On this point--the general ineffectiveness of artillery fire when the enemy possesses good cover--the history of modern warfare repeats itself. The Russian bombardments of Plevna were quite futile, and General Todleben acknowledged that it sometimes required a whole day's shell fire to kill a single Turkish soldier. At the fight round the Malaxa blockhouse in Crete, at which I was present, the united squadrons of the European powers in Suda Bay suddenly opened fire on the hill and the village at its foot. In ten minutes from eighty to one hundred shells came screaming up from the bay and burst amongst the insurgents and their Turkish opponents. We all of us--on the hill and in the village--bolted like rabbits and took what cover we could. The total net casualties from these missiles--some of them 6-inch shells--were, I believe, three, all told. Some of those amateur critics at home who write indignant letters about the War Office labour under a twofold delusion. They frequently ask indignantly how it is that our guns have been outclassed by those of the Boers? As a matter of fact in almost every engagement of the present campaign our artillery has been superior to that of the enemy; but, of course, the artillery of a defending force, well posted on rising ground, possesses enormous advantages over that of the assailants, who have frequently to open fire in open and exposed positions easily swept by shrapnel fire from guns, which, hidden amid trenches and rocks, are often well-nigh invisible.