threatened tide of rebellion.
The worst of it was that everything depended on the strength of the
move, and it was exactly this strength that was wanting. The Third
Division was broken up and distributed in various parts of the country,
and General Gatacre was forced to make a hazardous venture with only
such forces as he could muster. On all sides the same unfortunate tale
of weakness could be told. Our force was so divided up that each general
was crippled with the consciousness that he had no hope of getting
reinforcements for some time to come. Lord Methuen, now on the extreme
west, while struggling for the relief of Kimberley, had kept the Free
Staters at bay with great loss to himself, and was suffering from the
weakness consequent on violent strain to his resources. General French,
his eye fixed on Colesberg, with a diminutive and totally inadequate
force, had dodged about from town to town, keeping the enemy ever on the
alert and allowing him no time to snore behind his intrenchments, and no
opportunity to proceed farther in his invasion of the Colony; while
General Gatacre was now about to do his best in the midst of a swarming
enemy to capture Stormberg. Thus we see that at one and the same time
four different battles, in the most trying circumstances, were taking
place in the Transvaal, and that the flower of our army was being
exposed on all sides to the murderous shells of an overwhelming foe
powerfully posted in places of his own choosing--at Modder River, at
Arundel, at Stormberg, at Colenso--in each of these regions the
continuous thunder of guns, the gallant advance of heroes, the stubborn
and courageous defence of a preponderating enemy. It is some
satisfaction to think that, though from the first the British suffered
from inferiority in numbers, though they were out-fought by sheer weight
of the Boer commandoes and guns, still they displayed an undismayed
front, and those superb fighting qualities which tradition has taught us
to look for in the British race, and which the enemy, misled or
self-deceived, had chosen to under-estimate. It was also a matter for
congratulation that the foe, with all the natural advantages of the
situation, his knowledge of every inch of the ground, his great mobility
and advanced preparations, merely succeeded in repelling the British
attack, and never took the initiative in attempting one single forward
movement in the face of the British army. But it must be allowed our o