and all the time the British troops, with all their convoy, were slowly,
but safely, falling back through the kopjes, where we had hoped to hem them
in. We gnawed our beards and cursed those fellows who played our game as we
had thought no living men could play it Then, once again, we tried to rush
the hill, and once again they drove us back, though our guns were playing
on the heights they held. We could not face their fire. To move upright to
cross a dozen yards meant certain death, and many a Boer wife was widowed
and many a child left fatherless by those silent men who held the heights
above us. They did not cheer as we came onward. They did not play wild
music, they only clung close as climbing weeds to the rocks, and shot as we
never saw men shoot before, and never hope to see men shoot again.

"Then we got ready to sweep the hill with guns, but our commandant,
admiring those brave few who would not budge before us in spite of our
numbers, sent an officer to them to ask them to surrender, promising them
all the honours of war. But they sent us word to come and take them if we
could. And then our officer asked them three times if they would hold up
their hands, and at the third time a grim sergeant rose and answered him:
'Aye, we will hold up our hands, but when we do, by God, you'll find a
bayonet in 'em. Go back and tell your commandant that Australia's here to
stay.' And there they stayed, and fought us hour by hour, holding us back,
when but for them victory would have been with us. We shelled them all
along their scattered line, and tried to rush them under cover of the
artillery fire; but they only held their posts with stouter hearts, and
shot the straighter when the fire was hottest, and we could do nothing but
lie there and swear at them, though we admired them for their stubborn
pluck. They held the hill till all their men were safe, and then, dashing
down the other side, they jumped into their saddles and made off, carrying
their wounded with them. They were but twenty men, and we four hundred"

A "Tommy" sitting at the speaker's feet looked up and said: "What are yer
makin' sich a song abart it far? Lumme, them Horstraliars are as Hinglish
has hi ham!"

IN A BOER TOWN.

BETHANY.

A Boer town is not laid out on systematic lines, as one sees towns in
America, or Canada, or Australia. The streets seem