received all that could be given.  Captain Rice, of the Fusiliers, was carried wounded down the hill on the back of one giant, and he has narrated how the man refused the gold piece which was offered him.  Some asked the soldiers for their embroidered waist-belts as souvenirs of the day.  They will for generations remain as the most precious ornaments of some colonial farmhouse.  Then the victors gathered together and sang psalms, not jubilant but sad and quavering.  The prisoners, in a downcast column, weary, spent, and unkempt, filed off to the Boer laager at Waschbank, there to take train for Pretoria.  And at Ladysmith a bugler of Fusiliers, his arm bound, the marks of battle on his dress and person, burst in upon the camp with the news that two veteran regiments had covered the flank of White’s retreating army, but at the cost of their own annihilation.

CHAPTER 8.

Lord Methuen’s advance.

At the end of a fortnight of actual hostilities in Natal the situation of the Boer army was such as to seriously alarm the public at home, and to cause an almost universal chorus of ill-natured delight from the press of all European nations.  Whether the reason was hatred of ourselves, or the sporting instinct which backs the smaller against the larger, or the influence of the ubiquitous Dr. Leyds and his secret service fund, it is certain that the continental papers have never been so unanimous as in their premature rejoicings over what, with an extraordinary want of proportion, and ignorance of our national character, they imagined to be a damaging blow to the British Empire.  France, Russia, Austria, and Germany were equally venomous against us, nor can the visit of the German Emperor, though a courteous and timely action in itself, entirely atone for the senseless bitterness of the press of the Fatherland.  Great Britain was roused out of her habitual apathy and disregard for foreign opinion by this chorus of execration, and braced herself for a greater effort in consequence.  She was cheered by the sympathy of her friends in the United States, and by the good wishes of the smaller nations of Europe, notably of Italy, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary.

The exact position at the end of this fortnight of hard slogging was that a quarter of the colony of Natal and a hundred miles of railway were in the hands of the enemy.  Five distinct actions had been fought, none of them perhaps coming within the fair meaning of a battle.  Of these one had been a distinct British victory, two had been indecisive, one had been unfortunate, and one had been a positive disaster.  We had lost about twelve hundred prisoners and a battery of small guns.  The Boers had lost two fine guns and three hundred prisoners.  Twelve thousand British troops had been shut up in Ladysmith, and there was no serious force between the invaders and the sea.  Only in those distant transports, where the grimy stokers shoveled and strove, were there hopes for the safety of Natal and the honour of the Empire.  In Cape Colony the loyalists waited with bated breath, knowing well that there was nothing to check a Free State invasion, and that if it came no bounds could be placed upon how far it might advance, or what effect it might have upon the Dutch population.