_December 22._--This was a day of heavy calamity for one regiment, and marked by more serious casualties than any other since the siege began. At six o'clock this morning a shell from Bulwaan struck the camp of the ill-fated Gloucesters on Junction Hill just as the men were at breakfast. It killed six and wounded nine, of whom three are very seriously hurt. A little later the big gun on Telegraph Hill threw a shell into the cavalry lines. It burst among the 5th Lancers, who were at morning inspection, and wounded Colonel Fawcett, Major King, a captain, the adjutant, a senior lieutenant, the regimental sergeant-major, a troop sergeant-major, and a sergeant. The last had an eye knocked out, but the others were only slightly wounded, and when their injuries had been looked to, they all formed in a group to be photographed. _December 23._--After early morning on Saturday came a strange lull in the bombardment, and people who count the shells as they fall, for lack of other employment, found their favourite occupation gone. Even the pigeons that are kept in training here for future military use seemed reluctant to fly in the still air, missing probably the excitement of sounds that urge them to revel in multitudinous cross-currents when shells are about; and long-tailed Namaqua doves flitted mute about the pine branches, as if unable to coo an amorous note without the usual accompaniment. Quiet did not reign all day, however. Towards evening the enemy's gun on Rifleman's Ridge, or Lancer's Nek, opened straight over the general's new quarters, to which Sir George White had only changed half an hour earlier. This may be merely a coincidence, but it is strange that no shells have fallen near his house at the foot of Port Road since he quitted it. Artillery could be heard southward at intervals pounding away with dull thuds like the beats of time on a big drum muffled. But we have almost ceased to speculate on the meaning of such sounds--while they come no nearer this way there is no message of relief to us in them, and we are getting reconciled to the idea of waiting, irksome though it may be and heavy with many unpleasant possibilities. Ladysmith had now been for fifty days under the fire of the enemy's guns. The situation after Sir Redvers Buller's first failure to relieve the town, as has been seen, grew more serious, and although it was very far indeed from what could be regarded as critical, there is to be remarked in telegrams and letters of this period a growing appreciation of its irksomeness. But dark as the sky looked it was flecked by many a brighter patch. There was a gay as well as a grave side to life in the besieged town, and to both Mr. Pearse does justice in a letter written on 21st December under the heading, "Amenities of a Siege." It is as follows:--