tops only of their black heads peeping over the rocks as they took aim, and disappearing again as instantaneously as the flash of their guns. Showers of balls whistled past us, with the peculiar _ping, whit_, so well known to those who have been under fire; as we mounted, we returned their fire with steady well-directed volleys every time their heads were seen above the parapet of rocks, and deployed into line under a rattling fire, and the fight begun in earnest. A private fell shot in the foot. For a quarter of an hour there was an incessant roar of musketry and whistling of bullets. As we neared the top, scrambling with hands and knees up the crags, which were now discovered to be of enormous size, and in places insurmountable; the fire became hotter, the balls striking the ground and sending the earth and gravel flying in our faces. One man fell shot through the arm and side; I passed another sitting on the ground wounded in several places, and two more awaiting the surgeon's aid; one with a shattered hand and the other a wound in the head, his face deluged with blood. Lieutenant Bruce received a shot in the arm, and a sixth man fell badly wounded in the leg. [Illustration: 74^{TH} HIGHLANDERS STORMING THE AMATOLAS.] The men's mess-tins and folded coats were grazed and torn on every side, and their firelocks shattered in their hands; in one or two instances the barrels were perforated as though they had been soft lead. Under this fire we sent out two companies in skirmishing order, and climbing from rock to rock, exchanging shots with the enemy at close quarters, crowned the ridge with a cheer, and carried the position, driving off the defenders, who took refuge in a dense forest a few hundred yards in the rear. We now stood in their fortress, which was scattered with remains of roasted marrow bones and torn cartridge covers, the rocks stained with fresh blood. We were astonished at the strength of the position, which might have been held by a hundred regular troops against such a force as ours, with great loss to the assailants. Towards this forest (of fine timber, the first we had seen in the country), we quickly advanced across the intervening belt of turf-covered table-land. Here again they had the advantage of position; for unseen themselves, they opened a severe fire on us, killing one of our non-commissioned officers at the first volley, the ball passing right through his heart. Our Colonel and the Major very narrowly escaped, a bullet cutting through the clothes of the former by the waist; while the Major's haversac was shot through. Two more men fell wounded, and another, shot through the brain, dropped dead without a groan. The word _forward_ was given by our gallant Colonel, who himself set the example, and we dashed into the wood under a rattling fire, and gave them another volley, which must have told severely; for though they always carry off their dead and wounded to prevent their