Two days after it was Sunday, and I held divine services in different places, according to my custom. On the same day, the Free Staters captured a Kaffir, who had brought letters, sewn under the lining of his sleeve, out of Ladysmith.

Those letters! How thoughtlessly they were read. Who cared that they were the utterances of the heart, even though the heart of an enemy? Who, whilst reading them, asked of himself: "What would I desire the enemy to do, if a letter of mine should fall into their hands?" These letters were from soldiers and civilians, mostly from husband to wife, or from wife to husband. They bore witness to a very miserable state of things in Ladysmith. One woman wrote that she lacked the common necessaries of life; another that she went barefoot. Besides private letters there was a report announcing that the troops were reduced to half rations, and that many of them were sick; and also that an unknown disease had broken out amongst the cattle.

Every day something happened, and the time passed rapidly. Was it not because there was always something to keep us busy? Yes, a thousand acts were crowded into each day.

The heart was filled with ever-changing emotions by the various occurrences of each day. And one's mind was not occupied by the war only. No! One's thoughts were drawn away irresistibly by the blue expanse overhead, and by the wondrous landscape around, stretching away to the finest horizons on earth. We lived in God's free nature, and as we came nearer to her great heart throbbing in the grey veld and the blue mountain, those of us who could felt ourselves borne away by a delicious but withal terrible Power. How glorious, too, were the evenings! How soothing was their deep silence after the exhausting, bustling summer's day! And then there was the breath of air from the east, which softly fanned the cheek, and calmed and laid to rest the turbulent passions that rent the breast.

I used to sit of an evening beneath the camel thorn-tree, under which Commandant de Villiers had pitched his tent, and gaze into the far west. There lay Spion Kop, tinted pink by the last rays of the setting sun. Far beyond rose the Drakensberg mountains with their rugged, dizzy crags, scored and scarred, already veiled in the shadows of night. What a thrill quivered through me when I presently looked up from that dark mass and saw the glittering gold, which had been laid for a moment on the clouds; or when, after the sun had set, turning, I beheld in the east the wonderful maze of colour in the sky. The soft pink merged into almost black purple, and this again, as if in need of support, rested on the blue black rock foundation of the earth.

I forgot in such moments that we were at war. I was deaf to the discordant sounds of the strife—the bursting of shells, and the whiz of bullets. It was as if I heard God speaking in the still small voice.

Can I ever forget those evenings? I am living them over again. I still gaze into that distant west, and seem to see the Unseen in that wonderful vision: God, the Incomprehensible, the Unsearchable. I see how He paints every evening a new picture on the mountains and on the clouds. But He hides Himself in His picture. It is the robe, indeed, in which He reveals Himself, but it is only the border, as Isaiah says, the border of His robe: only the hem of His garment, and it—fills the Temple!

CHAPTER IV
GENERAL BULLER'S FIRST GREAT ATTEMPT TO BREAK THROUGH

Since the beginning of November we had heard, as I have already said, that Sir Redvers Buller had landed at Cape Town, and that he was in supreme command of the troops in Natal. We also knew that he was busy preparing himself for a grand attack upon our forces around Ladysmith, in order thus to relieve Sir George White there.

Towards the end of November General Joubert received reports every day of how matters were proceeding south of the Tugela. It was reported to him that large numbers of troops were continually arriving from Durban, and were occupying immense camps at Chieveley. Now, as it was impossible to know exactly where General Buller would try to break through, it was necessary to place commandos up and down the Tugela, with Colenso as a centre. This was done. Various Transvaal commandos took possession of the ridges opposite Colenso, and others were sent to the east of the railway across the river to Klangwane, a wooded hill a few miles east of the village, while General A. P. Cronje with from 1500 to 2000 men trekked about twelve miles to the west.