The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-28

NullbS' ilC tliShSNlilSilS iit't 4NSNNN- now four hours and success seemed no nearer than at the beginning. The as- sault so far had failed, and failed com- pletely It was ? o'clock. noe of the Second Division had advanced a step beyond the Kotal toward Khorappa, and thing looks remarkably ugly
 But the time and the man were now at hand More than an hour before the Gordons had been ordered up from Mamu Khan (where their long range volleys can hardly have been very ef- fective) to reinforce the attack, and the 3d Sikhs not long after them. These fresh troops had now climbed up to within two hundred yards of the gap, and @ sgnaller brought a message to our Colonel from the General to say: "The Gordons and the 3d SllIhs will at tack; Derbys and Gurkhas in support; Dorseta in third line" Soon after the red tabs of a staff officer or two ap- peared (staff officers up to this point had been (conspicuously absenD. and we were ordered to withdraw our com panies aside. Then arose cheer from the spot below where Colonel Matthias, very much the right man in the right place, had halted and closed up his regiment, and addressed him in that famous speech which will ever be connected in history with the name of Dargai: "1ighlanders, the General says the position must be taken at all costs. The Gordons will take ii" If ever one mans cool assurance and un- bounded confidence in his regiment helped to turn impending disaster into brilliant success, it was done by Colo nel Mathias's few strong words that afternoon. Reused to fierce enthusiasm by their leaders stirring speech and by the familiar skirl of the pipes, the Highlanders leaped to the assault. Up they came long thin string of men with stern, set faces. stumbling, scrambling up the steep, in frenzy of courage not to be gainsaid, amid occa- sional spasmodic gasps from the pipes and cheers firm any who had breah to utter, a sight for those who witnessed it to remember all their lives.
 But no longer was the attack to be attempted by the fruitless valor oI small attachments and drib!ets or men struggling out through a crowded mass. As the Gordons neared the gap the word was passed up and shouted along to "clear a line for the Gordons and the mass above surged and sWayed apart, leaving narrow pathway clear The Gordons enjoyed the inestimable advantage of being to certain extent familiar with the ground, from having l descended from Dargai two days be- fore by the very path which they were now about to ascend They therefore knew that when once the dangerous space to the foot of the cliff was crossed the heights could be scaled. Moreover, shortly before the Gordons advance General Kempster had asked | for a rapid artillery fire to be concen- trated on the enemys sangars. and at | this moment a perfect avalanche of shot and shell broke from the eighteen guns on Lhe Kotal and swept over our heads upon the position. Under cover | of this combined with a torrent ot ln- | dependent fire from the Dorsets, Der l bys and Gurkhas, the Gordons streamed through the gap one after another as fast as they could chamber up, and dashed across the open space
 beyond. Bullets whistled and spat all around them as thich as ever, but, | though large number were wounded, | fortune so far favored them that only l one officer and two men were actually l killed a smaller number than that lost
 by any of the other regiments. Prob | ably the enemy's fire grew wild and
 inaccurate under the storm of shrapnel
 that rained upon their sangars aided
 bv the sight of the now at least con | ~fy l tha gan: for in quantity at least 1t had
 not abated one whit at first In mo-
 mentary pause, after the hrst tWo groups of Gordons had passed a com
 panv of the Derbys started up and fol- 1 lowed them, and then another, and
 then as from a dam let loose, the long
 bent up mass at the gap broke through
 and an indiscriminate crowd ot Cor l dons, Derbys, Dorsets, Sikhs and Cur
 l5has were rushing pellmell across the | open.
 The day was won. Whether it was
 as some think, that the enemy's sup
 plv of ammunition was running shor'
 after the five hours fight, or whether
 they were cowed by their failure tf stay the advance to the foot of then
 position. they broke and fed when the
 leading troops were still two hundred
 wards below them. The final stormlna
 of the steep track to the crest, Whicf
 a few resolute men amply supplied Wltf
 ammunition might still have made i'm possible, was accomplished unresisted When. at 3 o'clock precisely. the
 heights were crowned, beyond some splashes Of blood and heaps of empty cartridge cases, no sign was visible o
 Afridi or Orakzai, alive or dead This
 seems to preclude the belief that then
 losses can have been very heavy. our:
 amounted all fold to one hundred ant
 ninety-nine, including three officer!
 killed ten wounded Gone fatally), ant
 thirty-three men ed.-Macmillan
 Magazine.
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 The coal market, so far as Milwau
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