To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop, there is a formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again the enemy were found to be standing at bay.  They were even better than their word, for they had always said that they would make their last stand at Lydenburg, and now they were making one beyond it.  But the resistance was weakening.  Even this fine position could not be held against the rush of the three regiments, the Devons, the Royal Irish, and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it.  The artillery supported the attack admirably.  ‘They did nobly,’ said one who led the advance.  ’It is impossible to overrate the value of their support.  They ceased also exactly at the right moment.  One more shell would have hit us.’  Mountain mists saved the defeated burghers from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried.  The British losses on this day, September 8th, were thirteen killed and twenty-five wounded; but of these thirty-eight no less than half were accounted for by one of those strange malignant freaks which can neither be foreseen nor prevented.  A shrapnel shell, fired at an incredible distance, burst right over the Volunteer Company of the Gordons who were marching in column.  Nineteen men fell, but it is worth recording that, smitten so suddenly and so terribly, the gallant Volunteers continued to advance as steadily as before this misfortune befell them.  On the 9th Buller was still pushing forward to Spitzkop, his guns and the 1st Rifles overpowering a weak rearguard resistance of the Boers.  On the 10th he had reached Klipgat, which is halfway between the Mauchberg and Spitzkop.  So close was the pursuit that the Boers, as they streamed through the passes, flung thirteen of their ammunition wagons over the cliffs to prevent them from falling into the hands of the British horsemen.  At one period it looked as if the gallant Boer guns had waited too long in covering the retreat of the burghers.  Strathcona’s Horse pressed closely upon them.  The situation was saved by the extreme coolness and audacity of the Boer gunners.  ‘When the cavalry were barely half a mile behind the rear gun’ says an eye-witness ’and we regarded its capture as certain, the leading Long Tom deliberately turned to bay and opened with case shot at the pursuers streaming down the hill in single file over the head of his brother gun.  It was a magnificent coup, and perfectly successful.  The cavalry had to retire, leaving a few men wounded, and by the time our heavy guns had arrived both Long Toms had got clean away.’  But the Boer riflemen would no longer stand.  Demoralised after their magnificent struggle of eleven months the burghers were now a beaten and disorderly rabble flying wildly to the eastward, and only held together by the knowledge that in their desperate situation there was more comfort and safety in numbers.  The war seemed to be swiftly approaching its close.  On the 15th Buller occupied Spitzkop in the north,