December 21, 1899.

“Puffing Billy,” of Bulwan, distinguished himself this morning by sending one shot into Colonel Ward’s house and the next into the general’s just beyond.  In Colonel Ward’s was a live Christmas turkey, over which a sentry is posted day and night.  At first the rumour spread that the bird was mortally wounded; its thigh fractured, its liver penetrated.  But about midday public alarm was allayed by the news that the invaluable creature could be seen strutting about and stiffening its feathers as usual.  It had not even suffered from shock.  The second shot went through Sir Henry Rawlinson’s office, which he had just left, and shattered the Headquarters’ larder, depriving the Staff of butter for the rest of the siege.  It has made a model ruin for future sightseers.  Unhappily the general was ill in bed with slight fever, and had to be carried to another house up the hill in a dhoolie.  This may have encouraged the Boers to think they had killed him.

It was again a bad day for the heliograph, and the Boers have purposely kindled a veldt fire across the line of light.  But I think I got through my thirty words of Christmas greeting to the Chronicle.  I tried in vain all day for a Kaffir runner, but in the late afternoon I rode away over the plain, past the racecourse, and through the thorns at the foot of Caesar’s Camp, till I almost came in touch with the enemy’s piquets at Intombi.  I saw a flock of long-billed waders, like small whimbrel, a great variety of beautiful little doves, and many of that queer bird the natives call Sakonboota, whose tail grows so long in the breeding season that his little wings can hardly lift it above the ground, and he flutters about in the breeze like a badly made kite.  Riding back at sunset over the flat I felt like Montaigne when he desired to wear away his life in the saddle.  The difference is that in the end I may have to eat my own horse.  The shells from four guns kept singing their evening hymn above my head as I cantered along.

[Illustration:  HEADQUARTERS AFTER A 96LB.  SHELL]

     December 22, 1899.

The morning opened with one of those horrible disasters which more than balance our general good luck.  The Bulwan gun began his morning shell rather later than usual.  His almost invariable programme is to fire five or six shots at the bakery or soda-water shed beside my cottage; then to give a few to the centre of the town, and to finish off with half a dozen at the Light Horse and Gordons down by the Iron Bridge.  Having earned his breakfast, he usually stops then, and cools down a bit.  The performance is so regular that when he has finished with our end of the town the men cease to take precautions even at the sound of the whistle or bugle which gives notice of danger whenever the special sentry sees the gun flash.