ire steadier than that of the Boers and if anything more deadly.
Being secure from flanking movements, since the Border Mounted Rifles
were on their right sweeping round Waggon Hill and some companies of the
60th in support, the Manchesters could devote all their attention to
that long front, and beat back every attempt of the Boers to cross the
valley where a tributary of the Klip River winds past Bester's Farm down
to the broad flats by Intombi Spruit. These hostile demonstrations were
never very determined or long sustained, and they slackened down to
nothing for a time just before noon.

At that hour a curiously impressive incident astonished many of us in
camp not less than it did the Boers. Guns, big and small, of our Naval
Battery having shotted charges were carefully laid with the enemy's
artillery for their mark, and at a given signal they began to fire
slowly, with regular intervals between. When twenty-one rounds had been
counted everybody knew that it was a Royal salute, in celebration of the
Prince of Wales's birthday. Then loud cheers, begun as of right by the
bluejackets, representing the senior service, ran round our chains of
outposts and fighting men, shaken into light echoes by the jagged
rocks, to roll in mightier chorus through the camps, thence onward by
river-banks, where groups emerged from their burrows, strengthening the
shouts with even more fervour, and into the town, where loyalty to the
Crown of England has a meaning at this moment deeper than any of us
could ever have attached to it before. "What do you make of it all?" was
the signal flashed from hill to hill along the Boer lines, and
interpreted by our own experts who hold the key. And well they might
wonder, for in all probability a Prince of Wales's birthday has never
been celebrated before with a Royal salute of shotted guns against the
batteries of a besieging force, and all who are here wish most heartily
that the experience may remain unique.

Our enemy's astonishment, however, had the effect of producing a
temporary cessation of hostilities. The bombardment was not carried on
with its previous vigour, possibly because some detachments, taken
unaware by the prolonged artillery fire from our side, had been
partially disabled. But the rifle attack against Maiden's Castle and
Caesar's Camp was kept up until near sunset.

In the midst of this cross-fire a flag, with the Geneva emblem of mercy
on it, was hoisted at the topmost twig of