upon this road would probably have meant
six bloody battles, always with the likelihood of a reverse after each
for the attacking army. Imagine a wide and perfectly level plain with a
ridge standing straight across it like a great railway embankment, but
with arms at each end curving towards the front as the arms of a trench
are curved; behind the ridge, and higher, two or three kopjes which
command it; behind the kopjes another ridge like the first, with more
kopjes to command it; the same thing repeated half a dozen times,
without another eminence within fifteen miles. Imagine this, and you see
the country between Modder River and Kimberley. And throughout the
position every piece of open ground was slashed and seamed by trenches
and works, constructed as though for the inspection of an examiner in
engineering--beautiful, artistic, formidable work that filled the mind
of every British officer who saw it with envy and admiration. Behind the
hills were little huts and hiding-places contrived within the shadow of
the low, thick trees that grow there, so that not a soul lived out of
cover. Captain Austin, R.A., who shared the humidity of my truck, and
who had been in charge of a 6-inch field-gun trained on Magersfontein at
eight thousand yards, told me that he could see through his glasses the
whole working of the enemy's admirable system. They had a look-out man
sitting at the far end of a long tunnel of rock and stone; when we fired
he gave the signal, and the Boers got into cover; and twenty seconds
afterwards, when our shell, beautifully aimed and timed, arrived on the
hill, it spent itself upon the flinty rock. Then the Boers showed their
heads and fired; and their shell swept through its arc and exploded,
generally finding its mark.

The battle of Magersfontein has been the subject of more prolonged
discussion than any other single event in the war. Coming on the day
after our reverse at Stormberg, it completed the momentary
demoralisation of a great mass of people at home who had expected the
campaign to resolve itself into a sweeping march on Pretoria. Like the
affair of Majuba, it has been sentimentally magnified out of all
proportion to its military importance. On the strength of the emotions
roused by our disaster, thousands graduated as military critics and
cried aloud for the recall of Lord Methuen. Private soldiers with
shattered nerves wrote home hysterical narratives and criticisms which
were published an