"But the birthday. None of our little female community had been merry since April; but this bright day I resolved to be cheerful, and to put aside my child's books and my own employments; and, since the sun would shine, and not oppressively, to enjoy it. First, there were flowers to gather and arrange. I wanted some arums, the beautiful lilies of the yam plant, so the girls went down below the parched, uncultivated garden, to a stream now almost dry and desecrated by Hottentot washerwomen: they there witnessed melancholy `signs of the times,'--nine dead animals lay beside the dull and shallow stream. The poor starved creatures had crawled into the hollow to die. These things make but slight impressions on the young; they do not trace results, however sad, to their primary causes; so when they had replenished my flower-vase, away they went to their garden amusements. I mention these trivial things by way of contrast. She whose birthday we celebrated came down the path, with a gay wreath of flowers and foliage wound round her fair hair--happy, healthy, blooming, joyous sixteen! Thus I mused, as she stood laughing under a fine oak, just coming into leaf--like her, in its spring. Suddenly, in the distance we heard the boom of cannon echoing sullenly along the mountain-ridges, and through the kloofs and passes far away. The day was so still that we heard distinctly the rapid discharges of shot and shell! The servants told us they had heard these sounds of death and doom all the morning. We only knew they came from that part of the country where the regular troops were co-operating with Sir Andries Stockenstrom and his Burgher force. Gazing in that direction, my eye fell on a signal-tower on a hill-top. That tower, with many others, is now deserted, for three reasons. The first, and most cogent one is that, like the rest of its fellows, it is useless. The atmosphere of this climate scarcely ever permits communication by telegraph. Secondly, the men cannot be provisioned there in war-time. Of meat and biscuit they might lay in a stock, as if for sea; but water cannot be procured without risking life. Thirdly, in war-time, when the telegraphs would be of the utmost use, and would save time, labour, life, and horses, by making swift communications of the stealthy movements of the Kaffirs, the force on the frontier is so small that no men can be spared to work the signals. "All the morning of that birthday we heard the cannon booming as we sat in the garden, and we afterwards learned that Macomo had been hemmed in and attacked in the Tyumie fastnesses, but with little success and some loss on our side. The enemy, as usual, harassed the troops, and then gave them the slip.