There are long slanting hills that rise above the village on its south side, the crests of which were occupied by our pickets.  As the pickets were withdrawn, the Boers rapidly followed them up, occupied the crest in turn, and began to put in a heavy fire and press hard on our retreating men.

From a square and flat-topped kopje just north of the town we had the whole scene of the withdrawal down the opposite slopes before our eyes.  Our Mounted Infantry were hotly engaged but perfectly steady.  They lay in the grass in open order, firing, their groups of horses clustered lower down the hill; then retired by troops and set to work again.  This giving ground steadily and by degrees is a test of coolness and steadiness, and it was easy to see that our men were under perfect control.  At last they came under the protection of our hill.  We had got our battery of guns up it, and it was a moment of great satisfaction to all concerned, except possibly the Boers, when the first angry roar rose above the splutter of rifles, and the shell pitched among some of the foremost of the enemy’s sharpshooters.  In a duel of this sort the interference of artillery is usually regarded as decisive.  Guns, as people say, have “a moral effect” that is sometimes out of proportion to the actual damage they inflict.  Anyway, skirmishers seldom advance under gun-fire, and the Boers on this occasion were decisively checked by our battery.  Even when the guns left, we were able from the vantage-ground of the hill to keep them at arm’s length until the time came to catch up the column.

On the right flank they were more successful, pressing home a heavy attack on the Mounted Infantry on that side.  A squadron got cut off and rushed by the enemy, who rode in to it shooting at pistol-shot distance, and shouting “Hands up!” We lost pretty heavily in casualties, besides about fifty prisoners.  These small mishaps are of no great importance in themselves, but they encourage the enemy no doubt to go on fighting.  The story as it goes round the farms will lose nothing in the telling.  Probably in a very short time it will amount to the rout of Hamilton’s column, and the captured troopers will lend a colour to the yarn.  Burghers who have taken the oath of allegiance will be readier than ever to break it.  However, time no doubt will balance the account all right in the long-run.

From Lindley, fighting a little every day, we marched north to Heilbron, where Broadwood got hold of the Boer convoy by the tail, and succeeded in capturing a dozen waggons.  From there we cut into the railway, and crossed it at Vredefort, passing through the main body of the advance in doing so.  Anything like the sight of these vast columns all pushing in one direction you never saw.  In this country one can often see thirty or forty miles, and in that space on the parched, light-coloured ground you may see from some point of vantage five or six separate streams of advance slowly rolling northward, their thin black