nd their cannon.
Captain Lukin's management of the artillery was particularly skilful.
The weather was vile and the hastily dug trenches turned into ditches
half full of water, but neither discomfort nor danger shook the courage
of the gallant colonials. Assault after assault was repulsed, and
the scourging of the cannon was met with stolid endurance. The Boers
excelled all their previous feats in the handling of artillery by
dragging two guns up to the summit of the lofty Jammersberg, whence they
fired down upon the camp. Nearly all the horses were killed and three
hundred of the troopers were hit, a number which is double that of the
official return, for the simple reason that the spirit of the force
was so high that only those who were very severely wounded reported
themselves as wounded at all. None but the serious cases ever reached
the hands of Dr. Faskally, who did admirable work with very slender
resources. How many the enemy lost can never be certainly known, but as
they pushed home several attacks it is impossible to imagine that their
losses were less than those of the victorious defenders. At the end of
seventeen days of mud and blood the brave irregulars saw an empty laager
and abandoned trenches. Their own resistance and the advance of Brabant
to their rescue had caused a hasty retreat of the enemy. Wepener,
Mafeking, Kimberley, the taking of the first guns at Ladysmith,
the deeds of the Imperial Light Horse--it cannot be denied that our
irregular South African forces have a brilliant record for the war. They
are associated with many successes and with few disasters. Their fine
record cannot, I think, be fairly ascribed to any greater hardihood
which one portion of our race has when compared with another, for a
South African must admit that in the best colonial corps at least
half the men were Britons of Britain. In the Imperial Light Horse the
proportion was very much higher. But what may fairly be argued is that
their exploits have proved, what the American war proved long ago, that
the German conception of discipline is an obsolete fetish, and that the
spirit of free men, whose individualism has been encouraged rather
than crushed, is equal to any feat of arms. The clerks and miners and
engineers who went up Elandslaagte Hill without bayonets, shoulder to
shoulder with the Gordons, and who, according to Sir George White, saved
Ladysmith on January 6th, have shown for ever that with men of our race
it is