On the 7th of January one of the Boer medical officers rode in under a Red Cross flag, requesting the burial of the British dead. A party started to fulfil this sad office, and while they wandered about picking up the melancholy mutilated forms, the Boers assisted in the task, and in some cases helped to dig the graves and carry the slain; conversing the while with such perfect amity, that it was almost impossible to believe they were deadly foes. Deeply pathetic was the reading of the solemn burial service by the commanding officer, for Britons and Boers stood side by side, and one of the latter, moving apart, uttered a short prayer that the war would soon be at an end. This was followed by the singing of a hymn in Dutch, a quaint, simple, earnest solemnity, which was vastly touching to all. The curious blend of courage and pleasantness, of trickery and barbarity, in the Boer character has been remarked upon before. It was never more displayed than in the dealings of the Boers around Ladysmith. On one day they would shell an hospital, or rather the Town Hall, knowing it to serve as an hospital; on another they would treat the wounded with almost brotherly consideration. For instance, one man in the 19th Hussars, who was wounded on January 6, and subsequently taken prisoner, gave a refreshing account of Boer manners. Though shot in the arm, he remained at his post till dark, and then in the gloom mistook his way to camp and wandered down the wrong side of the hill. He was captured and detained till morning, while his wound was dressed and cared for. Then he was sent back to camp armed with a tin of jam and a box of chocolate! A somewhat similar experience was related by another man, one of the Gordons, who was wounded and taken prisoner on Waggon Hill early in the morning, and was removed in charge of an old Boer to a place of safety half-way down the slope. From here he subsequently escaped. In the _melee_ that followed the Devons' charge across the plateau in the thick of the hailstorm, the Boers, shouting in Dutch that the rooineks were upon them, stampeded, and consequently the prisoner was left to his own devices. He thereupon rejoined the troops. [Illustration: BRITISH 7-POUNDER FIELD-GUN.]