we were not to be entirely disheartened
while there remained the possibility of a drive to the sea for
Christmas. At a meeting of the Town Council a new Mayor (Mr. Oliver) was
chosen for the year 1900. General Clery, we were informed, was getting
towards Ladysmith; the news was vague, but we were glad to hear it. Any
news not bad was good. The old proverb is wrong; for who would dare
after all the suspense we had endured to put "no news" in the "good"
category.

The shopkeepers--wise men--had found comfort in hard work, and were
making elaborate preparations for Christmas. The jewellers cut a fair
show, and the drapers, too, But the grocer took, or rather would have
taken, the cake if the "Law" allowed it to be baked. His enterprise knew
no limits; his display of holly (and indeed of everything else) was
unprecedented. The collection of odds and ends exhibited was picturesque
to a degree (no more can be said for it). There were no jellies, no
tempting hams, no imported puddings nor nude poultry, none of the solid,
savoury things associated with the festive season. There were none of
these; but holly, mistletoe, and Chinese lanterns made a fine
phantasmagoria. There were neat and compact packets of starch,
interspersed with tins of mustard, to tickle the palate of the hungry
passer-by; while scented soaps, in lovely little wrappers, intermingled
in malodorous profusion. Bottles of sauces never heard of by the present
generation, and which yet bore traces of the solidified cobweb of half a
century, were much in evidence. So, too, was Berwick's baking powder, as
a sort of satire on the absence of such essential constituents as eggs,
milk, flour, whiskey, raisins, etc. (we had plenty of suet). Reckitt's
blue was there in abundance--a finger-post, as it were, to the shade of
the entire exposition. Condy's Fluid was not the least appetible thing
on show. Bottled parsley and kindred mummied souvenirs of pre-historic
horticulture, half buried in heaps of shrapnel bullets (ticketed sweet
peas!) and other ammunition of a like digestive kind, were also to the
fore to sustain the fame of Christmas. But starch was the all-pervading
feature of every shop-front. In one window a solid blank wall of starch
was erected, with a row of sweet-bottles on top. One would think that
our linen at least should have been irreproachable; but it was not;
because the Town Council happened to be experimenting on the
practicability of establishing Muni