and even some prisoners had been left behind in the scuttle. Next day it
passed without effort into the possession of a small body of Free
Staters, who were astonished to find it abandoned.

Meanwhile Yule after the failure of his movement on Glencoe found his
position insecure and reluctantly resolved to retire on Ladysmith,
although it entailed leaving not only his supplies and ammunition but
also his wounded behind him. The victory of Talana had indeed been won
but the victors were exhausted by it and unfit to stand up to Erasmus on
Impati. It became necessary for Yule to disappear immediately and
stealthily.

On October 23 soon after midnight the maimed and harassed force slipped
quietly away and trudged wearily to the south. When the mist rolling
aside next morning disclosed the evacuation the Transvaalers on Impati
occupied the town almost simultaneously with the reoccupation of
Elandslaagte by their allies the Free Staters; and thus the battlefields
of two British victories were redeemed by the defeated. It is no
reproach to Yule that military necessity compelled him to leave behind
the wounded of Talana Hill. The death of Symons on October 23 was a
pathetic episode of the Natal Campaign. He passed away of his mortal
wound while the Boers were looting the camp in which he was lying and
wondering, in the rare intervals of conscious thought, why the troops
whom he had led so gallantly had been taken from him; and for half a
year his grave lay lonely in the enemy's country before another British
soldier could stand beside it.

The retreat of Yule's force was effected without more trouble than that
which was caused by the nature of the country and the alternations of
the climate. Van Tonder's Pass--a difficult defile which would have been