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THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.
Monday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date which can be looked back to with satisfaction by any Briton.

In a scrambling and ill-managed action we had lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while our right had been hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy into Ladysmith.
Our guns had been outshot, our infantry checked, and our cavalry paralysed.

Eight hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such matters are comparative, and the force which laid down its arms at Nicholson's Nek is the largest British force which has surrendered since the days of our great grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders.
Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an investment, an event for which apparently no preparation had been made, since with an open railway behind him so many useless mouths had been permitted to remain in the town.

Ladysmith lies in a hollow and is dominated by a ring of hills, some near and some distant.