From the British position on Three Tree Hill a breathless watch had been kept on the clouds that veiled the summit. As the fleecy whiteness was dispersed about 8 o'clock, the roll of musketry began. At the same time the artillery opened fire, the naval guns shelling two precipitous kopjes which rose just to the east of Spion Kop, while the field guns on Three Tree Hill thundered at the western ridge. The Boer guns had already broken silence and commenced a furious bombardment of Spion Kop, raining shells upon General Woodgate's force. Simultaneously the Boer marksmen in small parties poured in a deadly rifle fire from the kopjes on the three sides of Spion Kop; they began, too, to work towards the British trenches, taking all possible advantage of cover. All the early morning men were pouring in, and the assailants grew steadily in strength. The crackling of the rifles swelled into a heavy and continuous roar, and upon the portion of the mountain held by the British, shell, 94 lb., 15 lb., 12 lb., and 1 lb. in weight, fell at the rate of seven to ten a minute, throwing up dense clouds of dust, blowing human beings into unrecognisable fragments, inflicting the most ghastly wounds, terrifying those whom they did not slay. A cyclone of death had smitten the summit. No words can describe the appalling uproar and confusion; all around the thunder of the guns and the incessant roar of rifles; on the summit clouds of dust and the yells and oaths of the combatants; the groans of the wounded; the shrieks of the dying--man slaying man with every terrible circumstance that the imagination can picture. [Sidenote: [JAN. 24, 1900.] [Sidenote: Woodgate wounded.]