n force (Hertzog's), and afterwards to consider those of the
eastern (Kritzinger's). The opening of the year saw the mobile column of
Free Staters 150 miles over the border, pushing swiftly south over the
barren surface of the Karoo. It is a country of scattered farms and
scanty population; desolate plains curving upwards until they rise into
still more desolate mountain ranges. Moving in a very loose formation
over a wide front, the Boers swept southwards. On or about January 4th
they took possession of the small town of Calvinia, which remained their
headquarters for more than a month. From this point their roving bands
made their way as far as the seacoast in the Clanwilliam direction, for
they expected at Lambert's Bay to meet with a vessel with mercenaries
and guns from Europe. They pushed their outposts also as far as
Sutherland and Beaufort West in the south. On January 15th strange
horsemen were seen hovering about the line at Touws River, and the
citizens of Cape Town learned with amazement that the war had been
carried to within a hundred miles of their own doors.

Whilst the Boers were making this daring raid a force consisting of
several mobile columns was being organised by General Settle to arrest
and finally to repel the western invasion. The larger body was under the
command of Colonel De Lisle, an officer who brought to the operations
of war the same energy and thoroughness with which he had made the polo
team of an infantry regiment the champions of the whole British Army.
His troops consisted of the 6th Mounted Infantry, the New South Wales
Mounted Infantry, the Irish Yeomanry, a section of R battery R.H.A., and
a pom-pom. With this small but mobile and hardy force he threw himself
in front of Hertzog's line of advance. On January 13th he occupied
Piquetburg, eighty miles south of the Boer headquarters. On the 23rd he
was at Clanwilliam, fifty miles south-west of them. To his right were
three other small British columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and
Henniker, the latter resting upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and the
whole line extending over 120 miles--barring the southern path to the
invaders.

Though Hertzog at Calvinia and De Lisle at Clanwilliam were only fifty
miles apart, the intervening country is among the most broken and
mountainous in South Africa. Between the two points, and nearer to De
Lisle than to Hertzog, flows the Doorn River. The Boers advancing from
Calvinia came into touch