being in action all day within 800 yards of the Boer line, and putting themselves out of action after 300 rounds by the destruction of their own rifling.  Once over the curve every yard of the veld was commanded by the hidden riflemen.  The infantry advanced, but could make no headway against the deadly fire which met them.  By short rushes the attack managed to get within 300 yards of the enemy, and there it stuck.  On the right the Munsters carried a detached kopje which was in front of them, but could do little to aid the main attack.  Nothing could have exceeded the tenacity of the Yorkshiremen and the New Zealanders, who were immediately to their left.  Though unable to advance they refused to retire, and indeed they were in a position from which a retirement would have been a serious operation.  Colonel Lloyd of the West Ridings was hit in three places and killed.  Five out of six officers of the New Zealand corps were struck down.  There were no reserves to give a fresh impetus to the attack, and the thin scattered line, behind bullet-spotted stones or anthills, could but hold its own while the sun sank slowly upon a day which will not be forgotten by those who endured it.  The Boers were reinforced in the afternoon, and the pressure became so severe that the field guns were retired with much difficulty.  Many of the infantry had shot away all their cartridges and were helpless.  Just one year before British soldiers had lain under similar circumstances on the plain which leads to Modder River, and now on a smaller scale the very same drama was being enacted.  Gradually the violet haze of evening deepened into darkness, and the incessant rattle of the rifle fire died away on either side.  Again, as at Modder River, the British infantry still lay in their position, determined to take no backward step, and again the Boers stole away in the night, leaving the ridge which they had defended so well.  A hundred killed and wounded was the price paid by the British for that line of rock studded hills—­a heavier proportion of losses than had befallen Lord Methuen in the corresponding action.  Of the Boer losses there was as usual no means of judging, but several grave-mounds, newly dug, showed that they also had something to deplore.  Their retreat, however, was not due to exhaustion, but to the demonstration which Lyttelton had been able to make in their rear.  The gunners and the infantry had all done well in a most trying action, but by common consent it was with the men from New Zealand that the honours lay.  It was no empty compliment when Sir Alfred Milner telegraphed to the Premier of New Zealand his congratulations upon the distinguished behaviour of his fellow countrymen.

From this time onwards there was nothing of importance in this part of the seat of war.