Suddenly a cloud of smoke hung over the gun and a shell shrieked through the air. We rapidly speculated upon the amount of damage it would make, when, with noisy force, it burst among us. We thought at first that the shell had fallen short, and we hoped the next would reach the enemy, but when Lieutenant Murchison, who was in charge of the gun, dismissed his second shell, and it was so well directed as to fall upon one of the three huts behind which we were sheltering, the luckless position of D Squadron received unmerited but instantaneous aggravation and aggrievement, since it was turning the tables with a vengeance upon the enemy when the guns coming to our support set, forthwith, to shell us. The menace which our own artillery had thus unconsciously become to one portion of our wounded men about these huts had to be immediately removed, and I was one of two who were permitted to carry intelligence of his mistake to the officer in charge of the seven-pounder. In galloping across to the position of the gun, the third shell thrown in this direction burst just past my horse's head, the force of its wind almost lifting me from the saddle. The moment was of interest, and I only realised my escape when, upon returning, I found the base of the shell and my helmet lying quite close to each other. When a new direction had been given to the guns, and their fire brought to bear upon the position which the Boers occupied, the rifle fire from the front of the ridge gradually slackened, while, under cover of the very excellent work which this gun was executing, our men fell back upon the hospital. Here an order had just arrived instructing Fitzclarence to send back his wounded to the armoured train, those uninjured covering the movement. While the squadron was engaged in completing this order, no shots were fired from the position of the Boers, and we concluded that they also were engaged in withdrawing at discretion. Captain Fitzclarence, Lieutenant Swinburne, and myself were the last to leave the line of action, tailing off ourselves in the same open order that the remainder of the squadron had been ordered to preserve. As we retired Captain Fitzclarence put three wounded horses out of their misery, leaving their bodies for the vultures that were already wheeling in circles in the realms of space above us. These were the last shots fired in this action, although through mistake, the Boers had fired upon the ambulance train, mistaking it for a new instrument of destruction. Subsequently we heard that the Boers buried their dead at Ramathlabama, and we also have heard that all the houses in that place have been seized as accommodation for the 107 Boers who were wounded in the fight. These numbers may probably be exaggerated, but there is no cause to doubt that their loss was much greater than ours, since the proportion of their men to ours was greater than twelve to one. Saturday thus initiated the Boer war along this frontier, and after