for some distance down the river bank.  A most gallant but impossible charge was made by Colonel Hannay and a number of mounted infantry against the northern bank.  He was shot with the majority of his followers.  General Knox of the 12th Brigade and General Macdonald of the Highlanders were among the wounded.  Colonel Aldworth of the Cornwalls died at the head of his men.  A bullet struck him dead as he whooped his West Countrymen on to the charge.  Eleven hundred killed and wounded testified to the fire of our attack and the grimness of the Boer resistance.  The distribution of the losses among the various battalions—­eighty among the Canadians, ninety in the West Riding Regiment, one hundred and twenty in the Seaforths, ninety in the Yorkshires, seventy-six in the Argyll and Sutherlands, ninety-six in the Black Watch, thirty-one in the Oxfordshires, fifty-six in the Cornwalls, forty-six in the Shropshires—­shows how universal was the gallantry, and especially how well the Highland Brigade carried itself.  It is to be feared that they had to face, not only the fire of the enemy, but also that of their own comrades on the further side of the river.  A great military authority has stated that it takes many years for a regiment to recover its spirit and steadiness if it has been heavily punished, and yet within two months of Magersfontein we find the indomitable Highlanders taking without flinching the very bloodiest share of this bloody day—­and this after a march of thirty miles with no pause before going into action.  A repulse it may have been, but they hear no name of which they may be more proud upon the victory scroll of their colours.

What had we got in return for our eleven hundred casualties?  We had contracted the Boer position from about three miles to less than two.  So much was to the good, as the closer they lay the more effective our artillery fire might be expected to be.  But it is probable that our shrapnel alone, without any loss of life, might have effected the same thing.  It is easy to be wise after the event, but it does certainly appear that with our present knowledge the action at Paardeberg was as unnecessary as it was expensive.  The sun descended on Sunday, February 18th, upon a bloody field and crowded field hospitals, but also upon an unbroken circle of British troops still hemming in the desperate men who lurked among the willows and mimosas which drape the brown steep banks of the Modder.

There was evidence during the action of the presence of an active Boer force to the south of us, probably the same well-handled and enterprising body which had captured our convoy at Waterval.  A small party of Kitchener’s Horse was surprised by this body, and thirty men with four officers were taken prisoners.  Much has been said of the superiority of South African scouting to that of the British regulars, but it must be confessed that a good many instances might be quoted in which the colonials, though second to none in gallantry, have been defective in that very quality in which they were expected to excel.