It Is From The Man Himself, And Not
From His Country, That An Account Should Be Exacted.
The garrison, in the face of increasing losses and decreasing food,
lost none of the high spirits which it reflected from its
commander.
The programme of a single day of jubilee - Heaven only
knows what they had to hold jubilee over - shows a cricket match in
the morning, sports in the afternoon, a concert in the evening, and
a dance, given by the bachelor officers, to wind up. Baden-Powell
himself seems to have descended from the eyrie from which, like a
captain on the bridge, he rang bells and telephoned orders, to
bring the house down with a comic song and a humorous recitation.
The ball went admirably, save that there was an interval to repel
an attack which disarranged the programme. Sports were zealously
cultivated, and the grimy inhabitants of casemates and trenches
were pitted against each other at cricket or football. [Footnote:
Sunday cricket so shocked Snyman that he threatened to fire upon it
if it were continued.] The monotony was broken by the occasional
visits of a postman, who appeared or vanished from the vast barren
lands to the west of the town, which could not all be guarded by
the besiegers. Sometimes a few words from home came to cheer the
hearts of the exiles, and could be returned by the same uncertain
and expensive means. The documents which found their way up were
not always of an essential or even of a welcome character.
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