The Boers did not apparently intend to make any serious stand against Lord Methuen’s column at Belmont.  The fight was little else than an “affair of outposts” on their side and it seems very doubtful if more than 800 of the enemy had been left for the defence of the position.  Their horses were all ready, as usual, behind the kopjes, and when our gallant men jumped up with a cheer and for the last 100 yards dashed up the rough stony slope in front, very few Boers remained.  Most of them were already in the saddle, galloping off to Graspan, their next position.  The unwounded Boers who did remain remained—­nearly all of them—­for good; rifle bullets and shrapnel and shell splinters are deadly enough, but deadliest of all is the bayonet thrust.  So much tissue is severed by the broad blade of the Lee-Metford bayonet that the chances of recovery are often very slight.  As volunteer recruits know sometimes to their cost, the mere mishandling of a bayonet at the end of a heavy rifle may, even amid the peaceful evolutions of squad drill, inflict a painful wound.  When the weapon is used scientifically with the momentum of a heavy man behind it, its effects are terrible.  Private St. John of the Grenadiers thrust at a Boer in front of him with such force that he drove not only the bayonet, but the muzzle of the rifle clean through the Dutchman.  St. John was immediately afterwards shot through the head and lay dead on the top of the kopje, side by side with the man he had killed.

When our train, after its journey to Capetown, next returned to Belmont, few signs of the recent engagement were visible.  The strands of wire fencing on either side the line were cut through here and there, and twisted back several yards where our fifteen-pounders had been galloped through to shell the retreating Boers.  Now and again the eye was caught by little heaps of cartridge cases marking the spot where some soldier had lain down.

Less pleasant reminiscences were furnished by the decomposing bodies of several mules, and four or five vultures wheeling over the plain.  Some enthusiasts on our train had on the previous journey cut off several hoofs from the dead mules as relics of the fight.  Our under-cook had secured a more agreeable souvenir of Belmont in the shape of a small goat found wandering beside the railway.  This animal now struts about a garden in Capetown with a collar suitably inscribed around its neck, and the proud owner has refused a L10 note for it.  Before their abandonment of the position the enemy had hurriedly buried a few of their dead, but it is very difficult to dig amongst the stones and boulders, and the interment was so inadequate that hands and feet were protruding from the soil.  In fact several of our men whose patrol-beat covered this ground told me it was terribly trying to walk among these rough and ready graves in the heat of the day.