ficers,
close guarded in the Pretoria Model School, and carefully cut off from
all the news of the day, amused themselves by framing parodies on the
absurd military intelligence published in the local Boer papers;
whereof let the following verse serve as a sample:--

Twelve thousand British were laid low;
One Boer was wounded in the toe.
Such is the news we get to know
In prison.

About this time there came into my hands a sample copy of _The
Ladysmith Lyre_; but clearly though the last word in its title was
perfectly correct as a matter of pronunciation the spelling was
obviously inaccurate. It was a merry invention of news during the
siege by men who were hemmed in from all other news; and so the
grosser the falseness the greater the fun.

* * * * *

In my own particular copy I found the following dialogue between two
Irish soldiers:--

First Private--"The captain told me to keep away from the enemy's
foire!"

Second Private--"What did you tell the Captain?"

First Private--"I told him the Boers were so busy shelling they hadn't
made any foire!"

That is scarcely a brilliant jest; but then it was begotten amid the
agonies of the siege.

One of the poems published in this same copy of _The Ladysmith Lyre_
has in it more of melancholy than of mirth. It tells of the hope
deferred that maketh the heart sick; and gives us a more vivid idea
than anything else yet printed of the secret distress of the men who
saved Natal--a distress which we also shared. It is entitled--

"AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE."

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over all the quaint and curious yarns we've heard about the war,
Suddenly there came a rumour--(we can always take a few more)
Started by some chap who knows more than--the others knew before--
"We shall see the reinforcements in another--month or more!"
Only this and nothing more!

But we're waiting still for Clery, waiting, waiting, sick and weary
Of the strange and silly rumours we have often heard before.
And we now begin to fancy there's a touch of necromancy,
Something almost too uncanny, in the unregenerate Boer--
Only this and nothing more!

Though our hopes are undiminished that the war will soon be finished,
We would be a little happier if we knew a little more.
If w