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In their centre was a pointed hill, at the foot of which stood their camp, with tents and waggons. Opposite our left was a small detached kopje, and beyond that a fairly flat plain, with a river running through it, and the railway beyond Elands Laagte Station. Their three guns stood on the rocky ridge to our right of their camp two together half-way down, one a little higher up.

Just behind me a battery was rumbling along. A little knot of the staff was close by, and we were all just preparing to halt. We stood on the Newcastle road, north of the town, not far from our first position at the Elands Laagte battle of the Saturday before.

Except perhaps at the close of Elands Laagte fight, or in one brief assault of Turks upon a Greek position in Epirus, I have never heard anything to compare to the rifle fire under which the withdrawal was conducted. The range was long, but the roll of the rifle was incessant. The whole air screamed with bullets, and the dust rose in clouds over the grass as they fell.

He was riding his famous white horse, "Kruger," which we captured after the fight at Elands Laagte. One side of this bony animal is dyed khaki colour with Condy's fluid, as is the fashion with white horses. But the other side is left white for want of material. Mr. Lynch showed me with pride a great white umbrella he had secured. Round it he had written, "Advt. Dept.

At Eland's Laagte a very promising coal field is being worked, from which great and important results are expected in the future.

"You'd never take him for a lord," said an Irish sergeant, "he seems quite a nice gentleman." Equally sad was the loss of Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons. A spent bullet struck him in the back as he was leaving camp. The wound is mortal, and he had only just recovered from his wound at Elands Laagte. So the fight began. The official estimate of the Boers who gained the top is 600.

And beyond this power of mind he possessed the attractiveness of courtesy and straightforward dealing. No one ever knew him descend to the tricks and dodges of the trade. There was not a touch of "smartness" in his disposition. On the field he was too reckless of his life. I saw him often during the fighting at Elands Laagte, Tinta Inyoni, and Lombard's Kop.

I have never seen it so clear the precipitous barrier of the Basuto mountains, lined with cloud, and still touched with snow: the great sculptured mountains that mark the Free State border: and then the scenes which have become so familiar to us all Elands Laagte, Tinta Inyoni, Pepworth Hill, Lombard's Kop, and the great Bulwan.

At Elands Laagte I saw him with a rifle fighting side by side with the Gordons. He went through the battle in their firing line, but he told me afterwards that the horror of the field had sickened him of war. In manner he was peculiarly frank and courteous. I can imagine no one speaking ill of him. His best epitaph perhaps is the saying of the Irish sergeant's which I have already quoted.

But one russet afternoon we were in Richmond, and a terrible type was shouting himself hoarse with "'Eavy British lorsses orful slorter o' the Bo-wers! Orful slorter! Orful slorter! 'Eavy British lorsses!" I thought the terrible type had invented it, but Raffles gave him more than he asked, and then I held the bicycle while he tried to pronounce Eland's Laagte.