our own investment. From the town very heavy rifle fire was directed upon the fort, which the Boers in that quarter returned with spirit and determination. But the position in the stadt had become acute, since, behind our outposts and our inner chain of forts, which are situated upon its exterior border, were a rollicking, roving band of four hundred Boers, who, for the time being, were indulging in pillage and destruction wherever it was possible. [Illustration: The British South Africa Police Fort, Colonel Hore's Headquarters. _The Bomb-proof shelter in the foreground was the Colonel's refuge during the enemy's shell fire._] Gradually, however, the situation changed. The rifle fire from the town had forced the Boers back from the limits of the stadt adjacent to the fort, enabling Inspector Murray and a troop of the Cape Police and Lieutenant Feltham with his troop of C Squadron to fight their way to this same border, affording to the town a definite and established barrier against any possible communication between the enemy in the fort and the Boers in the stadt. Skirmishing thenceforward progressed over the entire area of the stadt. Major Godley, with Captain Marsh and Captain Fitzclarence, and B and D Squadrons, effectively supported by the Baralongs, chevied and rounded up the Boers from point to point, until, shortly after noon, they took up a strong position in a mule kraal and upon the facings of some neighbouring kopjes. To dislodge these men was the work to which Major Godley now directed his attention, and, manoeuvring carefully and with discretion, he surrounded the position upon three sides and emplaced a seven-pounder under Lieutenant Daniel, of the British South Africa Police, within two hundred yards of the kopje. The enemy were now compelled to fight or to surrender, and, refusing the request to surrender, they fought pluckily, and with such stubbornness that they kept Major Godley's men some time at bay. But, gradually drawing his circle closer, he poured in a few terrific volleys and charged the position at the point of the bayonet. There was a rapid volley from the Boers, but it was of no avail, and, as the glistening steel was poised for a moment over the walls of the kraal, a flutter of white from the interior betokened that at least this body of the enemy had surrendered. Major Godley then proceeded to shell the kopjes, but the Boers at this point were not proposing to increase by their numbers those of the twenty-five who had laid down their arms in the mule kraal. They scattered and broke into the stadt, fighting from hut to hut, from rock to rock, from snug hollows to the broken points of the many rugged mounds which characterise the configuration of the stadt. These skirmishes continued, and Major Godley contrived to drive the scattered Boers in the direction of Captain Lord Charles Bentinck, who, so conducting his operations, managed to hem the enemy in between the fire of Major Godley and that of his own men.