I do not know why nothing was done on the 19th, but it does not appear that anything was lost by the delay.  The enemy’s entrenchments were already complete, and neither his numbers nor the strength of his positions could increase.

On the 20th Warren, having crept up the aretes and dongas, began his attack.  The brigades of Generals Woodgate and Hart pushed forward on the right, and the Lancashire and Irish regiments, fighting with the usual gallantry of her Majesty’s troops, succeeded, in spite of a heavy fire of rifles and artillery, in effecting lodgments at various points along the edge of the plateau, capturing some portions of the enemy’s first line of entrenchments.  On the extreme left the cavalry under Lord Dundonald demonstrated effectively, and the South African Light Horse under Colonel Byng actually took and held without artillery support of any kind a high hill, called henceforward ‘Bastion Hill,’ between the Dutch right and centre.  Major Childe, the officer whose squadron performed this daring exploit, was killed on the summit by the shell fire to which the successful assailants were subjected by the Boers.  In the evening infantry reinforcements of Hildyard’s Brigade arrived, and at dawn the cavalry handed over the hill to their charge.  The losses during the day did not exceed three hundred and fifty officers and men wounded—­with fortunately, a small proportion of killed—­and fell mainly on the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers (always in the front), and the Royal Lancaster Regiment.  They were not disproportioned to the apparent advantage gained.

On the 21st the action was renewed.  Hart’s and Woodgate’s brigades on the right made good and extended their lodgments, capturing all the Boer trenches of their first defensive line along the edge of the plateau.  To the east of ‘Bastion Hill’ there runs a deep re-entrant, which appeared to open a cleft between the right and centre of the Boer position.  The tendency of General Hildyard’s action, with five battalions and two batteries, on the British left this day was to drive a wedge of infantry into this cleft and so split the Boer position in two.  But as the action developed, the great strength of the second line of defence gradually revealed itself.  It ran along the crest of the plateau, which rises about a thousand yards from the edge in a series of beautiful smooth grassy slopes of concave surface, forming veritable glacis for the musketry of the defence to sweep; and it consisted of a line of low rock and earth redoubts and shelter trenches, apparently provided with overhead cover, and cleverly arranged to command all approaches with fire—­often with cross-fire, sometimes with converging fire.  Throughout the 21st, as during the 20th, the British artillery, consisting of six field batteries and four howitzers, the latter apparently of tremendous power, bombarded the whole Boer position ceaselessly, firing on each occasion nearly three thousand