mind of some one, an indelible association, emanating from the siege and which time cannot obliterate. Men remember where they stood when some particular house was shattered, others recall their proximity to a bursting shell, whose explosion tore up the roadway. It is these things which will never be effaced, since they are the impressions which have struck deep down upon the mind, leaving an afterglow. But as a rule we keep our cares, feeling that so many people have so much else to worry them, recognising also that upon one and each of us the siege hangs sorely. There can be no doubt that it has left its mark, not only upon the town, but upon the garrison. The men are just a little gaunt, just a little unkempt; the women are haggard and careworn, for it is difficult to keep up one's spirit when from day to day there comes no news, only that curious, ironical instinct, that perhaps it may be that we are not to be relieved at all. The garrison is famished, that is, in reality, the kernel of our situation. Our energies are exhausted because our vital processes are insufficiently nurtured. We are all listless; we all feel that the siege has been a strain of the most severe description, and we are holding ourselves in for the final rally, anxious to support the position, determined to hold the town and occupy till the end our posts. Yet there is a false note through it all, and in those moments when one finds oneself alone one realises how artificial is the gaiety which we profess, feeling, by intuition, that one's own emotions are alike those of one's neighbour. However, each one of us endeavours to make an effort to maintain in public some appearance of interest in the daily conditions of the siege. It is a difficult part to play, because, as I have said, there is so much that is unsatisfactory in our position. The signs of the times are read by little things, and if one goes for a walk round the outposts it is as well not to mention in the town the presence of the fever flags which float over certain areas near which it is not permitted to go. There are three such places; one is remote from our lines, well out into the veldt, where, isolated and apart, living in a world of their own making for the time being, is a family fighting against the ravages of diphtheria; between them and the stadt there is the smallpox reserve, where the yellow jack droops from the trees beneath whose shade the tents of the patients have been pitched. Still nearer into town at the hospital the flag of mercy protects a building in which there is much malaria, some typhoid, and a few cases of enteric fever. This is the gamut of our sickness, and it is in these quarters that we, who are hale and hearty, look with anxious eyes. There are many there who will pay their lives as tributes to the siege, for, as in Ladysmith, so are we reduced to horseflesh, being fortunate enough to possess, however, a small store of medical comforts.