res and getting under cover, for all the world like rabbits, as our
fire searched the position. They replied, but though a lot of bullets
were whistling about, no one was hit. There was a Maxim at the foot of
the conical hill rattling away, and the Black Watch were again on the
hill itself, blazing away at the rocks as vigorously as ever. Then at
last between us and them up gallops a section of guns, and the little
puff balls begin to burst along the rock edge in a way which we could
see was very disconcerting for the Boers, who were rapidly finding the
place too hot for them. A little after, some one sings out, "Here comes
the attack!" and true enough we can make out the little khaki dots in
long loose strings moving forward round the hill towards the valley
head. It is the Seaforths. We on our side "carry on the motion," dash
forward, lie down and shoot, and on again. We make for a kopje on our
edge of the valley. The fire is too hot for the Boers to dare to show up
much and there is not much opposition. But I can assure you that a
charge of 1500 yards, even without the enemy's fire, is a serious thing
enough. Puffing and panting, I struggle on. Long-legged Colonials go
striding by land leave me gasping in the rear. When at last we reach the
kopje and look down into the sunken valley, the Seaforths are pouring in
their fire on the retreating Boers, our fellows are doing the same from
the kopje top, but I myself am too pumped out to care for anything and
can only lie on the ground and gasp.

I see in your last letter you want to know about the character of the
Guides, and whether there has been any cases of treachery among them. I
don't know what started these old yarns. They were invented about
Magersfontein time, probably to account for that awful mishap, and got
into the local press here and made a lot of fuss, but we have heard
nothing since on that score. There is such a lot of treachery put here
(owing to the intermingling of English and Dutch in their two
territories) that almost anything in that line seems credible, and there
are numbers of people about, loafers in bars and fifth-rate
boarding-houses, to whom anything base seems perfectly natural, and who
delight in starting and circulating such tales. At the same time there
are also numbers of honest and loyal men, and it is from these, and
exclusively from these, that the fighters are drawn. In South Africa,
and among the South Africans, a war of this sort, be