Mr. Bennet Burleigh gives in Tuesday's issue of the Daily
Telegraph a very striking account of the attack on Colonel Benson's column, and of the charge made by a thousand mounted Boers. The Boers charged, not our men, but rather rushed at a gallop a ridge which commanded our position,—a piece of tactics which shows that there may still be a use for the cavalry charge, though it will be a different sort of charge from that to which we are accustomed. As may be imagined, the Boers charging furiously in open order presented a very difficult target, and very few of them were knocked over by our men. The Beers, it should be noted, fired from the saddle as they charged. No doubt they did not make very many hits, but we do not doubt that the moral effect of their fire was great. The .story of Colonel Benson's death is one of the most pathetic and heroic incidents of the war. It is thus that Mr. Bennet Eurleigh tells it :—" Turning to Colonel Wools. Sampson to take good-bye of his comrade and friend, with whom he had made many an adventurous trek over the wide expanse of veld and kupjes, Benson said: 'A.h, Sampson, old boy, we shall do no more night marching together. It is all day now. Good-bye. God bless you.' And there were tears in every eye but the dying man's as Colonel Wools-Sampson wrung his band, and hastened out into the night to duty's call." People may talk as they like of the jealousy and friction between Colonials and Regulars, but such scenes as that testify to the forging during the war of links of Empire that nothing can sever.
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