REMOUNTS FOR THE FIRST CONTINGENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 37, 15 February 1900, Page 3

REMOUNTS FOR THE FIRST CONTINGENT.

OTAGO SETS AN EXAMPLE. Dukedik, February 14. Twenty remounts for the men of the First Contingent were sent by train today, to be shipped by the Knight Templar. They will remain at Oamaru to-night. Oae of the best of the horses is a brown gelding for Major Robia, the gift of Balclutha residents. Messrs. Palmer and McKegg sent one each as remounts for their sons. Tea of the others were provided from the Daily Times' horae fund. HOW TIME IS KILLED AT LADYSMITH. The late G. W. Steevens, war correspondent of the London Daily Mail, the following undated message frem Ladysmith to that journal The following is a typical day of the siege of Ladysmith. 1 awake at midnight with the words "Sons of Satan" in my ear. The Boers are shelling the troopers of the Light Horse. Cuddling together on my verandah are troops listening to the banging shells. Says one voice: " Right among the horses." Another says: " Clean through the mess tent." With each bang the silver moonlight on the wall of the room flickers to gold. A score of rounds are fired, but nobody is touched. Then the Boers are silent, and the troops converse about the shells for an hour longer. I sleep till half-past three, and am again awakened. Says a hoarse voice; "Turn out, squadron." For half an hour the men loudly get up, and sleep again. All the flies are awakened at five. I feel a buzz in the ear and a twitch en the nose. I put the sheet over my head. but the flies crawl up my legs. It is daylight now, but there is a bite in the eujtry air. The strong bulwark of Lombards Kop is swathed in the stagnant mist. J ride , out under the already heavy sun and scramble oyer the stones to the hilltop, were the Highlanders are putting the finishing touch to a new laager. Active kilted figures are piling sandbags, cutting bushes, and dragging it together for a zareba.

I descend the grassy flat at a gallop through great black herds of lazy cattle watched by lazy blacks, grazing on the neutral ground between, us and the enemy. A few spots are scored by shells from points where the Ijoers creep up during the night. They are now falling back before our patrols, the crack of whose rifles sounds muffled in the lifeless air. I return within'the lines past the sentry steadfastly staring over the plain to the hills beyond, past the sasif and blanket couches where the officers sieep, nasi the smoking camp where the cooks are getting breakfast. Breakfast over, the lazy bombardment of the town begins. Now it is •shouting, rattling " Puffing Billy," now it is swishing, rushing " Silent Susan," now the popping, puffing 1 shrapnel. We know theia all by ear. Once in a dozen times the hoarse bark pf our naval guns replies,

One interlude of activity tempts me up the hill where the Rifle Brigade are at work. Some are shovelling new houses out of the red-hot earth. Others are sleeping in dark cool grottoes entered by hatchway Bkylights. Here the brigadier-general is working in his office, cane-floored and ceiled with timber. Outside a rare shot of the Boer snipers is answered by our firing line consisting only of six good shots—one has just dropped Boers at 2050 yards. Presently, with a splitting bang, a howitzer shell flies over towards the tenta below. Then a buzzing halfspent Mauser bullet startles a great black-and-cream butterfly, and anon a small shell fizzes through the roof of the iron huts, and bursts clanging inside.

The firing falters through the afterInoon, when sharp gusts of whirling dust prelude the usual storm. The sky is blue-black with clouds, which huddle down over the hills; a few huge drops fall with rattle of thunder; a sudden spurt of rain; and then it clears to a sunset of flame-colored pillows on beds of rose. " Good night," Bay the shells—and then to bed.

Multiply this by a million, and you get the siege of Ladysmith. NO " TRUMPET'S CLARION CALL." Major Robin writes: —" Our horses are beginning to run down. The climate, heat, sickness, and bad-fitting saddlery, with the hard work, are telling upon them. Tell the boys it is all nonsemse you read about' the trumpet's clarion call rings out.' We have not heard a trumpet or bugle call since we left Nauuwpoort, over a month ago, yet we work along all right. Yesterday morning we went into action, 800 cavalry and section of Royal Horse' Artillery, and never a trumpet call. Never mind, a shell shriek comes. What a change!"