ng. He succeeded, indeed, in
taking a few small forts, but the station was too strongly fortified,
and the enemy used two 15-pounders in one of the forts with such
precision as to soon hit our Krupp gun, which had to be cleared out of
the fighting line.

The burghers, who had taken the small forts in the early morning, were
obliged to stop there till they could get away under protection of the
darkness, with three men wounded. We did not find out the enemy's
losses.

We were equally unfortunate near Balmoral Station, where I personally
led the attack.

At daybreak I ordered a fortress to be stormed, expecting to capture a
gun, which would enable us to fire on the station from there, and
then storm it. In fact we occupied the fort with little trouble,
taking a captain and 32 men prisoners, besides inflicting a loss of
several killed and wounded, while a score more escaped. These all
belonged to the "Buffs," the same regiment which now takes part in
watching us at St. Helena. But, on the whole, we were disappointed,
not finding a gun in the fort, which was situated to the west of the
station. Two divisions of burghers with a 15-pounder and a pom-pom
were approaching the station from north and east, while a commando,
under Field-Cornet Duvenhage, which had been called upon to strengthen
the attack, was to occupy an important position in the south before
the enemy could take it up, for during the night it was still
unoccupied.

Our 15-pounder, one of the guns we had captured from the English,
fired six shells on the enemy at the station, when it burst, while the
pom-pom after having sent some bombs through the station buildings,
also jammed. We tried to storm over the bare ground between our
position and the strongly barricaded and fortified station, and the
enemy would no doubt have been forced to surrender if they had not
realised that something had gone wrong with us, our guns being silent,
and Field-Cornet Duvenhage and his burghers not turning up from the
south. The British, who had taken an important position from which
they could cover us with their fire, sent us some lyddite shells from
a howitzer in the station fort. Although there was a good shower of
them, yet the lyddite-squirt sent the shells at such a slow pace, that
we could quietly watch them coming and get under cover in time and
therefore they did very little harm.

At eight o'clock we were forced to fall back, for although we had
destroyed the rai