Consuls' protests; in optimistic quarters it was felt that the protests
would lead to "intervention" of a kind rather different from that
bargained for by brother Boer. The war, it was asserted, might stop
"very suddenly." Well, of course, it might stop in certain
eventualities, or it might not; the sky might fall, but we might easily
die (on the diet) _before_ it came down. The Boers toiling at their
trenches outside cherished no illusions on these points. Their magazines
had been blown up, but, the road to Bloemfontein being clear, they could
replenish them. Plumer's proximity to Mafeking (notified in the
afternoon) would have been of more significance in our eyes had not
experience prejudiced us against faith in proximity value, Methuen's
proximity to Kimberley, for example, aggravated our sorrows in a very
special way.

On Monday Lord Methuen kept telling us from the wilderness that he was
there and still alive. The vitality of the enemy, however, concerned us
more. Operations were started early; three shells presumably intended
for the _Sanatorium_ landed in Beaconsfield. The first two fell
harmlessly, and the charm associated with the third was no less
disappointing--to an outsider. The charm surrounding the life of Mr.
Rhodes was more tangible; it appeared to extend to the roof that covered
him. The greater part of the day was peaceful; but the Military were the
Military, war was their profession; and a fight with the foe being for
the moment impracticable, they ingeniously set about renewing the strife
with their erstwhile friends--who, like _Sancho Panza_, clamoured merely
for something to eat. Our recent experiences had tended to moderate our
claims in this regard; we had become inured to bad living; our
constitutions had had time to wax weak; our appetites were less hearty.
Matters appertaining to the stomach had reached a sad pass. Mealie meal,
_ad lib._, was no longer possible, and porridge--well, the good that it
had done lived after it, though we had never acknowledged the actual
_doing_ of it. Rice was issued to Indians exclusively, and, albeit they
got nothing else, they had on the whole rather the better of Europeans.
The exhaustion of our golden syrup made the children--young and
"over-grown"--weep. We had been reduced to the ignominy of cultivating a
toleration of what was called treacle, and even that nauseous compound
was drifting towards extinction. They were hard times for all who could
eat the