The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-02-06

can night rolled over the far-stretching
breadth of the veldt.
10 the gentle woman who bears the
GeneraIs name the Highland brigade
send their deepest sympathy. To the
mothers and the wives, the sisters and
sweethearts, in the cottage homes by
hillside and glen, they send love and
good wishes. Sad will be their Christ
mas; sadder the New Year. Yet, en-
shrined in every womanly heart, from
Queen Empress to cottage girl let there
be the memory of the Highland brigade
who died at Magersfontein.
The same writer thus depicts the
way in which the disaster overlook the
Highlanders.
The Battle of Magersfontein.
During the night it was considered
expedient that the big Highland bril-
gade, about 1000 strong, under Gen
eral Wauchope, should get close
enough to the lines of the foe to make
it possible to charge the nights. At
midnight the gallant General moved
cautiously through the darkness to-
ward the kopje where the Beers were
most strongly intrenched They were
led by guide who was supposed ITO
know every inch of the country, out I
into the darkness of an African night !.
The brigade marched in line of QtAr:
lter-column, each man stepping sicau-
tiously and slowly, for they knew that
any sound meant death. Every order I.
was given in a hoarse whisper, and in
whispers it was passed along the ranks
| from man to man; nothing was heard
as they moved toward sthe gloomy,
steel-fronted nights but the brushing
of their feet on the veldt grass and the
deep-drawn breaths of the marching
men.
So onward until 3 o'clock on the
morning of Monday Then out of the
darkness a rifle rang, sharp and clear,
a herald OF disaster; a soldier had
tripped in the dark over the hidden
wires laid down by the enemy. In a
second-in the twiDkling of an eye
the searchlights of the Beers fell
broad and clear as the MONDAY sun
on the ranks of the doomed Highland
ers, though it left the enemy concealed
in the shadows of the frowning mass of
hills behind them. For one brief. mo-
ment the Scots seemed paralyzed by
the suddenness of their discovery, for
they knew they were huddled together
like sheep within fifty yards of thd
trenches of the enemy. Then, clear
above the confusion, rolled. the voice
of the General, STEADY men, steadyi"
and like an echo 70 the veterans out
, came the crash of nearly thousand
!. rifles not fifty PAGES from them The
} Highlanders reeled before the spook-
like trees before them. Their best,
their bravest, fell in that wild hail of
lead. General Wauchope was down,
) riddled with bullets, yet, gasping, dy-
, ing, bleeding from every vein, the
Highland chieftain raised himself on
his hands and knees and cheered his
, men forward.
Men and officers fell in heaps to-
f gether. The Black Watch charged and
, the Gordons and the Seaforths, with
a yell that stirred the British camp
] below, rushed onward-onward to
: death or disaster. Those accursed
S wires caught them around the legs un-
, til they fioundered like trapped
wolves, and all the time the rifles of
1 the foe sang the song of death in their
ears. Then they fell back, broken and
bleeding, leaving nearly thirteen hun
a dred dead and wounded just where the
broad breast of the grassy veldt melts
! into the embrace of the rugged African
=. hills, and an hour later the dawn came
q of the dreariest day that Scotland has
Q known for a generation past.
V OF her officers, the flower of her chiv-
: airy, the pride of her breeding, but few
S remained to tell the tale-a sad tale,
h truly, but one untainted with dishon-
# Tor or smirched with disgrace, for up
y those nights, under similar circum-
/ stances, even brigade of devils could
{ lscarce have hoped to pass. All that
{ mortal man could do the Scots did .
= They tried-they failed-they fell And
- there is nothing left us now but to
:. Iavenge them.
All that fateful day our men lay
7 close to the Boer lines, under a blaz
h ing sun. Over their heads the shots Oh
il friends and foes passed without ceas-
er ing. All day long the battle ragged
er Scarcely could we see the foe; all that
e. met our eyes was the rocky nights
le that spoke with tongue of flame when
r ever our troops drew near. Once our
lie Guards made a brilliant dash at the
Is trenches, and like a torrent their re-
III sistless Valor bore all before them and
N n for a few brief moments they got with
-, in hitting distance of the foe. We'll
90 did they aveBge the slaughter of the
"a Scots. The bayonets, like tongues Ol
N flame, passed above or below the rifles
20 guard and swept through brisket and
es breast-bone. Out of their trenches the
90 Guardsmen tossed the Beers, as meI
n in English harvest fields toss the hay
d. when the reapers' scythes have whit
xt ened the corn fields, and the human
st streams were plentiful where the Brit
Id ish Guardsmen stood. Then they fel
tn back, for the fire from the nights above
ss them fell thick as the spume Of th'
III surf on an Australian TOck-TibbeC
coast. The Guards had proved to thu
ne Beers tha., man TO man, the BritoI
dI was his master.
su In vain all that day Methuen trie'
=, =, by every ruse he knew TO draw th'
- enemy. Vainly the Lancers rode Teck
no lessIy to induce those human rocI