that had been seen about the Boer lines were quickly obscured in clouds of grosser vapour. Their fire, however, continued, while about them tossed the thick white fog, as above us occasionally rolled the thunder of their guns. The area of the storm included the most advanced trenches of the Boers, and as the wind shifted the gloomy masses of vapour we saw through the whirling mist and smoke-charged air, the Boers, rain-soaked as ourselves, standing disconsolately upon their muddy parapets. They did not seem to understand what they should do. They could hear their own guns firing on our positions, happily beyond the later centre of the storm, but these men themselves stood still, shaking the water from their limbs, attempting to dry their weapons. At night, with the darkness to cover our misfortunes, the town was busily constructing fresh earthworks, draining those shelters from which any further use could be obtained, and making such amends as were possible for an occurrence, almost unprecedented in the annals of war. CHAPTER XVII THE ECONOMY OF THE SITUATION _December 12th, 1899._ The importance of the resistance which Mafeking has made to the attacks of the Boers should be viewed in the light of its relationship to the two Protectorates, Bechuanaland and Matabeleland, since had this place fallen, its position as a _depôt_ for the Northern trade would have made it a comparatively easy task for the victorious Boers to have secured the control of the intermediate areas. They would have at once seized the rolling stock of the railway whose headquarters are temporarily invested in Mafeking, and could, by that means, have mobilised their forces in a fashion and with a degree of acceleration which would have brought them in a completely equipped and efficient condition to the borders of Rhodesia. Indeed, from what one can learn now, it is not at all improbable that the plan of the northern operations of the Boer forces from their base at Mafeking provided for the seizure of Mafeking with its stores and rolling stock, with their subsequent enlistment of this material in the work of occupying Bechuanaland and assisting our enemy in the concentration of their forces upon Rhodesia. With the railway in their hands small forces would have been stationed at the important points such as are afforded by the natural drifts, and while they maintained by this system of custodianship an open line of communication, they would, at the same time, have been free to utilise, in a combined and united mass, all of these scattered parties of Boers who were engaged upon marauding expeditions between here and Middle Drift. The history of Mafeking then would have been but the story of Vryburg, where, once its sympathy to the Boer cause was proclaimed and the place effectually occupied, the Boer commandant withdrew the greater portion of his men to fresh spheres of activity. With Mafeking in the hands of the enemy,