light, easy
war. The Imperial Light Infantry is eagerly filled. The Imperial Light
Horse can find no more vacancies, not even for those who will serve
without pay. The Volunteers and Town-Guards bear their parts like men."
Of the excellence of the service of the Natalians a great deal remains
to be said. At present the story must proceed.

The arrival of Sir Redvers Buller at Cape Town on the 31st of October
was a signal for general rejoicing. The streets were filled to
overflowing, and cheer after cheer rung from thousands of throats. As
the General drove to Government House, he was greeted by cries of
"Avenge Majuba!" and "Bravo, General!" and by the amount of emotion
expended and the universal expression of relief evidenced, it was plain
that the Cape colonists, like the cockney Londoner, were prepared "to
bet their bottom dollar" on the combination of Sir Redvers Buller and
Mr. Thomas Atkins!

On the 2nd November the Boers proclaimed the Upper Tugela division of
Natal to be Free State Territory, and they seized Colesberg Bridge, some
eighteen miles north of the town of Colesberg, where the road between
that place and Philippolis crosses the Orange River. However, as Orange
River, De Aar, Colesberg, and Stromberg were still held by our forces,
the inhabitants remained confident. Yet reports of the Boer advance on
Colesberg were scarcely reassuring, and rumours of increased
disaffection among the Dutch farmers in this region were rife.

It was a curious fact that some of the Boers started from Johannesburg
for the frontier wearing in their hats the national colours, red, white,
and blue--and green, with above them a yellow band, thus completing the
insignia of the United South Africa for which they were to fight. It
would be interesting to know how the red, white, and blue became
associated with the green, and whether Aylward, the agitator, and his
Fenian friends introduced it for the purpose of giving prominence to the
sympathy of the Anti-English brotherhood in the Emerald Isle. The
disloyal Natal Dutch, such of them as there then were, were
distinguished by a red rose badge. These signs were of no consequence in
themselves, but they served to demonstrate the preconcerted nature of
Boer actions, which were supposed by certain persons to have been a
sudden and spontaneous outcome of British oppression.

Racial feeling grew stronger and fiercer day by day, and Mr. Kruger's
threat to "stagger humanity" was by some