SNAPSHOTS OF A SIEGE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1974, 29 June 1900, Page 6

SNAPSHOTS OF A SIEGE.

SOME AMUSING INCIDENTS,

We take the following extracts from the diary which Dr Oliver Ashe, surgeon to the Kimberley Hospital, kept during the siege of the town. It has now been published in book form by Messrs Hutchinson, under the title of ' Besieged by the Boers,' and is cajutal reading. Referring to some incidents of a bombardment, during which a shell landed in the middle of a portrait of Mr Rhodes in a photographer's shop, Dr Ashe says : " When this happened I had only just left S.'s private house. . . . S. and I had been joking (we had to joke to keep up our spirits) al>out the shells, and he had asked me to give him some medicince to make his knees feel stionger when the gun went off, and the next minute his shop was nearly destroyed." One nervous man was actually seen to put his umbrella up when the bugler sounded the warning of a coming shell. "If the bugler got his little tune off smart," says Dr Ashe, " there was about fifteen seconds in which to dodge into a wall or rush into your fort. At the Sanatorium the look-out banged on the dinner gong for all he was worth directly he saAv the puff of smoke. I thought Rhodes was having plenty of meals %vhen I heard the gong going so often, until I found out that it was a shell signal. At another place the look-out hammered one iron bar on another, which was hung up by the end. This is a cheap sort of bell, which is common in this country, and can be heard a long way. In front of the town hall a policeman was stationed in an auctioneer's pulpit to blow his whistle. On the whole, we had heaps of music these days." Dr Ashe had a shell-proof fort constructed in his house, and the servants were told they could come into it any time they heard the bugle. "Lizzie came in for a few times when she was handy, but as a rule did not bother, and was really very plucky. John, our Zulu, preferred to get behind the big water tank. I don't think that would have saved him, but he was happy there ; so that was all right. He was very funny one day. We heard Lizzie lecturing him about something, and he retorted : ' Don't make srch a noise ; I can't hear the gun go off." _ The boom of that gun would have extinguished a megaphone. ... I heard another little joke to-day. A certain man built a large and fine Al copper-bottomed fort. A neighbor wane in to inspect it, and found great fault with it; in fact, condemned it altogether, and strongly advised the proud owner to take his family down the mine for safety. This he promptly did. Then the neighbor, having a very rotten fort of his own, took possession of the good one with equal promptness, and all was peace. —(N.B. —The band played later.) The first day that horse was served out some of it was cooked for the officers' mess at the mounted cam]). At the table Colonel Peakman said: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that Ave are unable to get all our ration in beef to-day, and had to take part of it in horseflesh." This which lam carving is beef; the horse is at the other end, and anyone who prefers it can help himself. Nobody did prefer it, and so they all ate beef, and made a good dinner. When they had finished. Colonel Peakman suddenly exclaimed : "By Jove! gentlemen, I find I have made a mistake in the joints ; this is the horseflesh and the other is the beef." It was just a dodge of his to get them started on the horseflesh. It is very funny to see all the town's big swells either fetching their meat themselves or sending a member of their family for it. Parsons, lawyers, doctors, business men—Ave are all there, and it is a huge joke that Ave are all in the same boat; but it is to be hoped that the joke won't last too long.