from inferiority in numbers, though they were out-fought by sheer weight of the Boer commandoes and guns, still they displayed an undismayed front, and those superb fighting qualities which tradition has taught us to look for in the British race, and which the enemy, misled or self-deceived, had chosen to under-estimate. It was also a matter for congratulation that the foe, with all the natural advantages of the situation, his knowledge of every inch of the ground, his great mobility and advanced preparations, merely succeeded in repelling the British attack, and never took the initiative in attempting one single forward movement in the face of the British army. But it must be allowed our own forward moves were so stubbornly resisted, that General Sir William Gatacre, while attempting to advance, recognised that in some bold and well-conceived plan of action lay his only chance of success. Such a plan he attempted to carry out, but with deplorable results, as we shall see. THE REVERSE AT STORMBERG General Gatacre left Putter's Kraal and concentrated at Molteno the 2nd Northumberland, 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, and Nos. 74 and 77 Batteries of Field Artillery, with Mounted Infantry, Cape Mounted Rifles, the 12th Company of Engineers, and details--in all about 2500 men. At 9 P.M. on December 9th, began the march that was destined to be so ill-fated. The night was black, the ground was rocky, and the guide, a local policeman, from ignorance, under-estimated the distance and led the troops by a circuitous route absolutely into the teeth of the enemy. Instead of going north-east for nine miles, the men were led north-west, a detour of twenty miles. A terrible night-march this, which none who undertook it can ever forget. Tramp, tramp, through the long midnight hours, over hills and down nullahs, through rivers and stumbling over stony kopjes with bayonets fixed, in grim silence, with scarce a whisper allowed, and with never a pipe as consolation lest the scent should betray the stealthy advance. For seven long hours the force, like a phantom procession, trudged and stumbled until they came to a small V-shaped plateau surrounded by kopjes, which, unknown to them, was fronting the enemy's position. This was on a high unscalable eminence called Rooi Kop, that jutted black against the clear grey of early morning. From here the Boers, chuckling doubtless at their own cunning, were slyly watching the approach of the party; for it was now dawn. On nearing the plateau below this eminence, the Irish Rifles, with General Gatacre and his staff at the head of the column, were greeted, to their astonishment, by a fierce tornado which was suddenly opened by the enemy on the right. Though the column was marching in fours and utterly unsuspicious of the position of the enemy, they gathered themselves together with marvellous rapidity. Following the Rifles were over a hundred of the Northumberland Fusiliers, and in the rear the artillery.