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There used to be a pack of them in a big kopje not far from our place, and they would come down and make raids upon the farm till we had to make it too hot for them with small-shot, and then they went right away." "They don't like to see those horses dragged in," replied Denham. "Not used to it," I said. "There, they are going back into hiding now."
Our farm where we lived in the Transkei was not very far from the ocean; indeed, any one seated in the kopje or little hill at the back of the house, from the very top of which bubbles a spring of fresh water, can see the great rollers striking the straight cliffs of the shore and spouting into the air in clouds of white foam.
"Yes, perhaps there are," I said, "at a guess." "Well, isn't that being of use to the British General? We're keeping these fellows fully occupied, so that they can't be harassing his flanks and rear with all this mob of sharpshooters, who know well how to use their rifles." "I say," I cried, "what's the matter yonder?" "Nothing! Where?" "Look at the baboons right at the far end of the kopje.
Two well-planned and energetic night attacks were made upon the enemy's siege batteries on the 8th of December at Gun Hill, a kopje pertaining to Lombard's Kop, and on the 10th at Surprise Hill, north of the town, towards Nicholson's Nek. The former, executed chiefly by Natal colonial forces, resulted in destroying a 6-inch gun and a 4.7-inch howitzer.
Lord Chesham, who was in command, was sitting on the kopje with his staff, and I climbed up and joined them, the cavalry remaining as before underneath the hill while the scouts went out. We sat for an hour, comparing each other's glasses, until the stones became hotter and hotter and the sky line began to wave in the heat.
Just as I walked up to their big 4.7 in. gun on the kopje close to the Newcastle road, a shell came right through our battery's earthwork, without bursting. Lieutenant Egerton, R.N., was lying close under the barrel of our gun, and both his legs were shattered. The doctors amputated one at the thigh, the other at the shin.
To the right of this rise, at a distance of 80 paces, was a small kloof overgrown with bushes, and on the other side of the kloof ran a reef of rocks in the direction of the white kopje.
The thunder had rolled away like a bad dream. The long level silver shafts of the dawn were flooding the heights, raindrops glittered like diamonds on every kopje and karroo bush, leaving the deep donga bathed in the solemn pall of mysterious night.
Why, if you were to come along here in a few weeks' time ye'd be trampling them underfoot they'd be so thick, such flowers as only grow here, on the top of the world." "The top of the world!" She looked at him as if startled. "Is that what you call this place?" He laughed. "Ye don't believe me! Well, wait wait and see!" She turned her horse's head, and began to walk round the kopje.
I remember it well; a wet night, and all night long we sat on a steep kopje watching the lights of a Boer laager and expecting to be attacked.
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