One who had met the troops as they staggered down has told me how far they were from being routed.

In mixed array, but steadily and in order, the long thin line trudged through the darkness.
Their parched lips would not articulate, but they whispered 'Water! Where is water ?' as they toiled upon their way.

At the bottom of the hill they formed into regiments once more, and marched back to the camp.
In the morning the blood-spattered hill-top, with its piles of dead and of wounded, were in the hands of Botha and his men, whose valour and perseverance deserved the victory which they had won.

There is no doubt now that at 3 A.M.of that morning Botha, knowing that the Rifles had carried Burger's position, regarded the affair as hopeless, and that no one was more astonished than he when he found, on the report of two scouts, that it was a victory and not a defeat which had come to him.
How shall we sum up such an action save that it was a gallant attempt, gallantly carried out, and as gallantly met?
On both sides the results of artillery fire during the war have been disappointing, but at Spion Kop beyond all question it was the Boer guns which won the action for them.

So keen was the disappointment at home that there was a tendency to criticise the battle with some harshness, but it is difficult now, with the evidence at our command, to say what was left undone which could have altered the result.