of brandy.

It was dry bread with many on New Year's Day. Even syrup was extinct.
Nothing remained, to be taken or left (they were generally left), but a
few jars of treacle. Dripping graced the table, but nobody touched it;
it was too ghastly pale for a substitute, too unctuous for anything. The
poor Native's breakfast was of "mealie-pap" exclusively; and from a
hygienic standpoint he was perhaps better off than any of us.

Many things occurred to make the day interesting, or say, rather, out of
the common; but the palm was easily carried off by the Colonel's "gift."
I have had occasion to allude to the parsimonious action of the military
in curtailing the allowances paid to natives for captured cattle and
thereby paralysing the incentive that usually induces humanity (black or
white) to face danger. This untimely experiment in economics had
discouraged the Natives and practically sent them out on strike. There
were no cattle coming in, and so the Colonel thought it would be a good
thing to reduce our meat ration from half a pound to a _quarter_, and
that of little boys and girls with capacious stomachs to two ounces! I
must leave to the imagination of the reader the effect of this
proceeding on the part of the man who made and administered Martial Law.
The promulgation of the half-pound regulation had been resented as an
injustice; but now the "Military Situation" demanded a still more
drastic fast. The Military _regime_ became more and more unpopular; it
was declaimed against with finer gusto and eloquence. The new enactment
was too much even for the "Law's" apologists; it alienated their
sympathies, and afforded them excuse and opportunity to associate
themselves at last with the rightful indignation of their
fellow-citizens. As for Kekewich, we--or as many of us as might survive
his snacks--determined that he should be made explain himself to the
Queen. It was a glad New Year altogether, with every probability of its
gladness continuing "all the year round."

As if he had got wind of the Colonel's _coup_, and looked on it as a
menace to the success of _his own_ starvation policy, the Boer (on
Tuesday) by way of expediting things opened fire on the cattle at
Kenilworth. A supreme effort was made to wipe them out. The effort was
futile; the cows chewed the cud under fire with inimitable nonchalance,
while the goats, our whiskered pandoors, with fine satire sagaciously
cocked their horns. Not that we cared. The non-