Crossing the open valley in front I came to the long ridge called Observation Hill. There the rifle fire hardly ever ceases. It is held by three companies of the K.R.R. and the 5th Lancers dismounted. It looks out over the long valley of Bell's Spruit; that scene of the great disaster where we lost our battalions, being less than three miles away at the foot of the rugged mountain beyond--Surprise Hill. Close in front is one of the two farms called Hyde's, and there the Boers find shelter at nights and in rain. The farm's orchard, its stone walls, the rocks, and all points of cover swarm with Boer sharpshooters, and whenever our men show themselves upon the ridge the bullets fly. An immense quantity of them are lost. In all the morning's firing only one Lancer had been wounded. As I came over the edge the bullets all passed over my head, but our men have to keep behind cover if they can, and only return the fire when they are sure of a mark. I found a detachment of Lancers, with a corporal, lying behind a low stone wall. It happened to be exactly the place I had wished to find, for at one end of the wall stood the Lancer dummy, whose fame has gone through the camp. There he stood, regarding the Dutch with a calm but defiant aspect, his head and shoulders projecting about three feet over the wall. His legs were only a sack stuffed with straw, but round his straw body a beautiful khaki tunic had been buttoned, and his straw head was protected by a regulation helmet, for which a slouch hat was sometimes substituted, to give variety and versimilitude. In his right hand he grasped a huge branch of a tree, either as rifle or lance. He was withdrawn occasionally, and stuck up again in a fresh attitude. To please me the corporal crept behind him and jogged him up and down in a life-like and scornful manner. The hope was that the Boers would send a bullet through that heart of straw. In the afternoon they did in fact pierce his hat, but at the time they were keeping their ammunition for something more definitely human, like myself. As I retired, after saluting the dummy for his courage, the bullets flew again, but the sights were still too high. [Illustration: BULWAN]