oped to keep well all through the siege, so as to see it all from
start to finish. But now over a fortnight has been lost while I have
been lying in hospital, suffering all the tortures of Montjuich, "A
touch of sun," people called it, combined with some impalpable kind of
malaria. On the 8th I struggled up Caesar's Camp again, and saw parties
of Boers burning all the veldt beyond Limit Hill, apparently to prevent
us watching the movements of the trains at their railhead. On the 9th I
could not stand, and the bearers, with their peculiar little chant, to
keep them out of step, brought me down to the Congregational Chapel in a
dhoolie. There I still lie. The Hindoo sweepers creep about, raising a
continual dust; they fan me sleepily for hours together with a look of
impenetrable vacancy, and at night they curl themselves on the ground
outside and cough their souls away. The English orderlies stamp and
shout, displaying the greatest goodwill and a knowledge of the nervous
system acquired in cavalry barracks. Far away we hear the sound of
Buller's guns. I did not know it was possible to suffer such atrocious
and continuous pain without losing consciousness.

Of course we have none of the proper remedies for sunstroke--no ice, no
soda-water, and so little milk that it has to be rationed out almost by
the teaspoonful. Now that the fever has begun to subside I can only hope
for a tiny ration of tea, a brown compound called rice pudding,
flavoured with the immemorial dust of Indian temples, and a beef-tea
which neighs in the throat. That is the worst of the condition of the
sick now; when they begin to mend it is almost impossible to get them
well. There is nothing to give them. At Intombi, I believe it is even
worse than here. The letters I have lately seen from officers recovering
from wounds or dysentery or enteric are simply heart-rending in their
appeals.

_February 25, 1900._

Nearly all the patients who have passed through the field hospital
during the fortnight have been poor fellows shot by snipers in arms or
legs. Except when their wounds are being dressed, they lie absolutely
quiet, sleeping, or staring into vacancy. They hardly ever speak a word,
though the beds are only a foot apart. On my left is the fragment of the
sergeant gunner whom I took for a drive. His misfortunes and his
cheerful indifference to them make him a man of social importance. He
shows with regret how the shell cut in half a marvellous