Healthy folk who lived to eat were at this stage beginning to complain
of hunger, and to assert--not quite truthfully--that they got but "one
meal a day." Eight ounces of meat was not enough for them; they could
devour it all at a single sitting; they were slowly starving. Little
sympathy was felt with these uneasy gourmands. Our sources of supply
were by no means inexhaustible, and the Colonel's restriction was
intelligible to all reasonable men. The Boers, on the other hand,
appeared to possess more live stock than they needed, and it was upon
this hypothesis that the plan of confiscating a portion of the one to
equalise the other was conceived by the artful and gallant Colonel. No
sooner thought of than done. From among the coloured fraternity whose
love of looting had occasioned trouble in the past he selected the most
expert, and commissioned them to resume their bad ways. On the Monday
night operations were commenced, and carried out successfully. By dint
of much patience and caution, the trusty looters were enabled
(unperceived) silently to segregate some seventy oxen and drive them
into Kimberley. Splendid animals they were, too, and an addition to our
depleted flocks and herds which gave us solid satisfaction.

Whether it was that the enemy was engrossed in a vain search for the
missing cattle--if they were missed at all--he gave no expression to his
indignation next morning. Not until lunch time had we any indications of
annoyance. The vials of Boer wrath were then let loose in earnest, and
from the Lazaretto Ridge we were peppered furiously. The shells fell
thickly in the principal thoroughfares--eighty or ninety of them--one
for every bullock "pinched." Fortunately again, the assault was
unattended by loss of life. The tin walls of Saint Cyprian's Church were
perforated by pieces of shell. Another hissing monster dropped in
Dutoitspan Road in front of a tobacco-shop, but thanks to the