The ration coffee has come to an end, except a reserve of 3 cwt, which would hardly last a day. The tea ration is again reduced. The flour mixed with mealy meal makes a very sour bread. The big 5th Lancers horses are so hungry that at night they eat not only their picket ropes but each other's manes and tails. They are so weak that they fall three or four times in an hour if the men ride them. Enteric is not quite so bad as it was, but dysentery increases. The numbers of military sick alone at Intombi, not counting all the sick in the camps and hospitals here, are 2,040 to-day. _January 24, 1900._ The entire interest of the day was centred on Taba Nyama--that black mountain, commanding the famous drift in its front and the stretch of plain behind. It is fifteen miles away. From Observation Hill one could see the British shells bursting along this ridge all morning, as well as in the midst of the Boer tents half-way down the double peaks, and at the foot of the hill. The firing began at 3 a.m., and lasted with extreme severity till noon, the average of audible shells being at least five a minute. We could also see the white bursts of shrapnel from our field artillery. In the afternoon I went to Waggon Hill, and with the help of a telescope made out a large body of men--about 1,000 I suppose--creeping up the distant crest and spreading along the summit. I could only conjecture them to be English from their presence on the exposed ridge, and from their regular though widely extended formation. They were hardly visible except as a series of black points. Thunderclouds hung over the Drakensberg behind, and the sun was obscured. Yet I had no doubt in my own mind that the position was won. It was five o'clock, or a little later. Others saw large parties of Boers fleeing for life up dongas and over plains, the phantom carriage-and-four driving hastily north-westward after an urgent warning, and other such melodramatic incidents, which escaped my notice. The position of the falling shells, and the movement of those minute black specks were to me enough of drama for one day's life. In the evening, I am told, the General received a signal from Buller: "Have taken hill. Fight went well." No one thought or talked of anything but the prospect of near relief. Yet (besides old Bulwan's violent bombardment of the station) there was one other event in the day deserving record. Hearing an unhappy case of an officer's widow left destitute, Colonel Knox, commanding the Divisional Troops, has offered twelve bottles of whisky for auction to-morrow, and hopes to make L100 by the sale. I think he will succeed, unless Buller shakes the market. _January 25, 1900._