"_April 8_, 7 A.M.--As I write, with my back against the trench, we have reached the fifth day of the noisy concert without any appreciable result, except that we have expended most of our ammunition. Not a gun has been dismounted, not an inch of our long line of defence (ten miles, about) been yielded to the enemy; but about 150 gallant fellows, mostly gentlemen by birth, of the Colonial Division, are _hors de combat_, and we are still looking and longing to see the relief columns of Kitchener or Gatacre appear on the horizon.... While sitting chatting with Captain Cholmondley, I saw across the ravine my own squadron, 'M,' descending rapidly into the valley to reoccupy the rifle-pits which Ruttledge had vacated at daylight, and exposed to a heavy shrapnel fire. I scrambled down the ridge and joined them at the pits, but had scarcely got my men posted, when Cookson was seen coming towards us at a mad gallop. My orders were to leave one troop (Ruttledge's) in the rifle-pits, and take the other three to support Colonel Dalgety, who was hard pressed on our left rear. I should have to cross a plain swept by the Boer fire. "When I had climbed up the steep ravine on the top of the main ridge we found all our horses hidden away in a fold of the ground. To mount was the work of a minute, and then we were launched on our mad gallop across a plain swept by Boer Maxim and rifle fire. I led, and the men followed most gallantly into the 'jaws of death.' Nothing but annihilation seemed to await us; but on we swept over that mile and a half like wild men, an excited American, constantly by my side and sometimes ahead of me, shouting, 'In the joy of battle.' It was, I think, the most exciting quarter of an hour I have spent in my adventurous life. My horse was going at racing pace, when suddenly I came upon a kranze, down which I leaped in fox-hunting style. I thought this would finish all my bad riders; but although they tailed off somewhat into a longer line than the open order I had ordered, they were still in the ruck, and we all came together somewhat too closely at a wire fence, which brought us to a standstill. Having negotiated this, we came upon another similar one, which we all got through somehow. All this time the little columns of dust were rising all round and constantly under my horse's belly. Again we were brought up by a deep donga, along which we had to turn to our right and skirt it till it was negotiable, where the banks had been cut down on each side for the horses of the C.M.R. to cross. I made then for a group of dismounted horses held in shelter behind a strong causeway. Here was Dalgety, to whom I reported myself. In a few minutes the Boers brought another gun into position,