I forget the view.
The hills, those hills the English infantry had carried so splendidly,
were between us and the now setting sun, and though so close were almost
black with clean-hacked edges against the sunset side of the sky. To
eastward the endless grassy sea went whitening to the horizon, crossed
in the distance with the horizontal lines of rich brown and yellow and
pure blue, which at sunrise and sunset give such marvellous colouring to
the veldt. The air here is exactly like the desert air, very
exhilarating to breathe and giving to everything it touches that
wonderful clearness and refinement which people who have been brought up
in a damp climate and among smudged outlines so often mistake for
hardness. Our great ammunition fire in the hollow of the hill burned
merrily, and by-and-by a furious splutter of Mauser cartridges began,
with every now and then the louder report of shells and great smoke
balls hanging in the air. But sheer above all, above yellow veldt and
ruined Boer laager, rose the hill, the position we had carried, grim and
rigid against the sunset and all black. And, with the sudden sense of
_seeing_ that comes to one now and then, I stared at it for a while and
said out loud "Belmont!" And in that aspect it remains photographed in
my memory.

LETTER III

GRASPAN

_November_ 26, 1899.

We marched out from our Orange River Camp on November 22nd, and fought
at Belmont on the 23rd. On the 24th we marched north again, and on the
25th (yesterday) fought another action at Graspan, or, as some call it,
Enslin--there is still the difficulty about names. March a day and fight
a day seems the rule so far.

At home, when you are criticising these actions of Methuen, you must
always bear two facts in mind. First, we are bound to keep our line of
communication, that is, the railway, open, and hold it as we advance. We
can bring Kimberley no relief unless we can open and guard the railway,
and so enable supplies to be poured into the town. Second, we are not
strong enough, and above all not mobile enough, while holding the
railway to attempt a wide flanking movement which might threaten the
Boer retreat, or enable us to shell and attack from two sides at once.
If we had anything like a decent force of mounted men I suppose we could
do it, but with our handful to separate it from the main body would be
to get it cut off. "Want of frigates" was to be found on Nelson's heart,
as he said on some occa