The men were very near the barbaric brink of starvation. On one occasion a shell plumped into the mule lines and killed a mule. There was a general rush. Shells followed on the first, crashing all around, but the famished racing throng heeded them not; their one desire was to get at the slain beast, to capture the wherewithal to stay their grievous cravings. Quickly with their clasp-knives they possessed themselves of great chunks of the flesh, and then, with death hurtling around them and over their heads, they proceeded to carry their prize to safer quarters. Here they determined to have a good "tuck-in." Fires were kindled, and the flesh was toasted and swallowed with lightning rapidity. For some weeks the inhabitants had been reduced to an essence of horse politely termed Chevril, which was declared to be both palatable and nourishing. The horses, with their ribs shining in painful high lights along their skins, dropped day after day from sheer famine, and were boiled down to meet the pressing demand. Their bones were gelatinous, however wizened their poor flesh. The horses that were used for food, like those that yet crawled, were mere skeletons. When the General, in view of making another sortie, inquired how many there were in camp that could still carry their rider for six miles, he was informed that there were only twelve equal to the task. The lack of fat and milk and vegetables was irremediable, but dainties, so called, were provided in curious ways. Blancmange was manufactured from ladies' violet-powder which had been "commandeered" for service in the kitchen, and biscuits were fried by the men in the axle-grease provided for the carts, in hope to make the task of biting them less like crunching ashes. The place itself appeared to be becoming the Abomination of Desolation. Many of the dwellings were unoccupied; the low bungalow-shaped villas were closed and barricaded; here and there were buildings cracked and seamed by shot and shell, with great gaps in their faces, reminding one of human beings without eyes and teeth. Melancholy and depression reigned everywhere--on the tangled, desolated gardens, as on the silent, listless men, who had almost ceased to converse, for there was nothing left to converse about. Buller's coming had been discussed threadbare; the prospect of the food holding out had been examined in all its hideous emptiness. Lassitude and weariness was the universal expression on the visages of the hollow-eyed spectres that were the remains of the dashing heroes of Glencoe and Elandslaagte. The land and riverbeds presented the appearance of a series of grottoes, shelters of wood, stone, and wire, the dens of wild animals, the caves of primitive man. Between the burrows and caves were sentry-paths and paths to the water-tanks, worn with the incessant traffic of weary feet.