The artillery and mounted troops were in advance of the British line. The first glimpse of the enemy was gained about 6·30 a.m., when a body of 500 mounted Boers was made out away on the right. They rode rapidly towards the enemy's left, at once drawing the cavalry and mounted men in pursuit. Then a Boer gun on the British right opened fire. So far there had been no sign of life west of the junction of the Riet and the Modder, and it was thought that the village was not held by the enemy. The British 18th and 75th Field Batteries at once unlimbered on the right and opened fire at an extreme range of about 4,500 yards. The Boer artillery on the eastern half of the enemy's position replied, but very languidly. Here, as before at Belmont and Graspan, it was most difficult to locate the hostile guns. They were not massed, but scattered singly, in strongly entrenched and well-masked gun-pits, so that the only sign of their presence was a flash and faint film of blue-white smoke, which instantly dissolved into the air. For some time this long-range skirmish continued; then, gradually, the Boer guns seemed to be silenced by the British shrapnel, and it was thought that a small rearguard in the British front was falling back under cover of the desultory cannonade. [Illustration: [_From a sketch by a British Officer._ THE BATTLE OF MODDER RIVER, AS SEEN FROM THE GUARDS' LINES.] Accordingly, the Guards received orders to develop their advance. Neglected by the enemy's artillery they pushed rapidly forward and reached a point only about 800 yards from the enemy's trenches, descending the smooth, grassy slope, which led gently down to the river. Far away to the left a thin, long line of khaki-clad men pressed forward, the Ninth Brigade following the example of the Guards. The enemy's plan, it was afterwards learnt from prisoners, was to permit the British troops to approach within 400 yards, and then to open on them from ambush an annihilating fire. But this design was foiled by the clumsy nervousness of the Free Staters in the trenches to the south of the river. When they saw the British troops only 800 yards off them, they held that the enemy was quite near enough, and in defiance of their orders opened a terrific fire. [Sidenote: [NOV. 28, 1899.]