o more than some
300 feet from the ground level, so bare was the terrain about its
base, that the insignificant hills presented a formidable face to the
south-west. Across the railway, some six miles to the north-west,
Jonono's Kop looked over these low ridges, and threw great spurs,
dotted with Kaffir villages, down into the undulating prairie which
rolled between them. On one of these spurs, which came down to the
Newcastle road, 100 men of the German commando, under Schiel, had, on
the retirement of the British, taken post, supported on an
underfeature close to the eastward by Field Cornet Joubert's
Johannesburgers, and Vrede men (100) under De Jager. The rest of the
commandos occupied the main feature above described, the remainder of
the Germans the kopje nearest the station, strong skirmishing parties
being thrown out, under Field Cornet Pienaar, along the uplands which
ran out southward in front of their left flank. Slightly retired from
the forward crest of the main hill were posted the two guns, below
and behind the right of which, beside the roadway creeping between the
bluff and the tall triangular kopje, the laager had been pitched on a
flat of sun-baked mud.

[Sidenote: French attacks at once.]

[Sidenote: The infantry reinforcements arrive.]

Major-General French moved forward quickly without waiting for the
reinforcements from Ladysmith. A squadron 5th Dragoon Guards under
Major St. J. C. Gore on the west of the railway, and one of the 5th
Lancers on the east, each covering two miles, scouted in front of the
batteries and Imperial Light Horse, the 1st Manchester following
slowly in the train. The Lancers were first in touch with the enemy,
their progress being checked at 2 p.m. by Pienaar's piquets posted, as
already described, on the low ridge running parallel to the railway,
the ridge, indeed, which General French had selected as the
springboard for his attack. A gun, opening from the hills behind,
supported the skirmishers: the Lancer squadron had to retire. But
Colonel Scott Chisholme quickly brought up four squadrons Imperial
Light Horse, which, pressing forward in squadron-column with extended
files, with the 5th Lancer squadron on the right, stormed the ridge
and cleared it. The crest thus secured, the Manchester detrained under
its cover at 2.30 p.m. about three miles south-west of Elandslaagte.
Ten minutes later they were joined by a half-battalion 2nd Gordon
Highlanders and seven companies o