This must be ascribed to the negligence of Com-
mandant Nel, who had orders to guard the kop. He
excused himself by assuring us that he had been under
the impression that one of his Veldtcornets and a
number of burghers were occupying the hill.

What could we do now?

Commandant Steenekamp and I decided that we
must storm the hill with the three hundred men
whom we had at our disposal. And this we did, and
were sufficiently fortunate to capture the northern
point of the kop.

On reaching the summit we discovered that the
British troops occupied positions extending from the
southern point to the middle of the mountain.

The enemy, the moment we appeared on the ridge,
opened a heavy rifle fire upon us. We answered with
as severe a fusillade as theirs. Whilst we were shoot-
ing, twenty of Commandant Nel's men joined us and
helped us to hold our ground. When we had been
engaged in this way for some time we saw that the
only possible course was to fight our way from posi-
tion to position towards the English lines.

I now observed that the mountain top was of an
oblong shape, extending from north to south for
about a thousand paces. At the northern end, where
we were, the surface was smooth, but somewhat
further south it became rough and stony, affording
very good cover. In our present situation we were
thus almost completely exposed to the enemy's fire.
The English, on the other hand, had excellent posi-
tions. There were a number of ruined Kaffir kraals
scattered about from the middle of the mountain to
its southern end, and these the enemy had occupied,
thus securing a great advantage.

Our bullets hailed on the English, and very shortly
they retreated to the southernmost point of the
mountain. This gave us the chance for which we
had been waiting, for now we could take the splendid
positions they had left.

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