All honour to the towns folk who bore their trial so long and so bravely--and to the indomitable men who lined the trenches for seven weary months.

Their constancy was of enormous value to the empire.

In the all-important early month at least four or five thousand Boers were detained by them when their presence elsewhere would have been fatal.

During all the rest of the war, two thousand men and eight guns (including one of the four big Creusots) had been held there.

It prevented the invasion of Rhodesia, and it gave a rallying-point for loyal whites and natives in the huge stretch of country from Kimberley to Bulawayo.