tain). It is a nine-mile range of hills
running east and west, nearly parallel to the Tugela, and having
Potgieter's Drift on its left. The left extremity, looking over the
Drift, rises into double peaks, and is called Mabedhlane, or the Paps,
by Zulus. The main Boer position appears to be halfway up these peaks
and along the range to their right. To-day it is said that the relieving
force intends to approach the mountain by parallels, sapping and mining
as it goes, and treating the positions like a mediaeval fortress, or one
of those ramparted and turreted cities which "Uncle Toby" used to
besiege on the bowling green.

One's only fear is about the delay. The population at Intombi is now
approaching 4,000, nearly 3,000 being sick. I doubt if we could put
4,000 men in the field to-day. Men and horses crawl feebly about, shaken
with every form of internal pain and weakness. Women suffer even more.
The terror of the shells has caused thirty-two premature births since
the siege began. It is true a heliogram to-day tells us there are
seventy-four big waggons waiting at Frere for our relief--milk,
vegetables, forage, eleven waggons of rum, fifty cases of whisky, 5,000
cigarettes, and so on. But all depends upon those parallels, so slowly
advancing against Taba Nyama, and our insides are being sapped and mined
far more quickly.

Towards noon a disaster occurred, which has depressed the whole town.
Two of the _Powerful's_ bluejackets have lately been making what they
called a good thing by emptying unexploded Boer shells of their charges,
so that the owners might display them with safety and pride when the
siege is over. For this service they generally received 10s. each. It is
only two days since they were in my cottage--chiselling out the melinite
from a complete "Long Tom" shell which alighted in my old Scot's garden.
I watched them accomplish that task safely, and this morning they set to
work upon a similar shell by order of the Wesleyan minister, who wished
to keep it in his window as a symbol of Christianity. One of the men was
holding it between his knees, while the other was quietly chipping away,
when suddenly it exploded. Fragments of one of the men strewed the
minister's house--the other lay wondering upon the ground, but
without his legs. Whilst I write he is still nominally alive, and keeps
asking for his mate. One of his legs has been picked up near the Town
Hall--about 150 yards away.

[Illustration: SPECIME