an opportunity to get away unseen. They give no hostages to fortune by
taking any risks that can be avoided. The game of long bowls and sniping
suits them best. When one place gets too hot for them to pot quickly at
our men without risk of being potted in turn, they will steal away one
by one, wriggling their way between boulders, creeping under cover of
bushes, doing anything rather than show themselves as targets for other
men's rifles.

[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF POSITIONS ROUND LADYSMITH, NOVEMBER 1899]

They have made the most of physical features, that in this country lend
themselves to such tactics, by occupying hills with heavy artillery, in
front of which are rough kopjes strewed with trap rock, and round
these the Boer riflemen can always move for advance or retirement well
screened from our fire. They have, however, to reckon sometimes with the
far-reaching power of shrapnel shells. When they ignore that we may
manage to catch them in a cluster.

So it happened to-day. After being beaten off from the direct attack on
Observation Hill they began feeling round its left flank by way of
kopjes, between which and our outposts there is a long bare nek, and in
rear of that the railway line to Van Reenan's Pass runs through a deep
cutting with open ground beyond. To effect a turning movement of any
significance the Boers had choice of two things: either they must show
themselves on spurs where there was scant cover, or take to the cutting;
and we knew by experience which they would prefer. In anticipation of
such a development one field-battery had been placed on the rough slope
that juts northward from Range Post, through which runs the main road to
Colenso in the south and to several of the Drakensberg passes in the
west. Up through a gorge deeply fretted by Klip River this battery