The night and the early hours of the day passed in inactivity. On the hills opposite the Boers were already at their work of raising stone breastworks and laboriously digging and blasting entrenchments, while hour after hour reinforcements poured in. To the Boer the spade was a weapon only one degree less useful than the rifle. Our soldiers, taught to despise cover and untrained in the use of entrenchments, watched with mingled contempt and apprehension these proceedings of the enemy, and, as line after line of defences showed faintly on the green and brown surface of the hills, wondered at the measured deliberation of their own generals, contrasting strangely as it did with the furious energy of the men opposed to them. At last, about 8 a.m. of January 17, the crossing began. A patrol of Light Horse rode down to the river; the Devons and West Yorkshires followed; the field batteries on the heights overlooking the drift drew up in line and prepared to open; from the right through the morning air came the thunder of the howitzers and the heavy thud of the naval guns on Spearman's Hill, telling that General Lyttelton was already in action. The uproar of battle re-echoed through this remote mountain land and reverberated in the lonely eyries of Taba Myama. Thick wet mist still enveloped the hill-tops and gave the country an air of eeriness and mystery; it lifted only towards mid-day as the sun's rays dispelled it. The West Yorkshires were the first to cross, ferried over in pontoons; the engineers set to work to build two bridges, both above the drift, the one of pontoons and the other of trestles. The first was completed in a couple of hours. The work was scarcely interrupted by the Boers. A handful of snipers fired a few shots at the British covering party of infantry and killed a soldier of the Devons, but beyond this the enemy showed no disposition to harass the attacking force, although, had they done so, there is little doubt that they could have inflicted considerable loss. Their unwillingness to leave cover, on this as on many other occasions during the campaign in Natal, permitted operations to be carried on with comparative safety, which a more enterprising enemy could have rendered highly dangerous, or even disastrous. With the Boers it was an object to risk as little as possible their lives and limbs; on our side the error was quite in the opposite direction. [Illustration: _A. J. Gough._] DROWNING OF A TROOPER OF THE 13th HUSSARS. Several men and horses were swept away by the current in the crossing of Wagon Drift, and one trooper was drowned in spite of Captain Tremayne's gallant attempt to rescue him.] The British field batteries opened fire and searched the north bank of the river with a storm of shrapnel, while the infantry discharged a few volleys. There was no return of their fire by the Boers, and the cannonade died away. [Sidenote: The artillery and transport cross.] [Sidenote: [JAN. 17-18, 1900.]