Lord Methuen resolved upon making a frontal attack in full force on this stronghold, so as to drive the Boers out and clear the road to the Diamond City, now suffering acutely the miseries of a siege. Before making the attack, he resolved to shell the Boer position with all his artillery and the great naval gun which had been dragged up to a ridge overlooking the kopje occupied by the enemy, at ranges varying between six thousand and eight thousand yards. The bombardment while it lasted was a severe one. An eye-witness of the scene says: 'The shells tore through the air with precisely the noise of an express train rushing at highest speed, and when they burst they seemed to envelop an acre of ground in heavy brown smoke, which lifted and floated over the kopje as if it were a mass of pulverised earth. The noise of each discharge was like the bark of a monster bulldog, and the bursting of each shell sounded like the cough of a giant.' It is believed that the lyddite {184} shells fell among the Boers several times during the afternoon, but it is doubtful if the damage done was sufficient to cause them to shift their position. The naval gun remained on the ridge all night, and defined the extreme left of the next day's battle-ground. This ground extended from the railway where the gun stood, across the veldt to the river and along its northern bank for two miles, or about four miles from the railway to near the Kimberley road. It was covered--ridges and level veldt alike--with bushes, or shapely little trees from four to seven feet high, of round, full form, and pretty dense foliage. In such a veldt as this the Boers had two miles of trenches in front of their strongly fortified heights, well packed with riflemen. And not only so; but to make the approach more difficult, lines of barbed-wire fencing were run across the veldt parallel with the trenches.