o long,
and honour also to the rough men of the veld, who, led by untrained
civilians, stretched us to the utmost capacity of our endurance.

It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have done at all costs
with the constant menace to their rear, or it may be that the deliberate
preparations of Buller for his second advance had alarmed them, and that
they realised that they must act quickly if they were to act at all.
At any rate, early in the New Year a most determined attack was decided
upon. The storming party consisted of some hundreds of picked volunteers
from the Heidelberg (Transvaal) and Harrismith (Free State) contingents,
led by de Villiers. They were supported by several thousand riflemen,
who might secure their success or cover their retreat. Eighteen heavy
guns had been trained upon the long ridge, one end of which has been
called Caesar's Camp and the other Waggon Hill. This hill, three miles
long, lay to the south of the town, and the Boers had early recognised
it as being the most vulnerable point, for it was against it that their
attack of November 9th had been directed. Now, after two months, they
were about to renew the attempt with greater resolution against less
robust opponents. At twelve o'clock our scouts heard the sounds of the
chanting of hymns in the Boer camps. At two in the morning crowds
of barefooted men were clustering round the base of the ridge, and
threading their way, rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and
scattered boulders which cover the slope of the hill. Some working
parties were moving guns into position, and the noise of their labour
helped to drown the sound of the Boer advance. Both at Caesar's Camp,
the east end of the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end (the points
being, I repeat, three miles apart), the attack came as a complete
surprise. The outposts were shot or driven in, and the stormers were
on the ridge almost as soon as their presence was detected. The line of
rocks blazed with the flash of their guns.

Caesar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters,
aided by a Colt automatic gun. The defence had been arranged in the form
of small sangars, each held by from ten to twenty men. Some few of these
were rushed in the darkness, but the Lancashire men pulled themselves
together and held on strenuously to those which remained. The crash
of musketry woke the sleeping town, and the streets resounded with the
shouting of the officers and t