meeting made no difference to Sir George White's decision, which was a
practical acceptance of the terms formulated.

To-day has passed in peace, but marked by a very natural depression as
we have seen train after train laden with sick, wounded, and
non-combatants, go out to the neutral camp at Intombi Spruit, where
these people will have to remain under a white flag so long as this
humiliating investment of Ladysmith may last. To make the matter worse
they were sent out at first with insufficient supplies for urgent needs,
and with so few attendants that tents for all could not be pitched the
same night. Even now many non-combatants have to lie in small patrol
tents of thin canvas with a double slope, under the ridge of which
there is barely room for a child to stand upright, and the camp is
placed on ground so flat, near the river bank, that heavy rains might
convert it into a mere swamp. There, however, General Joubert decided
that the neutral camp must be pitched, and those who were too weak or
spiritless to help themselves, must needs be thankful for such gracious
concessions. Some, not quite satisfied with the protection this affords,
are digging burrows deep into clay banks by the river side, where they
will be even more liable to be flooded out. In strict justice it must be
said that many sick and wounded went out, not of their own free will,
but because, being under medical care, they had no option. The result of
this is that men suffering from slight ailments, or whose wounds would
not incapacitate them from duty longer than a week or so, are virtually
prisoners of war, only to be released at the pleasure of the Boers, or
until we reclaim them by force of arms. These are unpleasant things to
write, but they are true none the less.

The Boer guns have preserved all along an absolute silence, which was
not broken on our side until ten at night, when a sentry set off his