Many a burgher who up to that fatal day had fought hopefully and
courageously lost hope and courage then. Some, we regret to say, were
so disconsolate that they renounced their faith in that Supreme Being in
whose hands are the destinies of nations. Their reliance on their
country's God ended with Cronje's capture, as though their deliverance
depended solely upon him. This, however, does not appear so strange when
one recollects that the Boers could not afford to lose so many of their
best men at a time when all were precious for their country's safety. As
to the siege itself, we, not having been in it, cannot enter into its
details. One of the besieged, who, in spite of a terrific bombardment
and repeated attacks by the enemy, kept a diary of the events of each
day, gives this striking description on the 10th and last day:

"Bombardment heavier than usual. The burghers are recalcitrant and
in consequence the General's authority wanes rapidly. There is
hardly any food, the remaining bags of biscuits are yellow from the
lyddite fumes, so is everything, damp and yellow. The stench of the
decomposed horses and oxen is awful. The water of the rivers is
putrid with carrion. A party of men caught three stray sheep early
on the morning of the 10th. In haste they killed them and started
to skin them desperately; but they had half done when a lyddite
shell bursting close to them turned the mutton yellow with its
fumes and it had to be abandoned reluctantly. The sufferings of the
wounded are heartrending. Little children huddled together in
bomb-proof excavations are restless, hungry and crying. The women
are adding their sobs to the plaintive exhortations of the wounded.
All the time the shelling never abates. The arena of the defenders
is veneered. Nearly every man, woman and child is lyddite-stained.
The muddy stream is yellow. The night was an awful one. For two