302 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
column
was slowly advancing they were using every effort to remove the big
gun, which they did successfully. Over eight thousand shells had been
fired by the Boers into Kimberley and its fortifications, with the
result that, out of a total population of fifty thousand, only nine
were killed, and the majority of these were women and children.
At two p.m. a
huge cloud of dust rose in the distant southeast, and shortly
afterward one could see mounted troops advancing, and a heliographic
message informed the officer corn-
