n, occupied the houses, and began to entrench themselves in
the fields. Six batteries came into action from the wooded heights
commanding the passage. The pontoons advanced. Two were launched, and in
them the West Yorkshire Regiment began to cross, accumulating gradually
in the shelter of the further bank. Then the sappers began to build the
bridges. Half a dozen Boers fired a few shots at long range, and one
unfortunate soldier in the Devons was killed. The batteries opened on
the farms, woods, and kopjes beyond the river, shelling them
assiduously, though there was not an enemy to be seen, and searching out
the ground with great thoroughness. I watched this proceeding of making
'sicker' from the heights. The drift was approached from the ground
where we had bivouacked by a long, steep, descending valley. At nine
o'clock the whole of Hart's Brigade poured down this great gutter and
extended near the water. The bridge was growing fast--span after span of
pontoons sprang out at the ends as it lay along the bank. Very soon it
would be long enough to tow into position across the flood. Moreover,
the infantry of the West Yorks and Devons had mostly been ferried
across, and were already occupying the lately well-shelled farms and
woods. At eleven o'clock the bridge was finished, the transported
infantry were spreading up the hills, and Woodgate's Brigade moved
forward down the valley.

It soon became time for the cavalry to cross, but they were not
accommodated, as were the infantry, with a convenient bridge, About a
quarter of a mile down stream from Trichardt's Drift there is a deep and
rather dangerous ford, called the Waggon Drift. Across this at noon the
mounted men began to make their way, and what with the uneven bottom and
the strong current there were a good many duckings. The Royal Dragoons
mounted on their great horses, indeed, passed without much difficulty,
but the ponies of the Light Horse and Mounted Infantry were often swept
off their feet, and the ridiculous spectacle of officers and men
floundering in the torrent or rising indignantly from the shallows
provided a large crowd of spectators--who had crossed by the
bridge--with a comedy. Tragedy was not, however, altogether excluded,
for a trooper of the 13th Hussars was drowned, and Captain Tremayne, of
the same regiment, who made a gallant attempt to rescue him, was taken
from the water insensible.

During the afternoon the busy Engineers built a second bri