s as if a spy had told where the General and Staff
are to be found.

The market quotations at this evening's auction were fluctuating. Eggs
sprang up from a guinea to 30s. a dozen. Jam started at 30s. the 6lb.
jar. Maizena was 5s. a pound. On the other hand, tobacco fell. Egyptian
cigarettes were only 1s. each, and Navy Cut went for 4s. an ounce.
During a siege one realises how much more than bread, meat, and water is
required for health. Flour and trek-ox still hold out, and we receive
the regulation short rations. Yet there is hardly one of us who is not
tortured by some internal complaint, and many die simply for want of
common little luxuries. In nearly all cases where I have been able to
try the experiment I have cured a man with any little variety I had in
store or could procure--rice, chocolate, cake, tinned fruit, or soups. I
wonder how the enemy are getting on with the biltong and biscuit.

_January 19, 1900._

Before noon, as I rode round the outposts, I found the good news flying
that good news had come. It was thought best not to tell us what, lest,
like children, we should cry if disappointed. But it is confidently said
that Buller's force has crossed the Tugela in three places--Wright's
Drift eastward, Potgieter's Drift in the centre, and at a point further
west, perhaps Klein waterfall, where there is a nine-mile plain leading
to Acton Homes. The names of the brigades are even stated, and the
number of losses. It is said the Boers have been driven from two
positions. But there may not be one word of truth in the whole story.

I was early on Observation Hill, watching that strip of plain to the
south-west. No shells were bursting on it to-day, and the sound of guns
was not so frequent. Our heliograph flashed from the far-off Zwartz Kop,
and high above it, looking hardly bigger than a vulture against the pale
blue of the Drakensberg precipices, rose Buller's balloon, showing just
a point of lustre on its skin.

The view from Observation Hill is far the finest, but the whiz of
bullets over the rocks scarcely ever stops, and now and again a shell
comes screaming into the rank grass at one's feet.

To-day we enjoyed a further variety, well worth the risk. At the foot of
Surprise Hill, hardly 1,500 yards from our position, the Boers have
placed a mortar. Now and then it throws a huge column of smoke straight
up into the air. The first I thought was a dynamite explosion, but after
a few seconds I he