To this three batteries replied, two of which were soon moved down to the town side of the donga.

The artillery duel, at a range of 2,000 to 3,000 yards, continued until toward eight o'clock, when the Boers ceased firing, and General Symons gave the order to prepare for the assault.
Difficult as was the task, and inferior though the assailants were in number, the conditions were {p.043} such that the weak garrison of Dundee had no prospect of ultimate escape, unless they could rout the enemy with which they were engaged before the co-operating body from the north arrived.
While the action was in its early stages, at 10 A.M., scouts reported a large force approaching along the railroad.

The small detachment left to guard the British camp moved out to meet and, if possible, to delay this new enemy.

Besides the purely local conditions, it was essential, in the general plan of campaign, during the waiting period of inferiority, while their reinforcements were still on the sea, that the British should risk much to demoralise and daunt an enemy who, whatever their advantages otherwise, had not that military training and cohesion which facilitates rapid recovery from a reverse.

Whatever the first mistake of advancing their position so far, it is impossible to withhold admiration from the rapidity and energy of the measures taken in the first fortnight of the campaign.
It was a dull, drizzling morning when the line of hungry British soldiers leaped from the donga {p.044} and rushed for the wood; their batteries to the right and left sending a rapid continuous iron fire over their heads upon the hill-top, whence the Boers rained down lead upon their advance.