sive
blow of some sort?" But hitherto we have never succeeded in bringing off
such a coup. We have pushed them before us, losing as many or more than
they at every shift, but, whenever we have thought to get a hold of
them, they have always eluded us. You may think it is a strange thing
that they have been caught this time. The daring of Hunter's plan and
the rapidity it was carried out with made it succeed. The Boers--so they
tell me at least--never believed that we should venture with so small a
force to penetrate by four or five different routes into such a strong
country. The scheme seemed to lay us open to a disaster if the enemy had
rapidly concentrated and flung itself on one of the separated forces.
This danger, however, was more apparent than real, because the ground
manoeuvred over was not altogether of very large extent, so that relief
might be sent from one column to another, or the enemy, if concentrated
against one column, rapidly followed up by one or more of the others.
Besides which, if the country offered strong positions to take, it
offered strong ones to hold, and in a very short time any threatened
column could have placed itself in such a position as to make it
impossible for the Boers to shift it in the time at their disposal.
Still the plan, considering the Boers' skill in defending strong
positions, had an audacious look about it. Several of the Boer prisoners
have since told me--I don't know with what truth--that they thought we
should follow them in by the Relief Nek pass, and that it was their
intention to work round and threaten our communications, and either cut
us off or force us to fight our way out as best we could.

The quickness of our advance, too, was of the utmost importance. From
the moment we started, the enemy was given no opportunity to pull
himself together and look about him. Hunter, Paget, Clements, and Rundle
dashed into the Fouriesberg Valley exactly together. Directly we had got
through, Hunter detached the main part of his column, the Highland
Brigade, under Macdonald, and sent it with several guns as hard as it
could pelt to back up Bruce-Hamilton, knowing, now that we had carried
our end of the valley, that the pressure would come at the east end.
Meantime, while Macdonald marched, we waited. We even retreated two or
three miles, and for twenty-four hours lay on the pass and slept. Then
we got up and began sauntering up the big irregular valley along the
Basutoland bord