The Boers, Who Had Several Guns With Them,
Appear To Have Been The Same Force Which Had Been Repulsed At
Winburg.
Major White, a gallant marine, whose fighting qualities do
not seem to have deteriorated with his distance from salt water,
had arranged his defences upon a hill, after the Wepener model, and
held his own most stoutly.
So great was the disparity of the forces
that for days acute anxiety was felt lest another of those
humiliating surrenders should interrupt the record of victories,
and encourage the Boers to further resistance. The point was
distant, and it was some time before relief could reach them. But
the dusky chiefs, who from their native mountains looked down on
the military drama which was played so close to their frontier,
were again, as on the Jammersberg, to see the Boer attack beaten
back by the constancy of the British defence. The thin line of
soldiers, 150 of them covering a mile and a half of ground, endured
a heavy shell and rifle fire with unshaken resolution, repulsed
every attempt of the burghers, and held the flag flying until
relieved by the forces under White and Bruce Hamilton. In this
march to the relief Hamilton's infantry covered eighty miles in
four and a half days. Lean and hard, inured to warfare, and far
from every temptation of wine or women, the British troops at this
stage of the campaign were in such training, and marched so
splendidly, that the infantry was often very little slower than the
cavalry.
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