to vacate the field was reached when a stalwart British cheer broke upon their ears by their side and in their rear.
There should not be avy confusion as to what men raised the cheer and wore the first to ford the river; but there fs. It is doe to the fact that men of several ambitious commands composed the first body of forders.
To put history right, the credit of firat crossing the river belongs toa small pa of Coldstream Guardsmen who, early in the day, waded in to their waists and then swam, indan with all thole year and 160 rounds of ammunition, There were tween twenty-four and forty men in thi body, and though many ws, two were neatly drowned and all saw it to he wise to return, The river was too deep, and when they reached the further shore they sank in mud to their knees.
This happened on the extreme right of the line, where Lord Methuen made his first gallant attempt to cross.
He tried again on the far left, and it was there that, beyond any doubt of dispute, Colonel Barter, of the King's Own York: shire Light Infantry, got across by a fairly good fording-place with a score or two dozen men, some of whom were his own, while others were men of the Argyll and Sutherlandshire and the North Lancashire Regiments. They crossed against some trenches and an angle of stone wall which were held by some 300 Boers.
Just as they were crossing a battery of Royal Artillery rolled up in the rear of our men, and, before its men hud time to unlimber, all the Boers fled, jostling and even
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.