"Since my last note to you we have had some lively times of it at Ladysmith. I always had a liking to see a real battle, but never thought that it would be my luck. However, I have now seen four battles, and I think that I am satisfied. I can assure you that it is anything but pleasant to go on the field after battle. The sights of the wounded and dead are horrible, and yet the soldiers are always laughing and joking when they are going out to fight, and the poor fellows are getting very little rest. They never have a chance to get their boots off. They have to be always ready to move at a moment's notice, and they do it with light heart. Your heart would have ached to see the lot that came down to Ladysmith from Dundee. They were not strong enough for the Boers, so they made a forced march of it, and they had terribly bad weather. It was raining all the time, and when they came into Ladysmith they were mud all over and in rags. Some of them were carrying their boots in their hands and could hardly crawl. Mrs. V. and myself made some buckets of coffee and let them have a pull at it; and were not they thankful for it? A word about how we are going on here. I don't know whether you are getting any news at home about the war, but we can't get to know anything here, as the whole country is under martial law, and they won't let the papers publish any news concerning the war.... Now the Boers are all round Ladysmith, and our troops can only defend the town. I don't think for a moment that the Boers will take Ladysmith unless they get strongly reinforced, and I don't think that will happen. However, the sooner that troops arrive for the relief of the garrisons that are here and hemmed in by the Boers the better it will be for Britain. There is no doubt about it that the Boers have got our troops in a tight corner, and Britain is a bit slow, not having her troops here before now. I hear that troops are likely to land next week, and I hope that it is true. I had to leave Ladysmith on November 2; the military authorities would not grant me a permit to stay, so they gave me my free pass to Durban, where I intend to stop until the trouble is over. You would have laughed to see some of the men running out into the street with no clothes on when the Boers sent their first shell into Ladysmith. It came into the town at 5.15 A.M. I was up and partly dressed, as I had heard the firing, and was going to have a look at the battle, when in came the shell right over the house I was staying in and dropped on the road. I was sure that it was going to hit the house. The shell makes a terrific whistling as it travels through the air.... The Bluejackets did some very good work. They arrived by train about eleven o'clock, and by twelve o'clock they had off-loaded their guns and got them into action, and their third shot silenced the Boers' 40-pounder." [Illustration: SCENE ON THE TUGELA.]