The Ladysmith correspondent of the Standard has got through a
long and graphic telegram describing the Boer assault on the 6th inst. By 2.30 a.m. the Heidelberg com- mando had under cover of the darkness evaded our pickets, rushed the outlying sangars, and assailed Canar's Camp both on the left flank and the front. The first brunt of the attack fell on the Manchester Regiment, who were speedily reinforced by the Gordons, the Rifle Brigade, and the 53rd Battery of the Field Artillery, which, crossing the Klip River, shelled the enemy with shrapnel until, driven back step by step, they finally fled in disorder. The conflict on Wagon Hill was even more severe. Here a storming party from the Harrismith commando had crept across the valley, shot down our pickets, and surprising the Light Horse and working parties of the Gordons, Sappers, and 60th Rifles, gained the summit of the bill. Thirty of the Gordons with a Lieutenant were here taken prisoners, but not till every man bad been wounded. The position had now become critical, and it was not till five p.m., and after a series of heroic charges by the Rifles, the Gordons, and lastly, the Devons—who dashed across the open under a terrific fire—that the Boers were hurled down the hill at the point of the bayonet, Lieutenant Masterson receiving no fewer than ten wounds. This, writes the correspondent, was a fitting close to a struggle that had lasted sixteen hours, during which every gun and rifle had been brought to bear.
