The parts of the country that we now passed through had not yet been destroyed by the enemy, but everywhere else the houses and farms were burnt and ruined in the most barbarous way. We were very anxious, therefore, to cut off the enemy's advance. They were camped to the north-west of Boesmanskop. A strong Boer guard occupied this kopje--the, only one in the neighbourhood; for the rest, the surroundings were the ordinary Hoogeveld with its mounds. We pushed up in a long line over a 'bult' that ran north-west of Boesmanskop. Our guns--only a few, as most had been sent away to be repaired--stood on top of this mound without any cover. Lieutenant Odendaal, a very brave gunner, did not like kopjes, but always placed his cannon on a mound, as the enemy's guns always fired too short or too long on account of the misleading distances. They did so in this instance, and the bombs flew far beyond us. Corporal Botman ordered me to stay with the horses at the foot of the 'bult,' while the burghers crept on to the top a few hundred paces further, expecting eventually to charge the enemy. Suddenly I heard, twice over, a noise like that of a train in the distance. My brother told me afterwards how he had seen a detachment of the enemy storming Boesmanskop, and how the burghers waited until they were close by, and then beat them back completely with a twice-repeated salvo. For some time the guns of the enemy ceased firing, because, as I heard later on, Lieutenant Odendaal had shot down the gunners. When they made themselves heard again, they were more accurate in their aim; I most narrowly escaped the bombs. Four or five thundered around me in quick succession, as I fell and stooped and grasped the bridles of the rearing horses. Some of the horses pulled the bridles out of my hands and raced down the valley. But the left wing of the enemy was surrounding us, and, like a swarm of birds that rise on the wing, the burghers fled back in among the tethered and the straying horses, and retreated as fast as they could. The enemy now bombarded Boesmanskop, so that the retreating burghers in the valley had a bad time of it with the bombs flying over their heads. Many waggons of Boer families, fleeing for their lives, were pushing along the sides of the long mounds, and the enemy's bombs burst in their midst more than once--perhaps accidentally, perhaps because they knew that 'the Boer nation must be swept off the face of the earth.'