Whether he will now stand his ground and fight or make a break for the main army of the Boers is hard to calculate, for the Boer generally does just what no one expects he will attempt to do.  It was during Hamilton’s flanking effort that the Gordons vindicated their character for courage.  Captain Towse, a brave, courteous soldier and gentleman, whom I had had the pleasure of meeting at Graspan, and whose guest I had been on several occasions, was the hero of the hour.  He is a fine figure of a man, well set up, good-looking, strong, active.  He was, I think, about the only soldier I have seen who could wear an eye-glass and not lose by it.  In age he looked about forty.  I remember snapping a “photo” of him as he was “tidying up” the grave of gallant young Huddart, an Australian “middy,” who lay buried on the veldt; but the Boers collected that portrait from me later on, worse luck.  On this fateful day Captain Towse, with about fifty of the Gordons, got isolated from the main body of British troops, and the Boers, with that marvellous dexterity for which they are fast becoming famous, sized up the position, and determined upon a capture.  They little dreamt of the nature of the lion they had snared in their toils.  With fully two hundred and fifty men they closed in on the little band of kilted men, and in triumphant tones called upon them to throw down their arms and surrender.  It was a picture to warm an artist’s heart.  On all sides rose the bleak, black kopjes, ridge on ridge, as inhospitable as a watch-dog’s growl.  On one hand the little band of Highlanders, the picturesque colours of their clan showing in kilt and stocking, perfect in all their appointments, but nowhere so absolutely flawless as in their leadership.  Under such leaders as he who held them there so calm and steady their forbears had hurled back the chivalry of France, and had tamed the Muscovite pride, and they were soon to prove themselves men worthy of their captain.

On the other side rose the superior numbers of the Boers.  A wild and motley crew they looked compared with the gem of Britain’s army.  Boys stood side by side with old men, lads braced themselves shoulder to shoulder with men in their manhood’s prime, ragged beards fell on still more ragged shirt fronts.  But there were manly hearts behind those ragged garments, hearts that beat high with love of home and country, hearts that seldom quailed in the hour of peril.  Their rifles lay in hands steady and strong.  The Boer was face to face with the Briton; the numbers lay on the side of the Boer, but the bayonet was with the Briton.