the Tugela, only a few shells falling on
Spion Kop, where Boer tents can be seen once more whitening the steep.
We need no heliograph signal to tell us the meaning of all this. For us
there is to be another sickening period of hope deferred; but we try to
hide our dejection, and persuade the anxious townsfolk that it is only a
necessary pause while General Buller brings up his big guns and
transport.

_January 28._--It is now no longer possible to conceal the fact that the
fight on Spion Kop ended in another reverse for General Buller, though
from our side it seemed as if he had the enemy beaten and demoralised.
It is now published in orders that he captured the heights with part of
one brigade which, however, retired after General Woodgate was wounded,
when the Boers retook it. From Kaffir runners we hear another version
which makes out that our troops were complete masters of the situation
if there had been any one in command at that moment, with a soldier's
genius, prompt to take advantage of the enemy's discomfiture. Had
reinforcements been sent up in time Spion Kop need never have been
abandoned, and Buller might have kept the key to Ladysmith which was
then in his hands. Not another position between him and us remained for
the Boers to make a stand on. He would then have outflanked and made
untenable the entrenched heights facing Colenso. But perhaps he was
anxious about his own line of communications. We only know that he has
gone back, and the work accomplished at much sacrifice of life must be
done over again from some other point.

_January 30._--In spite of all we know, there are still persistent
rumours rosy-hued but all equally improbable. According to these
Kimberley has been relieved, and Lord Roberts is marching on
Bloemfontein. Sir Redvers Buller has retaken Spion Kop. He has gained a
victory at some other point, but where or when nobody knows. Four
hundred Boers are surrounded south of the Tugela with no chance of
escape. A similar rumour reached us weeks ago. Those four hundred Boers
must be getting short of food by this time. And yet another story makes
out that numbers of the enemy attempting to fall upon Buller's supply
column at Skiet's Drift were completely annihilated. The _Standard and
Diggers' News_ could hardly beat this for imaginative ingenuity. It does
not reassure us. On the contrary a general feeling of depression seems
to have set in, caused perhaps by the ennervating weather. A deluge