establishment of the South African Republic, and declared that till Sir Owen Lanyon's reply to the proclamation was received, and they were aware whether war was or was not declared, they could not allow the progress of troops. The Colonel's reply was plain. He was ordered to proceed to Pretoria, and proceed he would. Then, before Colonel Anstruther had rejoined his column, a volley was poured in on them by the farmers, who, emerging from the cover of rocks and trees, had gradually closed round the troops. A vigorous but short resistance followed. The Boers, skilled by long practice in marking their most cherished enemies, picked off the officers one by one. Seven out of nine dropped to their guns, while a perpetual hailstorm of bullets beat over men, women, and waggons. In a few minutes so many were disabled that the Colonel, himself mortally wounded, had to surrender. Out of the party 56 were killed and 101 wounded. One of these was a woman. A great deal was said at the time by British sympathisers of the kindness of the Boers to the prisoners and wounded of their antagonists; but the opinions of Mr. Rider Haggard and Sir Owen Lanyon are worth considering. The former, in writing of this engagement, says that "after the fight Conductor Egerton, with a sergeant, was allowed to walk into Pretoria to obtain medical assistance, the Boers refusing to give him a horse, or even allow him to use his own.... I may mention that a Zulu driver, who was with the rear-guard, and escaped into Natal, stated that the Boers shot all the wounded men who formed that body. His statement was to a certain extent borne out by the evidence of one of the survivors, who stated that all the bodies found in that part of the field, nearly three-quarters of a mile away from the head of the column, had a bullet-hole through the head or breast, in addition to their other wounds." The Administrator of the Transvaal in Council thus comments on the occurrence in an official minute: "The surrounding and gradual hemming in under a flag of truce of a force, and the selection of spots from which to direct their fire, as in the case of the unprovoked attack of the rebels upon Colonel Anstruther's force, is a proceeding of which very few like incidents can be mentioned in the annals of civilised warfare."