missing. In fact, he had stayed behind to look
after some of his men who were down or lost. He is known for his
excellent government of a district in Crete. I gave him the water. He
recognised me at once and was conscious, but his singularly blue eyes
looked out of a deadly yellow and bloodless face, and his hands seemed
to have the touch of death on them. When I said I was sorry, he
answered, "But we got the gun." He was shot through the chest, though,
as he pointed out, he was not spitting blood. Another bullet had entered
the left hip and passed out, breaking the right hip-bone. That is the
dangerous wound. He said he did not feel much pain.

The wounded were taken down to the tents set up in the ravine of the
Port Road between the Headquarters and the old camp. That is the main
hospital (11th and 18th) since the wounded were shifted out of the Town
Hall, because the Boers shelled it so persistently. Since the Geneva
flag was removed from the hall's turret not a single shell has been
fired near the building. The ravine--"kloof" is the word here, like
"cleft"--is fairly safe from shells, though the Bulwan gun has done its
best to get among the tents ever since spies reported the removal.

It is fully exposed to those terrible dust storms which I described in
an earlier letter. In the afternoon we had one of the worst I have seen.
The sand and dust and dry filth, gathered up by the hot west wind from
the plain of the old camp, swept in a continuous yellow cloud along the
road and down into the ravine. It blotted out the sun, it blinded horses
and men, it covered the wounded with a thick layer. I have described its
horrible effects before. Imagine what it is like to have a hospital
under such conditions, practically unsheltered--to extract bullets, to
staunch blood, to amputate. One admires the Boers as a race fighting for
their freedom, soon to be overthrown on behalf of a mongrel pack of
speculators and other scoundrels. But I did not like them any better
when I saw our wounded in the dust-storm to-day, and remembered why they
were there.

In the afternoon a white woman was killed by a shell as she was washing
clothes in the river. She is the first woman actually killed, though
others have died from premature child birth. I don't know which gun
killed her, but parts of the town and river hitherto safe were to-day
exposed to fire from the 6 in. gun which was removed from Middle Hill a
few days ago, and is now set up