endured had at this period increased beyond the mere inconveniences of
Siege life, it will be conceded that the citizens of Kimberley played a
worthy part. They saw disease and death busy in their midst; they saw
the natives succumbing to the ravages of scurvy and kindred ills; they
saw sickness playing havoc with the white population; they saw their
families in sore need of the necessities of existence, and young
children--hardest of all--dying from want of nourishment. The infant
mortality was truly heart-rending. It is recorded that thirteen babes
were buried in one day. The authorities had adopted measures to conserve
milk for the young and the invalided, but with only partial success.
When matters were at their worst a further effort was made to induce the
privileged few who could still call their cows their own to send milk to
a central depot for distribution among the children of the poor and
middle classes. And the appeal was not a vain one; the response was
generous; it lessened the mortality. To-day, the men of the Diamond
Fields can look back and laugh at their harsh judgments, their not too
sweet reasonableness towards the "Law" of the land. They acquitted
themselves well on the whole; for an imperturbable spirit covers a
multitude of foibles. The citizens held Kimberley in spite of
everything, and never swerved from the fulfilment of what they felt to
be a sacred duty.

Sunday brought a dreary repetition of a siege Sunday's monotony. The
situation had been discussed threadbare, and there was little else to
converse about. The dust outdoors was blinding, and the people for the
most part dozed over books. That was the cardinal mercy vouchsafed us;
we had books to read, and never were they so ravenously devoured.
Reading was much in vogue; it was a siege innovation--a very good one,
too. Persons who had never hitherto believed in the pleasure to be
derived from books were disillusioned, and driven, as it were, to
cultivate a taste for literature--as men in gaol often are. It may
therefore be set down as portion of the good resulting from evil, this
teaching of people to value mental nourishment. The importance of the
physical variety was only too well understood.

On Monday many shells fell into the west end of the town. Our West End
was not like London's; there were few houses in it, and they were
unoccupied. Mafeking, it was said, had driven back the besiegers, and,
it was added, had "possibly" been reliev