Hussars went forward in support of the Imperial Horse, galloping like scattered bands of Red Indians across the green veldt, where a spruit runs down to Klip River, until they had passed the zone of hostile fire, and then re-forming squadrons with a precision that was very pretty to watch. Other cavalry were in reserve, massed behind folds of the undulating slopes hidden from some Boer guns and beyond the effective range of others. There was force enough for any work in hand, but not quite of the right composition. To drive Boer riflemen off a rough ridge along which they can retire from one position, when it gets too hot for them, to another, nothing will do but infantry of some sort, and preferably with a bayonet sting left in them for final emergencies. This was an occasion of all others when infantry regiments might have changed the whole course of events to our advantage, but for some reason they had been left in camp. For nearly three hours our batteries shelled the Boer kopjes, expending much ammunition with perceptible effect on the brown boulders and presumably on anything animate that might be hidden behind them; we watched many Boers gallop away in haste across the plain, as if unable to stand the leaden hail longer, and one of our batteries advancing boldly got into position, whence it should have enfiladed that of the enemy and wrought havoc among their horses if any were concealed in the adjacent hollows. What effect the terrific shrapnel fire really produced we had no means of knowing. Hardly a Boer showed himself while that hurricane of bullets fell, but when General Brocklehurst meditated an assault on the hill his troops were met by a furious rifle fire. The ninety Imperial Light Horsemen of Colonel Edwardes's command were obviously too few to dislodge the Boers from the ground they had held so stubbornly. Further waste of artillery ammunition seemed useless, and the time for employing cavalry to any purpose had not come. We therefore had the chagrin of watching another force retire without accomplishing its object, and most of us felt from that moment grave doubts whether another such chance of breaking the bonds that envelop us could come again until reinforcements were at hand for the relief of Ladysmith. As our troops withdrew they were shelled right and left by Boer guns that had been almost silent until then. Our batteries, aided by Captain Kinnaird-Smith's two Maxim-Nordenfelts, covered the retirement, but they could not put Surprise Hill out of action, or even attempt a reply to the redoubtable "Long Tom" of Pepworth's Hill, who on this occasion surpassed himself by throwing three shells in succession on the road by Range Post Gap from a distance that must be well over 9000 yards. The bit of hilly road where these shells fell and burst is no more than fifty yards long by fifteen wide, and could not have been visible to gunners five or six miles off without the aid of telescopic sights. Yet