We are sick of the siege. Enteric and dysentery are steadily increasing. Food for men and horses is short and nasty. Ammunition must be used with care. The longing for the English mail has almost become a disease. Only two days more, we thought, or perhaps we could just stick it out for another week. Now we are thrown back into vague uncertainty, and seem no nearer to the end.
All the correspondents were summoned at noon to the Intelligence Office. That the Intelligence should tell us anything at all was so unprecedented that we felt the occasion was solemn. Major Altham then read out the General Order, briefly stating that General Buller had failed in "his first attack at Colenso," and we could not be relieved as soon as was expected. All details were refused. We naturally presume the situation is worse than represented. Each of us was allowed to send a brief heliogram, balloting for turn. Then we came away. We were told it was our duty to keep the town cheerful.
The suffering among the poor who had no stores of their own to fall back upon is getting serious. Bread and meat are supplied in rations at a fair and steady price. Colonel Ward and Colonel Stoneman have seen to that, and as far as possible they check the rapacity of the Colonial contractor. But hundreds have no money left at all. They receive Government rations on a mere promise to pay. Outside rations, prices are running up to absurdity. Chickens and most nice things are not to be obtained. But in the market last week eggs were half a guinea a dozen, potatoes 1s. 6d. a pound, carrots 5s., candles 1s. each, a tin of milk 6s., cigarettes 5s. a dozen. Nothing can be bought to drink, except lemonade and soda-water, made with enteric germs. The Irishman drinks the rinsings of his old whisky bottles. One man gave £5 yesterday for a bottle of whisky, but then he was a contractor, and our necessity is his opportunity. Of our necessity the Colonial storekeepers and dealers of all kinds are making their utmost. Having spent their lives hitherto in "besting" every one on a small scale, they are now besting the British nation on the large. Happily their profit is not so easily made now as in the old days of the Zulu war, when a waggon-load of food would be sold three times over on the way to the front and never reached the troops at all in the end. A few days ago one contractor thought the Army would have to raise its price for mealies (maize) to 30s. a sack. He at once bought up all the mealies in the town at 28s., only to discover that the army price was 25s. So, under the beneficent influence of martial law he was compelled to sell at that price, and made a fine loss. The troops received this morning's heavy news with cheerful stoicism; not a single complaint, only tender regrets about the whisky and Christmas pudding we shall have to do without.