shots, and fired them at intervals through the night, with the desired effect, for next morning no fresh trace was to be seen. Thus one of the most formidable features of the siege ended. We heard afterwards that the work was constructed for a couple of guns provided by the Free State, which, however, never came.

Very frequently we saw the rebels with a waggon cutting down the telegraph-poles, a long way of; but as soon as we went after them, they left, and got away before we could get up. These poles stood up to within 1200 yards north of the town, counting from our most advanced post; across the river they disappeared much nearer, as we could not get about there so easily. The mention of traverses reminds me of another incident. Outside the fort I left the tents standing through the siege to show the Boers that we cared so little for their fire. The men were not in them, but this the Boers were not expected to know, although at first I had great trouble to keep the men from using them; and it was not till two had been severely wounded when sitting under canvas that the order was obeyed.

With the officers it was different, their tents were a little further off, partly protected by the fort; and they were used to dress in of a morning. But even for that short time in them we were not safe; the enemy knew when we went into them, and fired at them all the time, so that in a short while there was not one but what showed several bullet-holes. I had a narrow escape myself; a bullet cutting through the tent at my back, striking the carpet on which my feet rested, and flying up to lodge underneath the table on which my glass stood-I was shaving at the time.

To lessen this danger, most of us made traverses of boxes inside.

One more ingenious than the rest fixed his in the shape of the letter V, each side parallel to the hill that commanded it, and from the secure position of the apex enjoyed his tub and laughed at bullets. These traverses got well riddled to show how many lives they saved, the bullets playing strange freaks with the owner's clothes inside. They would go through half-a-dozen articles, making as many holes in each as there were folds. One I remember went through an Ulster coat, some towels, a dress-suit, some underclothing, and a blanket-lodging in the last, which was too much for it.

There was an opening in the wall dividing the fort just large enough to creep through by stooping, and one day the fellows opposite must have discovered it, for all at once four bullets came through it in as many minutes. Inside was our sleeping-shed and dining-room, a place about ten feet square, usually full; fortunately no one was hit, but we at once put up a traverse and saved ourselves from fresh visitors. All the shots were fired at the forts; the town was saved from them by these, which kept the Boers at a respectful distance. This was what I wanted, as there were women there and little children; and, putting sentiment aside, a wounded woman would have tried us sadly.

One bullet is recorded to have hit the town, and became historical from its eccentric course. It came one night. The parson, who was strolling round, heard it but did not tumble down, for two reasons: it did not hit him; and if he had fallen, men, thinking him wounded, might have rushed out to pick him up, thus exposing more to fresh bullets. It then went into a man's trousers-pocket, ran round outside him out at the other; hit a volun

teer on the boot, not vitally; struck the roof of the Court-house, nearly killing a sergeant on the door-step, and then went on another four hundred yards, where it hopped about on the roof of the hotel, and finally disappeared. But that was an exception to most of our bullets, which were not all so comical.

On the 8th January the fire from Stander's Kop got troublesome, and a man having been shot from there, we threw up in the night our first rifle-pit against that position,-a pit which grew bit by bit until it became our most formidable outwork, garrisoned night and day with fifteen men, well provided with food and ammunition. It could only possibly be relieved during the dark, on account of the fire it was always exposed to. Soon after its construction a second pit was made, flanking it on the left, and held as was the first; and to these two works out on the open veldt was, I think, to be attributed our ability to hold the place as we did. This fact was well recognised by the men in them, and very proud of them they were. They made a Union-jack, and hoisted it under a volley of cheers and bullets. On these dropping near, they would run out and pretend to pick them up, shouting " Play up!" Indeed I had to check their fond

ness for the game - it was too dangerous. Often the right work was knee-deep in water, drainage being hopeless; yet the men lived on and never grumbled. Towards the end of the siege a bit of the parapet fell in owing to the incessant rain, and from it (it was no bigger than a tea-tray) they picked out 300 bullets. So much for the fire it had stood.

During the armistice the Boers wanted to come down the hill opposite to a garden, the same we had occupied on our first sortie; but at the first sign of a man try

ing to descend he got a warning bullet, and ran back faster than he came. Thinking it a pity the stuff they came down for should be wasted (it grew in neutral ground of no use to either side), I told the men to let the Boers know they might come down and pick it. On this a man of voice, elected by his comrades, put his handkerchief on his ramrod, walked out half-way, and shouted in a voice strongly provincial, which no provincial, which no Boer could possibly have understood, "Come down, Johnnie, and pick yer scoff; we won't shoot ye!" which delivered, he returned quite pleased with the success of his mission. The result was that the Dutch, thinking it at least an offer of surrender, sent off for their general, who came in post-haste, under a bigger flag than ours, to receive the conditions; and very much disgusted he was to find how little there was in the invitation.

A few days later we set up a heliograph, made out of some looking-glasses purchased in the town, and directed the flash on Paade Kop, a hill thirty miles on the road to Newcastle, hoping that it would catch the eye of the expected column under Sir George Colley; the men being instructed to flash out as soon as it was returned, "Standerton all well-shall I come out to meet you?" Very hopeful were we in these early days, little dreaming that it would be just two months before we heard a word in reply, and then only a vague suggestion of disasters from the officer who relieved us with supplies, after the first armistice. The Dutch, cunning people, used to light fires in a circle when they saw the flash, and often obscured it; but we beat them in the end, and their fires went out, while our flash never ceased

The days now began to pass so

like one another that the entries in my diary could be summed up in such remarks as- "Eighteen waggons passing to east. Movement on Free State road. Party of fifty men advanced on koppie, but retired on finding us prepared. Brisk firing all day, two men wounded."

On January 17th, I find the first mention of reduced rationsbiscuit twice a-week, and one pound of wood per man; not anything serious, but warning us of what might come.

On the same day a group of horsemen rode up to the top of Stander's Kop,-one in front evidently a person of authority,-and for some hours appeared engaged in devising an attack. This, as it happened, came to nothing; but we heard afterwards that the man in front was Jonbert, and that the attack then devised included the placing of a gun in position somewhere on the hill. The attack was to be made by nearly 3000 men, a force being sent from Heidelberg to strengthen the one already investing us; but matters just then looked so threatening that the men were ordered to go on to the "Nek" instead, and we were let off. We were quite ready for them, and perhaps the Dutch would have got as warm a reception as they cared for.

I find my diary says, jotted down at the minute :

"Made arrangements for a counterattack against theirs; thirty men from town to hold koppie S.-W. 58th reinforced to forty-five men, holding riflepit in force, with groups of sentries in smaller pits,-rest in support. Myself with fifty men ready to move against the Kop for a front attack, both flanks being well assured. Mounted infantry saddled up in readiness to go out. Mounted spy at midnight rode to the Kop to ascertain if any work was in course of construction at the place chosen by the rebels, in which case I shall attack and destroy it."

However, as we know, the attack came to nothing, and the spy reported all as it should be, no work being visible; being visible; so we lay down again to sleep in our boots, which was comfortable enough after a hard day's work, though it sounds a little the reverse to those used to featherbeds and sheets. This sleeping in our clothes and boots became quite second nature: some of us had been at it since we landed for the Zulu war. Hardly one had slept between sheets in South Africa; and it was amusing to watch the various ways we had of turning in on our stretchers. One would arrange his blankets like a bag, and gradually wriggle into it, till only his nose appeared outside; another, Spartan-like in his disregard of comfort, lay with his jack-boots, inside which were his feet, sticking out at one end, while his head, in a red night-cap, appeared at the other.

When it rained, our roof was none too clever at keeping it out; the drops had an irritating way of getting through every hole and cranny, dividing into spray, and sprinkling us as if from the rose of a watering-pot. On these occasions waterproof sheets were in requisition, and when pulled over the sleepers below, gave them a striking resemblance to as many corpses laid out for burial.

We held the koppie just above the town with a mixed force of our own men and volunteers. It was

quite the key of the position, and could be reinforced very shortly in case of an attack. To lose it was to lose the town.

One afternoon a good deal of firing was heard about this critical little hill: stray shots first, then volleys from the koppie, answered by more distant ones from the Dutch, till the firing became general. I could see our men in the shelters holding it, and blazing

But

away, so we put out a picket in readiness to help them; but by the sound of the answering reports it was plain the attack was not very pronounced. Judge of my disgust when I saw them running back by twos and threes, making for the town! The Boers must have made a feint with a small body to conceal the real attack by the main force, which must be showing all of a sudden from another point. It looked like it, and every moment I expected to see the hill crowned with Boers; and the town, alive with silly people, women and children, whites and blacks, seemed to think so too, and gaped in anticipation of so novel a raree-show-all at the mercy of the bullets. the officer in charge of the town saw his men retreating, and at once got out a reinforcement, taking it up the hill at the " double," and reaching it before the Dutch, who, suspecting a trap as usual, were by no means too anxious to be there till quite certain we had left it. They occupied the koppie 1000 yards in front, and made fair shooting from the cover of the stones; but after a little steady practice on our side, they thought better of it and stole away. We counted 150 of them in one koppie, and no doubt had they found our hill not held they would have rushed in and given us some trouble, as it must have been retaken, and retaking koppies is nasty work.

The mixture of soldiers and volunteers did not work well, as this affair showed; and from that time each did their duty separately, the men holding their positions and the volunteers others; and both behaved excellently. With whom the scare started was not easy to determine. Certainly a volunteer had made himself conspicuous in his haste to reach the town, and was made an example of. At a

parade next day he was dismissed the corps, his arms taken from him, and a speech delivered not altogether flattering to his courage as an Englishman. On the same occasion two others of the corps received my thanks for their behaviour during the scare- thanks they never ceased to deserve till the end of the siege. About the soldiers who misbehaved at the same time, and their fate, I need not speak.

The tendency of the civilians, the women especially, to run out of their houses and look on when any firing was heard, just as if securing the best seats in a theatre, was a more serious matter, and called for stringent measures. It would be terrible to have a woman hit before the men; and every inch of hospital space was wanted. So the Landdrost was put in charge of the women and natives, with instructions to see them all under cover at the first sign of an attack; and the arrangement worked admirably, though not without remonstrance from the fair creatures who were thus deprived of their woman's right-the exercise of curiosity.

The Boers used to jump up on rocks behind which they fired, and shout, and wave, making insulting gestures to the men, which put us about a bit, as we had to prevent our people from answering back: they thought they were bound to do so as soldiers. We did not know it then, but the tidings of each defeat of the column was passed on to us with these signs of delight and intimidation. One man was particularly good at this game, his speech being so full of barrackslang that we had little doubt but that he was a deserter from our side. Many such were known to be fighting against us. That deserters are not all of such a class, the following incident will show :

A man deserted from the troops at Standerton some time before, and got clear away, setting up in business in a town in the Free State, where he was doing very well, till, hearing that war was imminent between his countrymen and the Boers, he left his business, came back to Standerton, and gave himself up. He was put in prison until the case was reported, when I released him, pending an application to the General for a free pardon. This I had the pleasure of handing to him soon after the siege, the poor fellow's lips trembling so with pleasure and anxiety that he had not the power to thank me.

"There's something up, they are so quiet;" or "There's a great deal of movement round us, something must be brewing," were common sentences with all of us; but on January 28th I find entered, "Stander's Kop occupied by parties all along watching us; evidently some plan is being hatched by the rebels." And then extra precautions usual.

as

Next morning came confirmation that we were not far wrong. Curiously enough, on that day I had reconnoitred one of their laagers which was up the river. We could count eight waggons in it; the ground about was favourable, and I resolved to attack it in the early morning. But the activity just mentioned induced me to put it off for a day. And it was a piece of luck that I did, for that morning my scouts brought in word that this laager was on the move-forty-nine waggons, with 200 men,-so well do the laagers conceal their positions, and the force holding them. I should have gone with eighty men to attack a position I expected was held by sixty at the outside, and should have met my match, perhaps a bit more. So, on the principle enunciated by a character in

Dickens, I scored a victory through having saved myself from suffering a defeat.

The morning of this doubtful victory I was lying asleep on my stretcher (we all turned out about three o'clock until full daylight, when those who had been pottering about through the night took a nap: I was indulging in this), when I was awoke by a somewhat truculent specimen of my mounted volunteers, evidently with a load of importance on his mind to deliver.

He was a grizzly man, strung round with cartridges, clutching his carbine, and much out of breath. The tip of his snub nose was red; and he had the reputation of a murder, more or less, on his shoulders. A short time previous he had brought me a horse to sell; I was mounting the troop. It was an old favourite, had carried him in the Sekukuni war, and was cheap at twenty-five pounds. In the end I offered him twenty, when he shook his head and went away in disgust, to return with the horse, and accept my offer, provided that he might keep him as his own mount. mount. To this I again objected, when I got the animal at my own terms. terms. I learnt subsequently the horse had been intrusted to him by one of the townspeople to sell for twenty pounds, anything above that sum which he could get being his

own.

Hence the Sekukuni story

and its additions.

This was the man who now came in upon me and began his tale.

He had been out on vedette at daybreak, and had seen a native in the distance coming towards him, "when," he added with a heroic air, "I made for him at once, sir, and captured him, and brought him in. He says he wants to see you, and no one else."

A black youth with a pleasant face, shivering with cold and wet,