So the garrison had to go on in the old, old way, though many popular and beloved members were now missing, and the hospital was full of cases that threatened to end seriously. Owing to the commendable forethought of Lord Edward Cecil and the enterprise of Messrs. Julius Weil, the garrison was provided with the wherewithal to make what resistance they did. Lord Edward Cecil's work was ceaseless; as Chief Staff Officer he came in for both the external fights and the internal discords. He smoothed down quarrels, dispensed justice, allayed "siege fever" in all its intermittent phases, and in fact performed the tasks of ten men, with unfailing courtesy and inexhaustible patience. The pinch of the siege had gradually become more painful, and luxuries for some time had been commandeered for the use of the sick. Luckily, some Chinamen among the besieged contrived to grow vegetables in small quantities for the use of the inhabitants, and by force of good management in the disposal of the food supplies, which had been stocked by Messrs. Weil before the outbreak of the war, a fixed scale of rations for every man, woman, and child was secured. Conversation grew monotonous. It circled round the positions of the guns, the chance of relief, and question of stores, till it produced a mental giddiness that verged on the idiotic. Few grumbled, few swore. In this matter the Boers acted as a safety-valve. When people felt in the "something's too bad of somebody" mood, they could go out and snipe, and vent their spleen usefully and to the honour of their country! Sundays were more than ever flat. There was not the excitement attendant on dodging shells in the open. Speculation on the subject of food languished round the limitations of Hobson's choice. Mr. Neilly in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gave a sorry outline of the scanty fare. "I will attempt to give you an idea of what this scarcity of diet means. You are in a trench. In the early morning you have handed to you a piece of bread as big as a breakfast roll and a little tin of 'bully' sufficient for one average meal. You have some of it for breakfast, and if you have not an iron will you will eat the lot there and then, and go hungry for the rest of the twenty-four hours. What you leave is kept in the broiling sun until luncheon-time, when you find the beef reduced to an oily mess that does not look very appetising. You eat more and tighten your belt a hole or two to delude yourself into the belief that you have had a satisfying meal. You roast away again until dinner-time, when you gather up the last crumb and sigh for a few hours in the Adelaide Gallery or even in an East-End cookshop. But this is not all; you are for guard duty from midnight until 3 A.M. You have no sleep before you go on, and the slumber you fall into when relieved is destroyed an hour after you have entered upon it by the morning order to stand to arms. You thus get a schoolboy's luncheon to keep you alive for twenty-four hours.