at
the hands of an adversary. Whether the request ought ever to have been
made or not, to say nothing of whether we ought to have been in the
abject position of having to make it, is a question about which most
civilians are at variance with the military authorities, seeing that the
answer was a foregone conclusion. Its exact purport we do not know yet,
but it amounted to a flat refusal, as most of us had foreseen, and was
accompanied by alternative proposals which placed Joubert in the
position of a potential conqueror--dictating terms, and our acceptance
of these cannot be read by the Boers in any other light than as an
admission of weakness or pusillanimity. Of course we know that it means
nothing of the kind, but simply that Sir George White would not expose
sick and wounded, with helpless women, children, and non-combatants
generally, to the possible horrors of a prolonged bombardment. So long
as they remained in town he would be righting with one hand tied,
because he could not in that case place batteries in certain
advantageous positions without the risk of drawing fire from Boer guns
on Ladysmith and its civilian inhabitants. Whether this state of things
has been mended much by Sir George White's acceptance of Boer conditions
and Ladysmith's practical repudiation of them may well be doubted. As
the matter is generally understood, General Joubert, while declining to
grant Sir George's request, consented that a neutral camp for sick,
wounded, and non-combatants should be formed at Intombi Spruit, five
miles out on the railway line to Colenso, and practically within the
Boer lines. They were to be supplied with food, water, and all
necessaries from Ladysmith by train daily, under the white flag, and to
be on parole not to take any part thenceforth in this war.

As a set-off against these conditions, Joubert undertook that the camp
should not be fired upon by any of his men, or its occupants molested,
so long as they observed the regulations imposed upon them. And he
promised further that they should all be released, but still on parole,
whenever the siege of Ladysmith might be raised or the Boer forces
withdrawn. He gave no pledge, however, that his batteries should not be
placed in such a position that they would be screened by the hospital
camp from the fire of our guns, or that when he might choose to attack,
the Boer forces would not advance from a point where we could not shoot
at them without danger of sendi