For night firing on shore, as practised by us at Colenso and Spion Kop, guns are laid for required distant object just before dusk. The position of the wheels is accurately marked by pegs and lines, and when the gun is laid the sight is lowered to some white object placed fifty yards in front of gun, on which when dark a lantern may be placed; the elevation is read off either on arc of sight or by clinometer placed on the gun. To keep on firing at this distant object when dark, the gun is run out to same wheel marks every time and laid for same direction by the lantern on the near object, and elevation by clinometer. The C.O.'s of regiments always most kindly put their mekometer and trained observers at our disposal on escorting us up to a position. A plane table survey, using a mekometer to measure one's base, is pretty easily made to get position of kopjes, trenches, well-defined gun emplacements and their ranges, roughly, but it wants a certain amount of time to do it. As to the emplacing of a 12-pounder or other Q.-F. gun for attack or defence, all hard and fast rules may, in my opinion, be at once dismissed, the matter entirely depending on the nature of the ground occupied and the direction and extent of fire required. Still I submit the following points as being useful to remember:-- (1.) Carefully select the ground. If on a ridge, hill, or kopje, the emplacement must be over the sky-line either on one slope or the other; take a place where Nature helps you, if possible screened by trees, free of rocks, and with soft ground, dongas, or water round it, so that the enemy's shells will bury themselves and not burst on striking. Of course in South Africa, except on the flat, this could hardly ever be done. (2.) The best form of emplacement is a gun pit about 1 foot 6 inches deep, according to our experience in Natal, the earth or rock taken out forming a circular parapet 3 feet 6 inches high, and as bulky or thick as ever you like on the front face, the floor of the pit being levelled and a gradual slope made out of it for guns to be moved easily in and out of the pit. The size of the pit should be just enough to allow the gun trail to move round on any arc of training when the gun muzzle is run out over the front face or parapet, and to allow three feet more over and above this for the recoil of the gun in the drag-shoes, so as not to fetch the trail up sharp on recoiling.