At last the cannon from the mountain fired a few shots, but stopped again almost immediately--why, I do not yet know. So we were obliged to lie in our positions. It was terribly hot, and not a cloud in the sky. We suffered horribly from thirst, and scarcely dared move to get at our water-bags. One of our comrades lay groaning behind me. He was shot through both legs. The bullets kept flying over our heads to the kopje behind us, where some of our burghers lay firing at the enemy. Every now and again a bullet exploded in our neighbourhood with the noise of a pistol-shot. I fancy only Dum-Dums make that peculiar noise. We had already seen many such bullets taken from the enemy by our burghers in the Battle of Modderspruit. Another burgher, Mulder, ran past me with a smile on his lips, threw himself behind an ant-hill, immediately rose again with the intention of joining some of our burghers in the front ranks, who sat calmly smoking behind some rocks under a tree, but had not gone two paces when he was shot in the thigh. There he had to lie groaning until our brave Reineke, who was killed later on at Spion Kop, saw a chance of carrying him away. Some of us fell asleep from fatigue. One of our men on waking heard the hiss of a bullet over his head at regular intervals, and thought that a khaki had got closer up to him, and was firing at him from the side. When he lifted his head he found that he had rolled away from all cover. One, two, three, back he was again behind his ant-hill, and the scoundrel stopped firing at him. It was lucky for us that the enemy were such bad shots, or not many of us would have lived to tell the tale. When our cannon at last, towards evening, condescended to bombard the enemy, the firing almost wholly ceased, and we made use of that favourable opportunity to get back to the donga. We had lain nine hours behind those ant-hills, and, strange to say, there were only two wounded on our side. We decided not to run the same risk again. In this way we lost our confidence in men like the brothers Erasmus, General and Commandant, who, in the first place, were incapable of organizing a good plan of attack, and, secondly, never took part in a battle. The months spent near Ladysmith were to most of us the most tedious of the whole war. We had so little to do, and the heat between the glowing rocks of the kopjes was awful. The little work we had was anything but pleasant; it consisted chiefly in keeping guard either by day or by night. In the beginning a very bad watch was kept. Later on we had to climb the kopje at least every alternate evening to pass the long nights in our positions, while not far behind us stood our empty tents.