As the sun was setting in clouded splendour behind Mount Tinwa's noble crags and peaks, throwing their dark shadows across the lower hills near us, a flash so quick, that it could hardly be seen, darted from out the gloom there, and with the crashing report that followed came a shell plump into one of our most crowded camps. This was evidently from a gun newly mounted on Blaauwbank. Two other shells burst in quick succession about the same place, but fortunately nobody was hit. Then, satisfied with having got the range to a nicety, our enemy left us in undisturbed quiet for the night, but with an uncomfortable consciousness that fresh links were being forged in the chain of artillery fire by which Ladysmith is now completely girdled, for two batteries that cannot be exactly located have been shelling steadily all day from each end of Bulwaan, with accurate aim and far-reaching effect, as if to disprove all the theories that led to the error of abandoning that position. This morning fallacious prophecies were further shattered by a shell from works placed far back on the table top of Bulwaan. It did not demolish anything else, but it makes us very chary now about predicting what the Boers can or cannot do. Through telescopes they had been watched building that strong fort, and everybody knew it was being thrown up as an emplacement for heavy artillery, yet few people thought that another gun, akin to "Long Tom" in calibre and range, could have been mounted there so soon, until they saw the dense cloud of smoke from a black powder charge, and heard the familiar gurgling screech of a big shell, followed by the thundering report. "Puffing Billy" was the appropriate name bestowed on this new enemy by Colonel Rhodes, who has an amusing faculty for applying quaintly descriptive phrases to every fresh development in this state of siege. I am told on high authority that the word "siege" is not quite applicable to our case here, but if the Boers are not sitting down before Ladysmith in a very leisurely way, intent upon keeping us under bombardment as long as they may choose to stay, I do not know the meaning of such movements. It was we who provoked "Puffing Billy" to his first angry roar by a trial shot from one of our big naval guns into the Bulwaan battery. "Long Tom" presently joined in the chorus, and it took our two 4.7 quick-firers all their time to keep down that cross-fire. Though "Lady Anne's" twin-sister had been mounted some days, her voice was seldom heard, until this morning, when, after a few rounds, "Long Tom" paid silent homage to her sway, and in celebration of that temporary knock-out, Captain Lambton christened his new pet "Princess Victoria," but the bluejackets called it by another name, to indicate their faith in its destructive effect.