s
raised till every pint issued will make three pints of soup. A punkah is
to be fitted to make the evaporation more rapid, and perhaps my horse
will ultimately appear as a jelly or a lozenge. But at present the stuff
is nothing but a strong kind of soup, and at the first issue to-day the
men had to carry it in the ordinary camp-kettles.

Every man in the garrison to-night receives a pint of horse essence hot.
I tasted it in the cauldron, straight from the horse, and found it so
sustaining that I haven't eaten anything since. The dainty Kaffirs and
Colonial Volunteers refuse to eat horse in any form. But the sensible
British soldier takes to it like a vulture, and begs for the lumps of
stewed flesh from which the soup has been made. With the joke, "Mind
that stuff; it kicks!" he carries it away, and gets a chance, as he
says, of filling--well, we know what he says. The extract has a
registered label:--

[Illustration: Superior Ladysmith

CHEVRIL

RESURGAM

Trade Mark

"The Iron Horse"]

Under the signature of Aduncus Bea and Co. acute signallers will
recognise the official title of Colonel Ward.

Since the beginning of the siege one of the saddest sights has been the
Boer prisoners lounging away their days on the upper gallery of the
gaol. They have been there since Elands Laagte, nearly four months now,
with no news, nothing to do, and nothing to see except one little bit of
road visible over the wall.

The solitude has so unnerved them that when the shells fall near the
gaol or whiz over the roof the prisoners are said to howl and scream. On
visiting them to-day I found that only seven real prisoners of war are
left here, the others being suspects or possible traitors, arrested on
suspicion of signalling or sending messages to the enemy. Among them is
the French deserter I mentioned weeks ago. The little man is much
reduced in girth, and terribly lonely among the Dutch, but he appears to
grow no wiser for solitude and low living.

Among the twenty-three suspects it was pleasant to see one new arrival
who has been the curse of the town since the beginning of the siege,
when he went about telling the terrified women and children that if they
were not blown to bits by the shells the Boers would soon get them. So
he has gone on ever since, till to-day Colonel Park, of the Devons, had
him arrested for the military offence of "causing despondency." He had
kept asking the Devons when they were going to run away