_January 26._--The Boers are back in their former laagers. There is no sound of fighting this side of the Tugela, only a few shells falling on Spion Kop, where Boer tents can be seen once more whitening the steep. We need no heliograph signal to tell us the meaning of all this. For us there is to be another sickening period of hope deferred; but we try to hide our dejection, and persuade the anxious townsfolk that it is only a necessary pause while General Buller brings up his big guns and transport. _January 28._--It is now no longer possible to conceal the fact that the fight on Spion Kop ended in another reverse for General Buller, though from our side it seemed as if he had the enemy beaten and demoralised. It is now published in orders that he captured the heights with part of one brigade which, however, retired after General Woodgate was wounded, when the Boers retook it. From Kaffir runners we hear another version which makes out that our troops were complete masters of the situation if there had been any one in command at that moment, with a soldier's genius, prompt to take advantage of the enemy's discomfiture. Had reinforcements been sent up in time Spion Kop need never have been abandoned, and Buller might have kept the key to Ladysmith which was then in his hands. Not another position between him and us remained for the Boers to make a stand on. He would then have outflanked and made untenable the entrenched heights facing Colenso. But perhaps he was anxious about his own line of communications. We only know that he has gone back, and the work accomplished at much sacrifice of life must be done over again from some other point.