force of five companies of the 60th Regiment, two
guns, and a few mounted men, to, in his own words, "patrol the road,
and meet and escort some waggons expected from Newcastle." As soon as
he passed the Ingogo he was surrounded by a body of Boers sent after him
from Lang's Nek, on a small triangular plateau, and sharply assailed
on all sides. With a break of about two hours, from three to five, the
assault was kept up till nightfall, with very bad results so far as we
were concerned, seeing that out of a body of about 500 men, over 150
were killed and wounded. The reinforcements sent for from the camp
apparently did not come into action. For some unexplained reason the
Boers did not follow up their attack that night, perhaps because they
did not think it possible that our troops could effect their escape back
to the camp, and considered that the next morning would be soon enough
to return and finish the business. The General, however, determined to
get back, and scratch teams of such mules, riding-horses, and oxen as
had lived through the day being harnessed to the guns, the dispirited
and exhausted survivors of the force managed to ford the Ingogo, now
swollen by rain which had fallen in the afternoon, poor Lieutenant
Wilkinson, the Adjutant of the 60th, losing his life in the operation,
and to struggle through the dense darkness back to camp.

On the hill-top they had lately held, the dead lay thick. There, too,
exposed to the driving rain and bitter wind lay the wounded, many of
whom would be dead before the rising of the morrow's sun. It must,
indeed, have been a sight never to be forgotten by those who saw it. The
night--I remember well--was cold and rainy, the great expanses of hill
and plain being sometimes lit by the broken gleams of an uncertain moon,
and sometimes plunged into intensest darkness by the passing of a heavy
cloud. Now and again flashes of lightning threw every crag and outline
into vivid relief, and the deep muttering of distant thunder made the
wild gloom more solemn. Then a gust of icy wind would come tearing down
the valleys to be followed by a pelting thunder shower--and thus the
night wore away.

When one reflects what discomfort, and even danger, an ordinary healthy
person would suffer if left after a hard day's work to lie all night in
the rain and wind on the top of a stony mountain, without food, or
even water to assuage his thirst, it becomes to some degree possible to
realise what th