e at Krugersdorp for nursing the
wounded on both sides.

This morning the Boers took up a position at Vlakfontein, eight miles
on the Johannesburg side of Krugersdorp, on a circuitous road to the
south by which Dr. Jameson was marching. The Boers in the night had
been reinforced by men and with artillery and Maxims. Their position
was an exceedingly strong one on an open slope, but along a ridge of
rocks cropping out of it. It was a right-angled position and Dr.
Jameson attacked them in the re-entering angle, thus having fire on
his front and flank.

To attack this position his men had to advance over a perfectly open
gently-sloping grassy down, while the Boers lay hid behind rocks and
fired with rifles, Maxims, and artillery upon their assailants. The
Boers numbered from 1,200 to 1,500, Dr. Jameson's force about 500,
and the position was practically unassailable.

Dr. Jameson, after making a desperate effort to get through,
surrendered, and as we stood we saw his brave little band riding
dejectedly back again to Krugersdorp without their arms and
surrounded by a Boer escort.

We were allowed to ride close up, but were refused permission to see
Dr. Jameson. It is therefore impossible to state his full reasons,
but it is known that he was made aware that it was impossible to send
assistance from here, and this may have influenced him in giving
up the contest when he found the enemy's position so strong that
in any case it would have been no disgrace to have been beaten by
superior numbers of such a brave foe as that Boer force which I
saw in the very position they had fought in. It was evident that
probably no one had ever started on a more desperate venture than
had this daring little force, and they gained by their gallantry the
adoration, not only of the Boer burghers who spoke to me, but of the
whole town of Johannesburg.

These Boers--rough, simple men, dressed in ordinary civilian clothes,
with merely a rifle slung over the shoulder to show they were
soldiers--spoke in feeling terms of the splendid bravery shown by
their assailants. They were perfectly calm and spoke without any
boastfulness in a self-reliant way. They said, pointing to the
ground, that the thing was impossible, and hence the present result.

The total loss of Dr. Jameson's force is about twenty. Major Grey
was, they said, the principal military officer, and they thought that
no officer was killed, and that the report that Sir John Willough