ander too far from support. They were soon
entangled in broken country and attacked by superior numbers of the
Boers. There was a time when they might have exerted an important
influence upon the action by attacking the Boer ponies behind the hills,
but the opportunity was allowed to pass. An attempt was made to get back
to the army, and a series of defensive positions were held to cover
the retreat, but the enemy's fire became too hot to allow them to be
retained. Every route save one appeared to be blocked, so the horsemen
took this, which led them into the heart of a second commando of the
enemy. Finding no way through, the force took up a defensive position,
part of them in a farm and part on a kopje which overlooked it.

The party consisted of two troops of Hussars, one company of mounted
infantry of the Dublin Fusiliers, and one section of the mounted
infantry of the Rifles--about two hundred men in all. They were
subjected to a hot fire for some hours, many being killed and wounded.
Guns were brought up, and fired shell into the farmhouse. At 4.30 the
force, being in a perfectly hopeless position, laid down their arms.
Their ammunition was gone, many of their horses had stampeded, and they
were hemmed in by very superior numbers, so that no slightest slur can
rest upon the survivors for their decision to surrender, though the
movements which brought them to such a pass are more open to criticism.
They were the vanguard of that considerable body of humiliated and
bitter-hearted men who were to assemble at the capital of our brave and
crafty enemy. The remainder of the 18th Hussars, who under Major Knox
had been detached from the main force and sent across the Boer rear,
underwent a somewhat similar experience, but succeeded in extricating
themselves with a loss of six killed and ten wounded. Their efforts were
by no means lost, as they engaged the attention of a considerable body
of Boers during the day and were able to bring some prisoners back with
them.

The battle of Talana Hill was a tactical victory but a strategic defeat.
It was a crude frontal attack without any attempt at even a feint of
flanking, but the valour of the troops, from general to private, carried
it through. The force was in a position so radically false that the only
use which they could make of a victory was to cover their own retreat.
From all points Boer commandoes were converging upon it, and already
it was understood that the guns at t