In the midst we heard guns--real guns--from Colenso way.

Between the reflected flash on the sky and the sound of the report one could count seventy-eight seconds, which Captain Lambton tells me gives a distance of about fifteen and a half miles.

All day distant guns were heard from time to time.

Some said the direction was changed, but I could hear no difference.
The mayor and councillors relieve the monotony of the siege with domestic solicitude.

To-day they are said to be preparing a deputation to the General imploring that the first train which comes up after the relief shall be exclusively devoted--not to medical stuff for the wounded, not to food for the hungry troops and fodder for the starving horses, not to the much-needed ammunition for the guns--but to their own women.
_January 2, 1900._ Soon after daylight dropping bullets began to whiz past my window and crack upon the tin roof in quite a shower.