A COLONIAL JOURNALIST ON TOP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 43, 22 February 1900, Page 4

A COLONIAL JOURNALIST ON TOP.

telegraphing from Modder River on November 30, the correspondent of the London t)a\Ly Chronicle (Mr. M. Donohoe, formerly of the Sydney Evening News) thus graphically describes the scenes on the battlefield the day after the battle at Modder River:—

" An inspection of the battlefield the next morning told the eloquent story of the fierceness of the fight—of how our gallant soldiers fought to the last in a numerically unequal struggle. There were quantities of kits, rifles, and «addles belonging to the dead and wounded lying about. Most of the dead had been picked up, and very few were lying on the ground. In a trench adjoining the railway I found three of the Highlanders lying side by side, all dead. One had been killed in the act of clasping a Boer's rifle. The hand clutched the weapon, but the owner of the gun had escaped. Further on were two more bodies of Highlanders, and close by a couple of Northumberland Fusileers. At Rostall's Junction Hotel, 300* yards from the south bank of the river, I saw the first Boer dead. The adjoining buildings, were riddled with British shot and shell. The billiard room walls wera covered with holes. Fragments of shell lay about in all parts of the room. The roof of the hotel was shattered. Our shells had set fire to some of the buildings. In the plantation at the rear of the hotel a number of Boer bodies were lying in the rifle-pits which had been dug there. Here, too, our shells had done then: work. Four lay in one heap. Numbers had evidently been killed flying from the trenches. The rifles lying by some of the bodies were smashed by the shells. In a house on the left of the bridge on the south bank there were a few dead. The house had been seized by the enemy, and the accnpants had fled. The furniture was smashed by shells. I found several

Boer bodies buried in the debris. In the yard a galvanised fence was per-

forated like a sieve. In another house I found a dead Boer on the table in the front. The hand was on the bandolier in the act of taking out a clip holding five cartiidges. Another one was oa the floor, with his arms fold across his face, as if to hide the scene of death around him as he himself was dying. These had been killed by a shell which had gone through the house. A dozen English residents on the Modder River had been prisoners on parole for several weeks. They had been by no means unkindly treated. I have ascertained that the Feee Staters were the first to clear out of the trenches cowed by our shells. The Transvaalers soon followed their example. Commandant Delarey escaped in a cart. As he droved off a shell burst close to the vehicle, and he

jumped out of it." I The Berlin correspondent of the! Daily Chronicle says: "The brilliant! despatch of the Daily Chronicle's correspondent descriptive of the battle of the Modder River is much appreciated. The Voseische Zeitany describes the despatch as the most valuable contribution to the history of tfcat fateful battle. Other Journals praise it for its dramatic intensity."