A British heliograph began flashing to us from Schwarz Kop, a hill only one and a half miles over Potgieter's or Springfield Drift on the Tugela. It is that way we have always expected Buller's main advance. Can this be the herald of it? Most of us have agreed never to mention the word "Buller," but it is hard to keep that pledge. In the afternoon I was able to accompany Colonel Stoneman (A.S.C.) over the scene of battle on Caesar's Camp. His duties in organising the food supply keep him so tied to his office--one of the best shelled places in the town--that he has never been up there before. All was quiet--the mountains silent in the sunset. The Boers had been moving steadily westward and south. They had taken some of their guns on carts covered with brushwood. We had not more than half a dozen shots fired at us all round that ridge which had blazed with death a week ago. In his tent on the summit we found General Ian Hamilton. It was to his energy and personal knowledge of his men that last Saturday's success was ultimately due. Not a day passes but he visits every point in his brigade's defences. All in camp were saddened by the condition of Mr. Steevens, of the _Daily Mail_. Yesterday he was convalescent. To-day his life hangs by a thread. That is the way of enteric. _Sunday, January 14, 1900._ Absolute silence still from the Tugela. On a low black hill beyond its banks I could see the British heliograph flashing. On a spur beside it I was told a British outpost was stationed. In the afternoon we thought we heard guns again, but it was only thunder. With a telescope on Observation Hill I saw the Boers riding about their camps. On the Great Plain they were digging long trenches and stretching barbed wire entanglements. To-day all was peaceful. The sun set amid crimson thunder-clouds behind the Drakensberg; there was no sign of war save the whistle of a persistent sniper's bullet over my head. Our weather-beaten soldiers were trying to make themselves comfortable for the night in their little heaps of stones. _January 15, 1900._ This is the day I had fixed upon long ago for our relief. There were rumours of fighting by the Tugela, and some said they had seen squadrons of our cavalry and even Staff officers galloping on the further limits of the Great Plain. But beyond the wish, there is no need to believe what they said.