isposition made to attack it in
the morning.

The force of the Boers was much inferior to our own, some two or three
thousand in all, but the natural strength of their position made it a
difficult one to carry, while it could not be left behind us as a menace
to our line of communications. A double row of steep hills lay across
the road to Kimberley, and it was along the ridges, snuggling closely
among the boulders, that our enemy was waiting for us. In their weeks
of preparation they had constructed elaborate shelter pits in which they
could lie in comparative safety while they swept all the level ground
around with their rifle fire. Mr. Ralph, the American correspondent,
whose letters were among the most vivid of the war, has described these
lairs, littered with straw and the debris of food, isolated from each
other, and each containing its grim and formidable occupant. 'The eyries
of birds of prey' is the phrase with which he brings them home to us.
In these, with nothing visible but their peering eyes and the barrels of
their rifles, the Boer marksmen crouched, and munched their biltong and
their mealies as the day broke upon the morning of the 23rd. With the
light their enemy was upon them.

It was a soldiers' battle in the good old primeval British style, an
Alma on a small scale and against deadlier weapons. The troops advanced
in grim silence against the savage-looking, rock-sprinkled, crag-topped
position which confronted them. They were in a fierce humour, for they
had not breakfasted, and military history from Agincourt to Talavera
shows that want of food wakens a dangerous spirit among British troops.
A Northumberland Fusilier exploded into words which expressed the
gruffness of his comrades. As a too energetic staff officer pranced
before their line he roared in his rough North-country tongue, 'Domn
thee! Get thee to hell, and let's fire!' In the golden light of the
rising sun the men set their teeth and dashed up the hills, scrambling,
falling, cheering, swearing, gallant men, gallantly led, their one
thought to close with that grim bristle of rifle-barrels which fringed
the rocks above them.

Lord Methuen's intention had been an attack from front and from flank,
but whether from the Grenadiers losing their bearings, or from the
mobility of the Boers, which made a flank attack an impossibility, it
is certain that all became frontal. The battle resolved itself into a
number of isolated actions in which t