s had crept up
into Brooks's Farm, beyond the Harrismith railway, and were firing at
the heads of our men on Junction Hill. Whenever they missed the edge of
the hill the bullets fell on my cottage. At last some guns opened fire
from our Naval battery on Cove Redoubt. Captain Lambton had permitted
the Natal Naval Volunteers to blaze away some of their surplus
ammunition at the snipers. And blaze they did! Their 3-pounders kept up
an almost continuous fire all the morning, and hardly a sniper has been
heard since. There was nothing remarkable about the bombardment.

"Puffing Billy" gave us his four doses of big shell as usual. Whilst I
was at the Intelligence Office a shell lit among some houses under the
trees in front, killed two and wounded others. The action of another
shell would seem incredible if I had not seen it. The thing burst among
the 13th Battery, which stands under shelter of Tunnel Hill, in a
straight line with my road, less than 300 yards away. I was just
mounting my horse and stopped to see the burst, when a fragment came
sauntering high through the air and fell with a thud in the garden just
behind me. It was a jagged bit of outer casing about three inches thick,
and weighing over 6 lbs. The extraordinary thing about it was that it
had flung off exactly at right angles from the line of fire. Gunners say
that melinite sometimes does these things.

I rode south-west, over Range Post and a bit of the Long Valley to
Waggon Hill, our nearest point to the relief column and the English
mail. At no great distance--ten miles or so--I could see the hills
overlooking the Tugela, where the English are. Far beyond rose the crags
and precipices of the Drakensberg, illuminated by unearthly gleams of
the setting sun, which found their way beneath the fringes of a purple
thunder-shower and turned to amber-brown a cloud of smoke rising from
the burning veldt.

_January 3, 1900._

The quiet hour before sunrise was again broken by the crash of our Naval
guns. "Bloody Mary" (now politely called the "Princess Victoria") threw
five shells along the top of Bulwan. A Naval 12-pounder sent three
against the face of the hill. Again it was intended to catch the Boer
gunners and guard as they were getting up and preparing breakfast.

_January 4, 1900._

No news came in, and it was a day as dull as peace, but for some
amenities of bombardment.

The Surprise Hill howitzer tried a longer range. At lunch "Bulwan B