gentlemanly feeling. They observe the Sabbath. They
give us quiet nights. After a violent bombardment they generally give us
at least one day to calm down. Their hours for slaughter are six to six,
and they seldom overstep them. They knock off for meals--unfashionably
early, it is true, but it would be petty to complain. Like good
employers, they seldom expose our lives to danger for more than eight
hours a day. They are a little capricious, perhaps, in the use of the
white flag. At the beginning of the siege our "Lady Anne" killed or
wounded some of "Long Tom's" gunners and damaged the gun. Whereupon the
Boers hoisted the white flag over him till the place was cleared and he
was put to rights again. Then they drew it down and went on firing. It
was the sort of thing schoolboys might do. Captain Lambton complained
that by the laws of war the gun was permanently out of action. But "Long
Tom" goes on as before.

I think the best story of the siege comes from a Kaffir who walked in a
few days ago. In the Boer camp behind Pepworth Hill he had seen the men
being taught bayonet exercise with our Lee-Metfords, captured at Dundee.
The Boer has no bayonet or steel of his own, and for an assault on the
town he will need it. Instruction was being given by a prisoner--a
sergeant of the Royal Irish Fusiliers--with a rope round his neck!

_November 13, 1899._

The Boer method of siege is quite inexplicable. Perhaps it comes of
inexperience. Perhaps they have been studying the sieges of ancient
history and think they are doing quite the proper thing in sitting down
round a garrison, putting in a few shells and waiting. But they forget
that, though the sieges of ancient history lasted ten years, nowadays we
really can't afford the time. The Boers, we hope, have scarcely ten
days, yet they loiter along as though eternity was theirs.

To-day they began soon after five with the usual cannonade from "Long
Tom," "Puffing Billy," and three or four smaller guns, commanding the
Naval batteries. The answers of our "Lady Anne" and "Bloody Mary" shook
me awake, and, seated on the hill, I watched the big guns pounding at
each other for about three hours, when there came an interval for
breakfast. As far as I could make out, neither side did the other the
least harm. It was simply an unlucrative exchange of so much broken iron
between two sensible and prudent nations. The moment "Tom" or "Billy"
flashed, "Anne" or "Mary" flashed too. Our