for that was the moment when your enemy was probably utterly exhausted too, and of two such forces the attacker has the moral advantage.  Lord Methuen determined—­and no doubt wisely—­that it was no occasion for counsels of desperation.  His men were withdrawn—­in some cases withdrew themselves—­outside the range of the Boer guns, and next morning saw the whole force with bitter and humiliated hearts on their way back to their camp at Modder River.

The repulse of Magersfontein cost the British nearly a thousand men, killed, wounded, and missing, of which over seven hundred belonged to the Highlanders.  Fifty-seven officers had fallen in that brigade alone, including their Brigadier and Colonel Downman of the Gordons.  Colonel Codrington of the Coldstreams was wounded early, fought through the action, and came back in the evening on a Maxim gun.  Lord Winchester of the same battalion was killed, after injudiciously but heroically exposing himself all day.  The Black Watch alone had lost nineteen officers and over three hundred men killed and wounded, a catastrophe which can only be matched in all the bloody and glorious annals of that splendid regiment by their slaughter at Ticonderoga in 1757, when no fewer than five hundred fell before Montcalm’s muskets.  Never has Scotland had a more grievous day than this of Magersfontein.  She has always given her best blood with lavish generosity for the Empire, but it may be doubted if any single battle has ever put so many families of high and low into mourning from the Tweed to the Caithness shore.  There is a legend that when sorrow comes upon Scotland the old Edinburgh Castle is lit by ghostly lights and gleams white at every window in the mirk of midnight.  If ever the watcher could have seen so sinister a sight, it should have been on this, the fatal night of December 11, 1899.  As to the Boer loss it is impossible to determine it.  Their official returns stated it to be seventy killed and two hundred and fifty wounded, but the reports of prisoners and deserters placed it at a very much higher figure.  One unit, the Scandinavian corps, was placed in an advanced position at Spytfontein, and was overwhelmed by the Seaforths, who killed, wounded, or took the eighty men of whom it was composed.  The stories of prisoners and of deserters all speak of losses very much higher than those which have been officially acknowledged.

In his comments upon the battle next day Lord Methuen was said to have given offence to the Highland Brigade, and the report was allowed to go uncontradicted until it became generally accepted.  It arose, however, from a complete misunderstanding of the purport of Lord Methuen’s remarks, in which he praised them, as he well might, for their bravery, and condoled with them over the wreck of their splendid regiments.  The way in which officers and men hung on under conditions to which no troops have ever been exposed was worthy of the highest traditions of the British army.