It was four hours before a fresh British advance reoccupied the ridge, and by that time the Boers had disappeared.

Some seventy killed and wounded, many of them terribly mutilated, were found on the scene of the disaster.

It is certainly a singular coincidence that at distant points of the seat of war two of the crack irregular corps should have suffered so severely within three days of each other.

In each case, however, their prestige was enhanced rather than lowered by the result.

These incidents tend, however, to shake the belief that scouting is better performed in the Colonial than in the regular forces.
Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been made, that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th, appears to have been very gallantly and even desperately pushed.