further casualties on our
side. At night the column southward flashes another long signal on the
clouded sky, and Boer search-lights try to obliterate it by throwing
their feeble rays across the beam that shines like a comet athwart the
darkness above Tugela heights.

_December 1._--"Long Tom" of Pepworth's Hill, which has not fired since
"Lady Anne" silenced it days ago, is now reported to be cracked and
useless, but the Boers are preparing emplacements for another heavy
piece of ordnance on a flat-topped nether spur of Lombard's Kop, where
they have a persistently disagreeable 40-pounder already mounted. We do
nothing to prevent this increase of hostile artillery, but content
ourselves with inventing new names for the batteries, so that the
intelligence map may be kept up to date with fullest details. This spur
henceforth is to be known as Gun Hill, probably because the weapon
already in position there has made itself conspicuously unpleasant by
shelling the headquarters and intelligence offices. From it three
successive shells were fired this morning into or near the convent where
Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, Major Riddell, and other convalescent wounded
have their quarters. Middle Hill gun only fired a few rounds to-day, and
was promptly silenced by our "Great Twin Brethren," the howitzers of
Waggon Hill.

_December 2._--We are not left long in doubt as to the meaning of those
new works on Gun Hill. A Creusot 94-pounder has opened from there,
shelling in rapid succession Sir George White's headquarters camp, the
Royal Artillery, and the Imperial Light Horse, who have their parade and
playground pitted by marks of this fire. People say that "Long Tom" has
been shifted from Pepworth's to the new position, but the shells, with
their driving-bands grooved deep and sharp, tell another story. It is a
new gun, or little used, and probably fresh from Pretoria. Its range is
great, and gives easy command of the ravine in which our cavalry are
bivouacked by the riverside. One shell has already burst there, wounding
a man of the 18th Hussars, but fortunately the enemy cannot see the
result of this fire, the river for a mile in length being screened from
his view by intervening hills.

_December 4._--One may skip Sunday when it is uneventful in its perfect
peace, as yesterday was, and be deeply thankful for the rest that is
given to us once a week when shells cease from troubling. The weather
has changed suddenly from brilliant s