How we should have laughed in November at the thought of being shut up here till February? But here we are, and the outlook grows more hopeless. People are miserably depressed. It would be impossible to get up sports or concerts now. Too many are sick, too many dead. The laughter has gone out of the siege, or remains only as bitter laughter when the word relief is spoken. We are allowed to know nothing for certain, but the conviction grows that we are to be left to our fate for another three weeks at least, while the men slowly rot. A Natal paper has come in with an account of Buller's defeat at Taba Nyama on the 25th. We read with astonishment the loud praises of a masterly retreat over the Tugela without the loss of a single man. When shall we hear of a masterly advance to our aid? Do we lose no men? To-day the morning was cold and cloudy, as it has been since Monday, but the sun broke out for an hour or two, in the afternoon, and official messages could be sent through by heliograph. For information and relief we received the following words, and those only:-- "German specialist landed Delagoa Bay pledges himself to dam up Klip River and flood Ladysmith out." That was all they deigned to tell us. _February 2, 1900._ After a misty dawn, soaked with minute rain, the sky slowly cleared at last, letting the merry sunshine through. At once the heliograph began to flash. I sent off a brief message, and soon afterwards the signal "Line clear" was sent from Zwartz Kop over the Tugela. The "officials" began to arrive, and we hoped for news at last. Three or four messages came through, but who could have guessed the thrilling importance of the first? It ran:-- "Sir Stafford Northcote, Governor of Bombay, has been made a peer." The other messages were vague and dull enough--something about the Prince of Wales reviewing Yeomanry, and the race for some hunt cup in India. But that peerage! To a sick and hungry garrison!