Nor was the day to prove uneventful for the rest of us. About 1 p.m. it began to cloud over, and presently to rain; this soon turned into hail, of the variety which one is accustomed to at home. This was at first refreshing, and one would pick up the cool hailstones--they were about as big as peas--and eat them, and the rattle they made on the helmets was quite musical. When they grew to the size of gooseberries, and began to sting, they provided less amusement, shoulders being shrugged up and necks arched to obtain as much protection as possible. The unfortunate dogs, of which a variety invariably turned up with every column, howled with pain, and the cattle and horses grew very restive. But soon the stones, driven by a gale of wind, increased to the size of cherries and strawberries, with occasional jagged lumps of ice an inch in diameter. As there seemed no particular reason why they should not run through the whole gamut of the orchard, and rival plums, peaches, and melons, and as there was no earthly chance of obtaining a vestige of shelter of any kind, men began to wonder what was going to happen next, with an occasional sharper-than-usual belt between the shoulders or on the boot to quicken their fancy. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the horses were controlled, but the stones providentially grew no larger, though the storm continued. The entire country-side was a rolling mass of ice nearly over the tops of boots. Runnels and rivulets became roaring torrents, roads became rivers. When the storm eventually subsided the transport of course could not go another yard, and camp was pitched where we were. The carpet of hailstones in the tents slowly melted into mud, and we made ourselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Several kids and lambs we had with us were killed by the stones. Not one of us had ever been out in such a storm before, but, as those who had not been on 'the Natal side' confidently predicted, those who had been declared that this was mere child's play to the hailstones they had seen there. What became of the Boers we never knew: up to the commencement of the storm we had been merrily sniping away at each other at extreme ranges, but during and after it they entirely disappeared, so entirely that even next day we never got a sign of them, and concluded they had all been drowned.