The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-20

two thousand feet below, and of which
 they could now see every detail. Come
 up here, you beggars,' they cried; anG
 if Alfred Aylward may be trusted two
 hundred and twenty-three Boers accept
 ed the invitation. Part of the Boer as-
 sailants took cover at once with their
 usual skill, and opened long-range fire
 on the summit of Majuba. This fire did
 but little execution, though a single shot
 at nine hundred yards mortally wound
 ed the brave Romilly, commander of the
 naval contingent. But, generally speak
 ing, the defenders of the hill took good
 care not to expose themselves unneces-
 sariy to the craftsmanship of the Boers,
 with the result that the actual loss in
 flicted by the long-range fire was small. 1 Though the Boers kept it up incessant- l ly all that long summers morning,
 scarcely any one except poor Romilly
 was touched.
 Nevertheless, the Boers were not
 throwing away their powder for notl- | ing. They succeeded in their object of
 compelling the defenders of the hill to
 keep closely under shelter, and prevent
 ed them from observing what happened
 on the slopes below the encircllng girdle
 of cliff Protected thus by the fire of | their companions, small parties of Boers
 were creeping as stealthily as deerstallI- CTS over the wide spaces of the mountain
 side where the cliff wall above screened
 them both from the sight and from the fire of the defenders. Sir William But Ter gives an excellent map, shaded so as to exhibit clearly the dead" portions of the hillside across which these experi- enced hunters made their way unob- served So stealthy and so cautious were they that they took the whole morning over their stalk; but their eau tion and skill were crowned with perfect success.
 At one part of the circumference of Majuba there is a little outlying kopje. or peak, which is really the key of the position. With unerring instinct one of the Boer leaders made for this point. According to Sir William Butler, he had about sixty men with him; and when
 he arr,ved quite noar it, with his party still undiscovered he detected picket of several soldiers, who Were standing in an exposed position, unconscious of the near neighborhood of their foes. The Boer leader ordered a number of his men to hold their rifles at the present" step back out of cover, and fire rapid volley. The manouvre was skilfully ex- ecuted; the whole picket was clean swept away, and in few minutes more the Boers had got the key of the posi- ton in their hands. By this success they had turned the left of the British troops, who were holding the northern face of the rim, and took them in the flank. The troops thus suddenly sur prised fell back from the rim, and imme- | diately other parties of Boers rushed up by another gap and seized the aban- | doned positions.
 Practically, Majuba was taken by sur prise. Till the enemy were actually on the top the general and his staff never | dreamed that they could lose the hill. | But, once established on the summit, the | rapid and accurate fire of the Boers | swept away the defenders. It seems as | if no provision had been made for the contingency of the hill being no second line of defence had 1 been provided and such reserves as ex- isted were either not ready or could not be got into place at the critical moment; and a general sauve qui peut followed. It is a scene that one does not care to think about. Colley, endeavoring to rally his broken lines despairing fronted the halstorm of bullets that moved down his men, and fell with h5s face to the foe Nearly half the British force were killed. wounded or made prisoners The Boer losses are given by Sir William Butler at six, of whom only one was killed. Here indeed was lesson to ev- ary commander to secure his weak point. Like every other post of vantage, Ma tuba Hill had it's vulnerable spot, and that spot was neither sufficiently forti- ged nor guarded.
 With Majuba hostilties came to a standstill. That well-equpped army, indeed, for which Colley had hoped ar- lived in South Africa after his fall; but t was not allowed to retrieve the tar lshed glory of the British arms. For good or for evil, a peace was made, !, which doubtless seemed to be honorable md satisfactory to those who were re- ,ponsble for it, believing as they did l hat to continue the war would involve ] IS in the sin of blood-guiltiness. How ver the remote consequences of our ac- ions are often far other than we ex lect: and the many and bloody battles , ought since then in Egypt and the ,oudan down to the recent reconqueSt ( f Khartoum, may be traced to the loss l f prestige that uuquestionably followed he disasters in South Afrca.-T B. I 'ownshend in Chambers Journal. !
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