However, on the following morning Knox's, Stevenson's, Smith-Dorrien's, and the Highland Brigades all advanced against the position. When within a thousand yards, a semicircle of fire flashed out from the waggons, as it had done from the bushes on the Modder. The effect was terrible, and men went down by the score before the hail of bullets, and the troops were forced, as the Guards had been on the Modder, to throw themselves down before it. It would have been well if, as on that occasion, the impossibility of success had been recognized, and the troops had been ordered to remain in the same position throughout the day, contenting themselves with returning the Boer fire. But no such order was given, and companies got up and made short rushes, each regiment burning to be the first to enter the Boer camp. Some little relief was afforded by four batteries of artillery, which kept up an incessant shell fire, distracting the Boers' attention, preventing their taking aim, and shaking their nerve. At twelve o'clock one of French's horse-artillery batteries came up and joined the others at the work. Splendid were the efforts made by many of the regiments to get to close quarters. The Canadians and Cornwalls--Smith-Dorrien's Brigade--on the one side swept almost up to the river bank, and the Welsh, Yorkshire, and Essex regiments did as well on the opposite side of the semicircle, both forcing the Boers to contract their lines, and limiting the space occupied by them. The Highlanders did magnificently, burning to retrieve their defeat at Magersfontein, and showed that they had entirely recovered from the effects of that disaster. Their conduct was all the more worthy of admiration, inasmuch as they had marched over thirty miles, and only arrived on the scene just as the advance began. From the south side of the river a heavy rifle fire was maintained by the troops on that bank; and it is probable that some, at least, among the casualties on our side were inflicted by their bullets, which passed over the Boer camp. All day the fight continued, and all that had been effected was to contract the Boer position along the river bank from three miles to barely two. When evening fell, our troops were still in the positions they had won during the day. But the cost was out of all proportion to the advantage gained. They had suffered eleven hundred casualties. The Seaforths headed the list with one hundred and twenty, the Black Watch came next with ninety-six; ninety Yorkshires, the same number of West Riding Regiment, eighty among the Canadians, seventy-six Argyle and Sutherlands, fifty-six of the Cornwalls, forty-six of the Shropshires, and thirty-one of the Oxfordshires, showed how every regiment had taken its share in the fighting.