Most strange and weird is this extraordinary regularity.  It seems to mean something, to be arranged on some plan and for some humanly intelligible purpose.  In the evenings and early mornings especially, when these oft-repeated shapes stand solemnly round the horizon, cut hard and blue against the sky like the mighty pylons and propylons of Egyptian temples, the architectural character of the scenery and its definite meaning and purpose strike one most inevitably.  So solemn and sad it looks; the endless plains bare and vacant, and the groups of pure cut battlements and towers.  As if some colossals here inhabited at one time and built these remains among which we now creep ignorant of their true character.  The scenery really needs such a race of Titans to match it.  In these spaces we little fellows are lost.

Well, farewell.  My next will be after some sort of a contest.  There has been a touch or two; enough to show they are waiting for us.  A corporal of ours was shot through the arm yesterday and struggled back to camp on another man’s horse.  The dark-soaked sleeve (war’s colour for the first time of seeing!) was the object, you may guess, of particular attention.

LETTER II

BELMONT

BELMONT SIDING.

It is to be called Belmont, I believe, from the little siding on the railway near which it was fought.  On the other hand it may be called after the farm which it was fought on.  Who decides these things?  I have never had dealings with a battle in its callow and unbaptized days before, and it had never occurred to me that they did not come into the world ready christened.  Will Methuen decide the point, or the war correspondents, or will they hold a cabinet council about it?  Anyhow Belmont will do for the present.

What happened was the simplest thing in the world.  The Boers took up their position in some kopjes in our line of march.  The British infantry, without bothering to wait till the hills had been shelled, walked up and kicked the Boers out.  There was no attempt at any plan or scheme of action at all; no beastly strategy, or tactics, or outlandish tricks of any sort; nothing but an honest, straightforward British march up to a row of waiting rifles.  Our loss was about 250 killed and wounded.  The Boer loss, though the extent of it is unknown, was probably comparatively slight, as they got away before our infantry came fairly into touch with them.  The action is described as a victory, and so, in a sense, it is; but it is not the sort of victory we should like to have every day of the week.  We carried the position, but they hit us hardest.  On the whole, probably both sides are fairly satisfied, which must be rare in battles and is very gratifying.