The infantry, under a fire at from six hundred to eight hundred paces, could not advance and would not retire.

The artillery only kept the battle going, and the huge naval gun from behind was joining with its deep bark in the deafening uproar.

But the Boers had already learned--and it is one of their most valuable military qualities that they assimilate their experience so quickly--that shell fire is less dangerous in a trench than among rocks.

These trenches, very elaborate in character, had been dug some hundreds of yards from the foot of the hills, so that there was hardly any guide to our artillery fire.

Yet it is to the artillery fire that all the losses of the Boers that day were due.