te. He regretted the unfortunate
circumstances of our meeting; he complimented the officers on their
defence--of course, it was hopeless from the first; he trusted his fire
had not annoyed us; we should, he thought, understand the necessity for
them to continue; above all he wanted to know how the engine had been
able to get away, and how the line could have been cleared of wreckage
under his guns. In fact, he behaved as a good professional soldier
should, and his manner impressed me.

We waited here near the guns for half an hour, and meanwhile the Boers
searched amid the wreckage for dead and wounded. A few of the wounded
were brought to where we were, and laid on the ground, but most of them
were placed in the shelter of one of the overturned trucks. As I write I
do not know with any certainty what the total losses were, but the Boers
say that they buried five dead, sent ten seriously wounded into
Ladysmith, and kept three severely wounded in their field ambulances.
Besides this, we are told that sixteen severely wounded escaped on the
engine, and we have with the prisoners seven men, including myself,
slightly wounded by splinters or injured in the derailment. If this be
approximately correct, it seems that the casualties in the hour and a
half of fighting were between thirty-five and forty: not many, perhaps,
considering the fire, but out of 120 enough at least.

After a while we were ordered to march on, and looking over the crest of
the hill a strange and impressive sight met the eye. Only about 300 men
had attacked the train, and I had thought that this was the enterprise
of a separate detachment, but as the view extended I saw that this was
only a small part of a large, powerful force marching south, under the
personal direction of General Joubert, to attack Estcourt. Behind every
hill, thinly veiled by the driving rain, masses of mounted men, arranged
in an orderly disorder, were halted, and from the rear long columns of
horsemen rode steadily forward. Certainly I did not see less than 3,000,
and I did not see nearly all. Evidently an important operation was in
progress, and a collision either at Estcourt or Mooi River impended.
This was the long expected advance: worse late than never.

Our captors conducted us to a rough tent which had been set up in a
hollow in one of the hills, and which we concluded was General Joubert's
headquarters. Here we were formed in a line, and soon surrounded by a
bearded crowd