When the shelling was very heavy, we used to say to ourselves, "What a good thing they are using up their ammunition!" when again for a few days it was slack, we were convinced our foes had had bad news.

What matter if our next information was that the Boers had been seen throwing up their hats and giving vent to other visible expressions of delight: we had passed a few peaceful hours.
Many casualties continued to take place; some were fatal and tragic, but many and providential were the escapes recorded.

Among the former, one poor man was blown to bits while sitting eating his breakfast; but the same day, when a shell landed in or near a house adjacent to my bomb-proof, it merely took a cage containing a canary with it through the window, while another fragment went into a dwelling across the street, and made mince-meat of a sewing-machine and a new dress on which a young lady had been busily engaged.

She had risen from her pleasant occupation but three minutes before.

The coolness of the inhabitants, of both sexes, was a source of constant surprise and admiration to me, and women must always be proud to think that the wives and daughters of the garrison were just as conspicuous by their pluck as the defenders themselves.