der gun-fire, and the Boers on this occasion were decisively checked
by our battery. Even when the guns left, we were able from the
vantage-ground of the hill to keep them at arm's length until the time
came to catch up the column.

On the right flank they were more successful, pressing home a heavy
attack on the Mounted Infantry on that side. A squadron got cut off and
rushed by the enemy, who rode in to it shooting at pistol-shot distance,
and shouting "Hands up!" We lost pretty heavily in casualties, besides
about fifty prisoners. These small mishaps are of no great importance in
themselves, but they encourage the enemy no doubt to go on fighting. The
story as it goes round the farms will lose nothing in the telling.
Probably in a very short time it will amount to the rout of Hamilton's
column, and the captured troopers will lend a colour to the yarn.
Burghers who have taken the oath of allegiance will be readier than ever
to break it. However, time no doubt will balance the account all right
in the long-run.

From Lindley, fighting a little every day, we marched north to Heilbron,
where Broadwood got hold of the Boer convoy by the tail, and succeeded
in capturing a dozen waggons. From there we cut into the railway, and
crossed it at Vredefort, passing through the main body of the advance in
doing so. Anything like the sight of these vast columns all pushing in
one direction you never saw. In this country one can often see thirty or
forty miles, and in that space on the parched, light-coloured ground
you may see from some point of vantage five or six separate streams of
advance slowly rolling northward, their thin black lines of convoy
overhung by a heavy pall of dust. As we closed in and became involved
for a moment in the whole mass of the general advance, though accustomed
to think no small beer of ourselves as an army, for we number 11,000
men, we realised that we were quite a small fraction of the British
force. Endless battalions of infantry, very dusty and grimy, but going
light and strong (you soon get into the habit of looking attentively at
infantry to see _how they march_); guns, bearer-companies, Colonial
Horse, generals and their staffs, go plodding and jingling by in a
procession that seems to be going on for ever. And beside and through
them the long convoys of the different units, in heavy masses, come
groaning and creaking along, the oxen sweating, the dust whirling, the
naked Kaffirs yelling, and t