Peakman attacked the Boers on Carter's Ridge on their left flank.
The
cessation of active hostilities on Sunday made it a welcome day of rest
to all the besieged, and no doubt to the besiegers as well. It gave
both sides the opportunity of praying long and hard that their
enemies might be confounded. The first bombardment continued for five
days, with no further serious casualties on the British side, and the
townspeople, appalled at first, began to make light of the danger.
More than half the shells fell without exploding, and many children as
well as grown people ran up, after each shell struck, to carry off" a
trophy. These prizes and the fragments and fuses of exploded shells
found ready purchasers. The military authorities issued an order
forbidding people from collecting these shells and fragments, while a
bombardment was going on, owing not only to the risk of death or
maiming from the exploding shells, but to the greater danger of the
explosion of the dynamite mines which
