With the dawn it was found that the Boer riflemen were within eight hundred yards, and from then till evening a constant fire was maintained upon the hill.

The Boer, however, save when the odds are all in his favour, is not, in spite of his considerable personal bravery, at his best in attack.

His racial traditions, depending upon the necessity for economy of human life, are all opposed to it.

As a consequence two regiments well posted were able to hold them off all day with a loss which did not exceed thirty killed and wounded, while the enemy, exposed to the shrapnel of the 42nd battery, as well as the rifle-fire of the infantry, must have suffered very much more severely.

The result of the action was a well-grounded belief that in daylight there was very little chance of the Boers being able to carry the lines.