's brigade,
and especially the Canadian regiment, distinguished themselves by the
magnificent tenacity with which they persevered in their attack. The
Cornwalls of the same brigade swept up almost to the river bank in a
charge which was the admiration of all who saw it. If the miners of
Johannesburg had given the impression that the Cornishman is not a
fighter, the record of the county regiment in the war has for ever
exploded the calumny. Men who were not fighters could have found no
place in Smith-Dorrien's brigade or in the charge of Paardeberg.

While the infantry had been severely handled by the Boer riflemen, our
guns, the 76th, 81st, and 82nd field batteries, with the 65th howitzer
battery, had been shelling the river bed, though our artillery fire
proved as usual to have little effect against scattered and hidden
riflemen. At least, however, it distracted their attention, and made
their fire upon the exposed infantry in front of them less deadly.
Now, as in Napoleon's time, the effect of the guns is moral rather than
material. About midday French's horse-artillery guns came into action
from the north. Smoke and flames from the dongas told that some of our
shells had fallen among the wagons and their combustible stores.

The Boer line had proved itself to be unshakable on each face, but at
its ends the result of the action was to push them up, and to shorten
the stretch of the river which was held by them. On the north bank
Smith-Dorrien's brigade gained a considerable amount of ground. At the
other end of the position the Welsh, Yorkshire, and Essex regiments of
Stephenson's brigade did some splendid work, and pushed the Boers for
some distance down the river bank. A most gallant but impossible charge
was made by Colonel Hannay and a number of mounted infantry against the
northern bank. He was shot with the majority of his followers. General
Knox of the 12th Brigade and General Macdonald of the Highlanders were
among the wounded. Colonel Aldworth of the Cornwalls died at the head of
his men. A bullet struck him dead as he whooped his West Countrymen on
to the charge. Eleven hundred killed and wounded testified to the fire
of our attack and the grimness of the Boer resistance. The distribution
of the losses among the various battalions--eighty among the Canadians,
ninety in the West Riding Regiment, one hundred and twenty in the
Seaforths, ninety in the Yorkshires, seventy-six in the Argyll
and Sutherlands, nine