At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were clustering round the base of the ridge, and threading their way, rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and scattered boulders which cover the slope of the hill.

Some working parties were moving guns into position, and the noise of their labour helped to drown the sound of the Boer advance.

Both at Caesar's Camp, the east end of the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end (the points being, I repeat, three miles apart), the attack came as a complete surprise.

The outposts were shot or driven in, and the stormers were on the ridge almost as soon as their presence was detected.

The line of rocks blazed with the flash of their guns.
Caesar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters, aided by a Colt automatic gun.