rays of the sun were scorching us.  Clouds!  But they threw no shadow over us.  Everywhere small patches of shadow chequered the hills and valleys, but they seemed to avoid us.  But a black mass of cloud is rising in the west, and we know that everything will soon be wrapped in shadow.  Nearer and nearer to the zenith the clouds are rising.  What is that deep rumbling in the distance?  Thunder!  Nearer and nearer it sounds, and presently we hear it overhead above the din of the musketry and the boom of the cannon.  How insignificant the crash of the cannons sounds now.  It is as the crackle of fireworks when compared with the mighty voice of God!

     “We got more than shadow from the clouds.  At five o’clock great
     drops splash on the rocks.  Presently the rain fell in torrents, and
     I could wash the blood of the wounded from my hands in it.

“It was now just when the rain was descending in sheets of water, and the thunder-claps were shaking the hills, that the enemy redoubled their efforts to drive us off the ledge, and our men had to do their utmost to repel the determined onslaught.  Had they been driven down the hill, every burgher fleeing for his life would have formed a target for the enemy.  The fight was now fiercer than at any time during the day.  It was fearful to hear the roar of the thunder above and the crash of the rifles below.  But the enemy did not succeed in driving us off.  We remained there two and a half hours longer.  Meanwhile we had been able to quench our thirst.  Streams of water dashed down through the rocks, and we drank our fill.  These streams of water came from the forts a few yards above us, and were red in colour.  Was it red earth, or was it the blood of friend or foe that coloured the water?  Whatever the cause, we were so thirsty that nothing would have kept us from drinking.  After the English had done their utmost to drive us from the hill, and been baffled in their attempts, they returned to their forts, and the firing subsided for a short time.

“At last the sun set, and at half-past seven we withdrew.  We had been on the hill for sixteen hours, under a most severe fire, and now we retired; but we were not driven off by the Devons with levelled bayonets, as I have read in an English book.  We were not driven off the hill.  We held it as long as it was light, and when twilight fell and no reinforcements came, we considered it useless to remain there.  Including the Transvaalers we had lost 68 killed and 135 wounded.”

(4) One instance more to show that the Boers behaved gallantly not only under cover or when scaling mountains or hills occupied by the enemy, but also when they met the foe on the plain without any cover at all.

Lord Methuen’s column, 1,500 strong, was charged in broad daylight on the open veldt by about 700 burghers.  The whole convoy with four Armstrong guns was captured.  Besides this the enemy lost 400 in killed and wounded, and 859 prisoners of war, including Lord Methuen himself, who was wounded in the leg.  The Boer casualties amounted to 9 killed and 25 wounded.  Do not such engagements prove that the Boers could hold their own not only behind stones and in trenches but also on the plain?