A little to the north of the kopjes which formed the scene of the Graspan engagement lies the station of Enslin.  Here one of the pluckiest fights of the campaign took place.  Two companies of the Northamptons occupied a small house and orchard beside the line.  They had thrown up a hurried earthwork and placed rails along the top of the parapet.  In this position they were suddenly attacked by a force of apparently 500 Boers—­so it was supposed—­with one or two field guns.  The small garrison lined their diminutive trenches and succeeded in keeping the enemy off for several hours; but had not some artillery reinforcements come up the line most opportunely to their assistance it might have fared badly with the plucky Northamptons.  As it was, the Boers finally withdrew with some loss.  On December 10th we were delayed for some time at Enslin by an accident and I had a careful look at the position held by our men in this minor engagement.  There was scarcely a twig or leaf in the orchard which was not torn by shrapnel and Mauser bullets.  The walls of the house were chipped and pierced in every direction, and one corner of the earthwork had been carried off by a shell.  Yet in the two companies there were only eight casualties!  An almost parallel case was furnished by Rostall’s orchard at Modder River, which was held by the Boers, and swept for hours by so fearful a fire of shrapnel that the peach-trees were cut down in every direction and scarcely a square foot behind the trenches unmarked by the leaden hail.  Nevertheless, when the guns had perforce to cease fire on the advance of our infantry, the Boers who held the orchard leapt up from behind the earthwork and poured such a murderous fire upon our men that they were forced to withdraw.  It was the old story over again—­that shell fire, unless it enfilades, does not kill men in trenches.

As everybody called the river crossed by the railway the Modder, Modder let it be.  Its real name, however, is the Riet, of which the Modder is a tributary flowing from the north-west and joining the main stream well to the east of the line.  As a stream the river does not impress the visitor favourably:  its waters were yellow and muddy, and the vegetation on its banks was thin and scrappy.  There are no respectable fish in either the Modder or the Orange River; even if the fish could see a fly on the top of the liquid mud, they haven’t the spirit to rise at it.  Some of our officers, it was said, had managed to land a few specimens of a coarse fish like a barbel which haunts these streams, but I should not think any one, even amid the monotony of camp rations, was very keen about eating his catch, for a good many dead Boers had been dragged out of the river.  It was, in fact, a rather grisly joke in camp to remark, a propos of our water supply, on the character of “Chateau Modder, an excellent vintage with a good deal of body in it”!  There was a tap at the station, which by the way is some distance north of the river, but on attempting to fill a bucket I found the tap guarded by a sentry, because, apparently, the water came from the river and was thought to be dangerous.