Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1900-01-20

| .OI Dtutn-DOcFb CAuu AnaCs NAoi
to Man, the Briton Is Superior
Faneuil Hall Rings for Beers.
London, JAN 1S.-The correspondent
Of The Daily News thus depicts the way
In which disaster overlook the Highland
brigade at Magersfontein:
During the night it was considered ex'
pedient that the Highland brigade, abou
1000 strong, under General Wauchope
should get close enough to the lines OF
the foe to make it possible to charge the
heights. At midnight the gallant, bu
Inflated, general moved cautiously
through the darkness toward the kopje
where the Beers were most strongly en-.
trenched. The troops were led by Il
guide who was supposed to know every
inch of the country out into the darkness
Of an African night.
The brigade marched in line Of quarter
column, each man stepping cautiously
and slowly, for they knew that any
sound meant death. Every order was
given in a hoarse whisper, and in whis-
pers it was passed along the ranks from
man to man; nothing was heard as the y
moved toward the gloomy, steel-fronted d
heights but the brushing of their feet in
the veldt grass and the deep drawn
breaths of the marching men.
So, onward, until o'clock of the morn
Ing Monday. Then out of the darkness
a rifle rang, sharp and clear. herald of
disaster-a soldier had tripped in TIE
/ l,, ~ l.
the enemy. In second, in the twink
ling of an eye, the searchlights of the
Beers fell broad and clear as the noon
day sun on the ranks of the doomed
Highlanders. though it left the enemy
concealed in the shadows of the frown-
ing mass of hills behind them.
For one brief moment the Scots seemed
paralyzed by the suddenness of their
| discovery, for they knew that they were
| huddled together like sheep within go
| yards of the trenches of the foe. Then,
| clear above the confusion, rolled The
| voice OF the general-"Steady, men,
steady"-and, like an echo to the veter-
ans, out came the crash of nearly a
thousand rifles not 80 PAGES from them.
The Highlanders reeled before the shock
like trees before the tempest Their
best, their bravest fell in that wild hail
OF lead. General Wauchope was down,
riddled with bullets; yet gasping, dying,
bleeding fiom every vein, the Highland
chieftain raised himself on his hands
and knees, and cheered his men forward.
Men and officers fell in heaps together.
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
ulsaster. The accursed wires caught
them round the legs until they foun-
dered like trapped wolves, and all the
time the rifles of the foe sang the song
OF death in their ears. Then they fell
back, broken and beaten, leaving nearly
lSoO dead and wounded Just where the
proad breast of the grassy veldt melts
INTO the embrace of the rugged African
NILS, and an hour later the dawning
came OF the dreariest day that Scotland
mas known for generation past. OF
her officers. the flower of her cavalry,
the pride of her breeding, but few re-
manned to tell the tale. a sad tale truly,
put one uEtainted with dishonor or
smlrched with disgrace, for uD those
heights, under similar circumstances,
even brigade of devils could scarce
nave hoped TO pass. All that mortal
men could do the Scots did; they tried
they failed, they fell and there is moth
Ing left now but to mourn for them and
avenge them.
All that fateful day our wounded men
Ia c1OSo IN Dno
ing sun; over their heads the shots OF
friends and foes passed, without ceas-
ing. All day long the battle ragged:
scarcely could we see the foe--all that
met our eyes was the rocky heights that
spoke with tongue of flames whenever
our troops drew near.
Once our guards made brilliant dash
at the trenches. and like a torrent their
resistless valour bore all before them
and for a few brief moments they got
within hitting distance of the foe. Well
did they avenge the slaughter of the
scots; the bayonets like tongues of
flame passed above or below the rifles
guard and swept through brisket and
breastbone. Out of their trenches the
guardsmen tossed the Beers, as men in
English harvest fields toss the hay when
the reapers scythes have whitened the
cOrnfields; and the human streams were
plentiful where the British guardsmen
stood.
Then they fell back. for the fire from
the heights above them fell thick as the
spume Of the surf on an Australian
rock-ribbed coast, but the guards had
proved to the Beers that man to man
the B:.lon was his master.
In vain all that day Methuen tried by
every rule he knew to draw the enemy:
vainly the Lancers rode recklessly to
induce those human rock limpots to
come out and cut them off. Cronje
knew the mettle of our men and an
ironic laugh played around his iron
mouth. and still he stayed within his
native fastness; but death sat ever at
his elbow, for our gunners dropped the
lyddite shells and the bowling shraprel
all along his lines. until the trenches ran
blood. and many of his guns were si-
fenced.
In the valley behind his outer line of
hills his dead lay piled in hundreds and
the slope of the hill was a charnel house.
where the wounded all writhed amidst
the masses of the dead; a ghastly tribute
to British gunnery. When at 1870 D. m.
OF tuesday we drew off to Modder river
to recuperate we left nearly 5000 dead
and wounded Of grim old Cronje's men
as token that the lion of England had
barred his teeth in earnest.