subsequently that the messenger despatched for assistance, as well as two others who followed him, were captured. The correspondents state that the skill displayed by their drivers in avoiding the huge boulders which lined the high road, and especially in descending and ascending the banks of a very precipitous sluit with a twelve feet dip, was a most creditable performance, reminding one of the wonderful exercises of our artillery drivers at the Islington Military Tournament. * * * * * CORRESPONDENCE. CANADIANS ON MAJUBA DAY. BY MAJOR-GENERAL SMITH-DORRIEN. BLOEMFONTEIN, _March_ 17, 1900. _To the Editor of_ "THE FRIEND." DEAR SIR,--I have read your account of "The Canadians on Majuba Day" in your issue of yesterday. It is correct up to a certain point, but the last part of it is quite erroneous. In justice to this gallant corps, and to the Company of Royal Engineers who were with them, I trust you will publish this letter--which recounts what actually happened from the moment the Royal Canadians advanced from the trench, 550 yards from the enemy, until they established themselves and made a new trench within 93 yards of the Boer trenches. At 2.15 a.m. (on the 27th February), the Royal Canadians with 240 men in the front rank, the latter with rifles slung and entrenching tools, and about 30 officers and men, Royal Engineers under Lieut.-Colonel Kincaid forming the right of the rear rank of the Canadians, moved steadily from the trench, shoulder to shoulder in the dark night, feeling their way through the bushes, and keeping touch by the right. At 2.50 a.m. they were met by a terrific fire from the enemy's trench, now only 60 yards in front of them. The line was forced to fall back, but only a very small distance, the right of it under Captains Stairs and Macdonell, Royal Canadians, some twenty yards, where they lay down in the open and returned a steady fire--mostly volleys--for the next one and a half hours; the left had had to fall back rather further. Under cover of these two Captains, Lieutenant-Colonel Kincaid and his R.E. officer and men, and the Canadian working party in that part of the line constructed trenches in spite of the galling fire, and by daylight had completed a most admirable work which gave grand cover against fire in all threatened directions, and was so well traversed with banks and sand-bags that not a single casualty occurred after it was occupied. As day dawned a ruined house was noticed on the opposite bank of the river, from which this work could be enfiladed, and a party from the reserve was sent up the left bank to occupy it. To cover the early morning attack as soon as the fire opened at 2.50 a.m., the Shropshires, in order to hold the enemy in the main laager, engaged them with long-range volleys, whilst the Gordons remained partly in the open and partly in the most advanced flank trench, which latter they lengthened and enlarged, ready to move forward in support.