The Boer loss, though the extent of it is unknown, was probably
comparatively slight, as they got away before our infantry came fairly
into touch with them. The action is described as a victory, and so, in a
sense, it is; but it is not the sort of victory we should like to have
every day of the week. We carried the position, but they hit us hardest.
On the whole, probably both sides are fairly satisfied, which must be
rare in battles and is very gratifying.
Our mounted men, Guides, 9th Lancers, and a few Mounted Infantry,
marched out an hour before dawn. A line of kopjes stood up before us,
rising out of the bare plain like islands out of the sea, and as we
rounded the point and opened up the inner semicircle of hills, we could
distinguish the white waggon tops of the Boer laager in a deep niche in
the hillside, and see the men collecting and mounting and galloping
about. By-and-by, as we advanced, there came a singing noise, and
suddenly a great pillar of red dust shot up out of the ground a little
to our left. "That's a most extraordinary thing," thinks I, deeply
interested, "what land whale of these plains blows sand up in that
fashion?" Then I saw several heads turned in that direction, and heard
some one say something about a shell, and finally I succeeded in
grasping, not without a thrill, the meaning of the phenomenon.
The infantry attack came off on the opposite side of the ridge from
where we were, and we could see nothing of it.
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