_Thursday, 11th January._--Shifted my ammunition to fifty rounds per gun to lighten the wagons, and moved off at 5 a.m., passing General Hildyard who was looking on at the foot of the camp. We marched with the whole force to Dorn Kop Nek and then halted; the General and others, including myself, riding up to a high kopje to examine the Boer position on the Tugela at about 8,800 yards off. Prince Christian Victor came and sat on a rock by me and had a good look at the position through my telescope which he borrowed. The General ordered one of my guns up this kopje, and we brought it up with a team of oxen and fifty men on drag ropes to steady her. It was an awful climb, and the ground was strewn with boulders; the poor gun upset once, but we got it up at last into position on a beautiful grass plateau on top with a clear view of the Boer positions. The Queen's Regiment, who were our escort this morning, carried fifty rounds of ammunition up the kopje for me, and I shall always remember how on all occasions we received the greatest assistance from the Queen's and West Yorks. The General pushed on with the R.A. and the rest of the troops and reconnoitred the enemy from the next kopje. Eventually we were all ordered back to camp, and I had a great job in getting my guns down the hill again. I think it was worse than going up. _Friday, 12th January._--Prince Christian (Acting Brigade Major) and I had a short talk together; we touched on a scheme of mine for making light limbers for our guns. In the afternoon I rode out to General Clery's camp, three miles to the west, to see our Naval guns, but found they had been pushed on with Lord Dundonald's Cavalry to hold ground leading to Potgieter's Drift. I dined with Captain Reed of the 7th Battery, R.A., who knew my R.A. brother well in the 87th Battery. I found I had met him last year at the Grand National, and it is quite curious that I meet out here everyone that I ever knew.