite view towards Colenso, which to us is the point of greatest interest.  I found that the second balloon was only used as a blind to the enemy, like a paper kite flown over birds to keep them quiet.  Going up to the Manchesters’ position on the top of Caesar’s Camp, I had a view of the whole country almost as good as any balloon’s.  The Boer laagers have increased in size, and are not so carefully hidden.

Beside the railway at the foot of “Long Tom’s” hill near Modder Spruit, there was quite a large camp of Boer tents and three trains as usual.  They say the Boers have put their prisoners from the Royal Irish Fusiliers here, but it is unlikely they should bring them back from Pretoria.  The tents of another large camp showed among the bushes on Lombard’s Nek, where the Helpmakaar road passes between Lombard’s Kop and Bulwan, and many waggon laagers were in sight beyond.  At the foot of the flat-topped Middle Hill on the south-west, the Boers have placed two more guns to trouble the Manchesters further.  But our defences along the whole ridge are now very strong.

In the afternoon they buried Dr. Stark in the cemetery between the river and the Helpmakaar road.  I don’t know what has become of a kitten which he used to carry about with him in a basket when he went to spend the day under the shelter of the river bank.