for the artillery.  A desultory and inconclusive action ensued which continued from nine in the morning until half-past one in the afternoon.  A well-directed fire of the Boer guns from the hills was dominated and controlled by our field artillery, while the advance of their riflemen was restrained by shrapnel.  The enemy’s guns were more easily marked down than at Elandslaagte, as they used black powder.  The ranges varied from three to four thousand yards.  Our losses in the whole action would have been insignificant had it not happened that the Gloucester Regiment advanced somewhat incautiously into the open and was caught in a cross fire of musketry which struck down Colonel Wilford and fifty of his officers and men.  Within four days Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons, Colonel Chisholm, of the Light Horse, Colonel Gunning, of the Rifles, and now Colonel Wilford, of the Gloucesters, had all fallen at the head of their regiments.  In the afternoon General White, having accomplished his purpose and secured the safety of the Dundee column while traversing the dangerous Biggarsberg passes, withdrew his force to Ladysmith.  We have no means of ascertaining the losses of the Boers, but they were probably slight.  On our side we lost 109 killed and wounded, of which only 13 cases were fatal.  Of this total 64 belonged to the Gloucesters and 25 to the troops raised in Natal.  Next day, as already narrated, the whole British army was re-assembled once more at Ladysmith, and the campaign was to enter upon a new phase.

At the end of this first vigorous week of hostilities it is interesting to sum up the net result.  The strategical advantage had lain with the Boers.  They had made our position at Dundee untenable and had driven us back to Ladysmith.  They had the country and the railway for the northern quarter of the colony in their possession.  They had killed and wounded between six and seven hundred of our men, and they had captured some two hundred of our cavalry, while we had been compelled at Dundee to leave considerable stores and our wounded, including General Penn Symons, who actually died while a prisoner in their hands.  On the other hand, the tactical advantages lay with us.  We had twice driven them from their positions, and captured two of their guns.  We had taken two hundred prisoners. and had probably killed and wounded as many as we had lost.  On the whole, the honours of that week’s fighting in Natal may be said to have been fairly equal—­which is more than we could claim for many a weary week to come.

CHAPTER 7.

The battle of Ladysmith.