THE HERO OF WAGGON HILL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6727, 23 February 1900, Page 4

THE HERO OF WAGGON HILL.

Colonel Inn Hamilton, in command at Waggon Hill in the Boer attack at Ladysmith, is, says Mr H. W. Lucy in a letter to the " Sydney Morning Heraldj" a friend and near neighbour of mine in the country. When war broke out in the Transvaal he threw up a snug berth as commandant at Hythe, and went out on active service. Personally he is the type of man, familiar among British officers, whose outward bearing is the very opposite of ordinary ideals of the fighting man. Slim in figure, delicately featured, he does not look as if he could stand the racket of a week's campaign. His modestmanner and habitual self-efface-ment do hot suggest that, rince receiving his baptism of fire serving with the 92nd Highlanders in the Afghan campaign of 1878-80, ho has been in the front line of most big battles sinee 'fought 'under the British flag. One of his hands is crippled with a wound received in the last war with, the Boers crowned at Majuba Hill. He served with the Nile Expedition in 1884, in'Burmah two years later, marched with the column that relieved Chitral, commanded the 3rd Brigade in the Tirah campaign, and commanded the infantry in the deadly •fight-' at Elandslaagte. It is no new thing for him to be mentioned in despatches, but General White, reticent of words, is carried away by a soldier's enthusiasm when, recording the result of. the seventeen hours' fight before. Ladysmith, he tells how the entrenchments on Waggon Hill were three times taken by the Boers, and how infantry led by Colonel Hamilton thrice re-captured the prize* It is deeds like this that lighten the prevalent gloom without palliating the maladminstration responsible for its existence.