Two more shells penetrated the same building in the course of the attack--the one burst in the principal waiting-room, the other played havoc with the children's dormitory. Fortunately no one was injured, and it was a happy omen for future shelling that throughout the whole of the first bombardment no human life was lost in Mafeking. There were no casualties, and three buildings, the hospital, the monastery, and Riesle's Hotel, alone were struck. The dead comprised one chicken. There were many narrow escapes. My horse was fastened to the hitching-post outside Riesle's Hotel at the very moment that a shell burst against the steps of the verandah, but this animal would seem to enjoy a happy immunity from shell fire, since at the Five Mile Bank engagement there was a shell which burst within three or four feet of him. Our guns made no return whatever to the fire of the Boers, beyond a chance shot which exploded by accident. After this very ineffective and amusing bombardment had continued for some hours the enemy ceased firing, and from their position only 2,000 yards from the town, and to which they had moved from Signal Hill, where the attack had begun, the usual messenger, half herald, half spy, was despatched to our lines. It has become quite a feature of the Boer operations against Mafeking for them to enjoy at every few hours a cessation of hostilities under a flag of truce, and, I regret to say, that these constant messages in the middle of an action, from the Boer Commandant to Colonel Baden-Powell, are sent with an ulterior motive. The Boer Commandants would appear to lack that experience of the conditions of warfare which should enable them to perceive the folly and futility--if not the guilt--of such procedure as they have been following since operations against this town began. It was, perhaps, as much through our own ignorance of the character of the enemy whom we were fighting as anything, that they secured any profitable information by these tactics, since we had expected that they would observe the unwritten regulation which restricts the progress of a flag of truce to a point half-way between the lines of the two forces. Upon no occasion at this period in the investment did the Boers recognise this custom, but securing cover where they could they crept down to our lines under protection of the white flag. By these means they secured valuable intelligence.