ith our present musketry instruction the fire of a British
half-battalion against an individual is not a very serious matter.

The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next morning
an advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on. Here lay the
plain of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of kopjes as dangerous as
those of Belmont. Lancers and Rimington's Scouts, the feeble but very
capable cavalry of the Army, came in with the report that the hills were
strongly held. Some more hard slogging was in front of the relievers of
Kimberley.

The advance had been on the line of the Cape Town to Kimberley Railway,
and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired to the extent
of permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to accompany the
troops. It was six o' clock upon the morning of Saturday the 25th that
this gun came into action against the kopjes, closely followed by the
guns of the field artillery. One of the lessons of the war has been to
disillusion us as to the effect of shrapnel fire. Positions which had
been made theoretically untenable have again and again been found to
be most inconveniently tenanted. Among the troops actually engaged the
confidence in the effect of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with
their experience. Some other method of artillery fire than the curving
bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing with
men who lie close among boulders and behind cover.

These remarks upon shrapnel might be included in the account of half the
battles of the war, but they are particularly apposite to the action at
Enslin. Here a single large kopje formed the key to the position, and
a considerable time was expended upon preparing it for the British
assault, by directing upon it a fire which swept the face of it and
searched, as was hoped, every corner in which a rifleman might lurk. One
of the two batteries engaged fired no fewer than five hundred rounds.
Then the infantry advance was ordered, the Guards being held in
reserve on account of their exertions at Belmont. The Northumberlands,
Northamptons, North Lancashires, and Yorkshires worked round upon the
right, and, aided by the artillery fire, cleared the trenches in their
front. The honours of the assault, however, must be awarded to the
sailors and marines of the Naval Brigade, who underwent such an ordeal
as men have seldom faced and yet come out as victors. To them fell the
task of carrying tha