All afternoon one met parties of them strolling aimlessly about the roads or up the rocky footpaths--poor anatomies of death, with skeleton ribs and drooping eyes.

At about seven o'clock two or three hundred of them gathered on the road through the hollow between Convent Hill and Cove Redoubt, and tried to rush past the Naval Brigade to the cavalry camp, where they supposed their food and grooming and cheerful society were waiting for them as usual.

They had to be driven back by mounted Basutos with long whips, till at last they turned wearily away to spend the night upon the bare hillside.
[Illustration: INDIAN BAKERY] _January 31, 1900._ Again the sky was clouded, and except during an hour's sunshine in the afternoon no heliograph could work.

But below the clouds the distance was singularly clear, and one could see all the Dutch camps, and the Boers moving over the plain.

The camps are a little reduced.