and
learning that British forces were already converging upon them, they
abandoned the attack, and turning away from Colesberg they headed west,
cutting the railway line twenty miles to the north of De Aar. On the
22nd they occupied Britstown, which is eighty miles inside the border,
and on the same day they captured a small body of yeomanry who had been
following them. These prisoners were released again some days later.
Taking a sweep round towards Prieska and Strydenburg, they pushed south
again. At the end of the year Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep in the
Colony, sweeping through the barren and thinly-inhabited western lands,
heading apparently for Fraserburg and Beaufort West.

The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of Zastron, in
the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800 strong. Crossing
the border at Rhenoster Hoek upon December 16th, they pushed for
Burghersdorp, but were headed off by a British column. Passing through
Venterstad, they made for Steynsberg, fighting two indecisive skirmishes
with small British forces. The end of the year saw them crossing the
rail road at Sherburne, north of Rosmead Junction, where they captured a
train as they passed, containing some Colonial troops. At this time they
were a hundred miles inside the Colony, and nearly three hundred from
Hertzog's western column.

In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to De
Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns which
should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders. Martial law was
proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the invaders
came further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the loyalists,
who formed themselves everywhere into town guards. The existing Colonial
regiments, such as Brabant's, the Imperial and South African Light
Horse--Thorneycroft's, Rimington's, and the others--had already been
brought up to strength again, and now two new regiments were added,
Kitchener's Bodyguard and Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, the latter being
raised by Johann Colenbrander, who had made a name for himself in the
Rhodesian wars. At this period of the war between twenty and thirty
thousand Cape colonists were under arms. Many of these were untrained
levies, but they possessed the martial spirit of the race, and they set
free more seasoned troops for other duties.

It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the movements of
the wester