sion of Plumer into the untrodden
ground to the north.

At this period of the war the British forces had overrun, if they had
not subdued, the whole of the Orange River Colony and every part of the
Transvaal which is south of the Mafeking-Pretoria-Komati line. Through
this great tract of country there was not a village and hardly a
farmhouse which had not seen the invaders. But in the north there
remained a vast district, two hundred miles long and three hundred
broad, which had hardly been touched by the war. It is a wild country,
scrub-covered, antelope-haunted plains rising into desolate hills,
but there are many kloofs and valleys with rich water meadows and lush
grazings, which formed natural granaries and depots for the enemy. Here
the Boer government continued to exist, and here, screened by their
mountains, they were able to organise the continuation of the struggle.
It was evident that there could be no end to the war until these last
centres of resistance had been broken up.

The British forces had advanced as far north as Rustenburg in the west,
Pienaar in the centre, and Lydenburg in the east, but here they had
halted, unwilling to go farther until their conquests had been made good
behind them. A General might well pause before plunging his troops into
that vast and rugged district, when an active foe and an exposed line of
communication lay for many hundreds of miles to the south of them. But
Lord Kitchener with characteristic patience waited for the right hour to
come, and then with equally characteristic audacity played swiftly and
boldly for his stake. De Wet, impotent for the moment, had been hunted
back over the Orange River. French had harried the burghers in the
South-east Transvaal, and the main force of the enemy was known to be on
that side of the seat of war. The north was exposed, and with one long,
straight lunge to the heart, Pietersburg might be transfixed.

There could only be one direction for the advance, and that must be
along the Pretoria to Pietersburg railroad. This is the only line of
rails which leads to the north, and as it was known to be in working
order (the Boers were running a bi-weekly service from Pietersburg to
Warm Baths), it was hoped that a swift advance might seize it before any
extensive damage could be done. With this object a small but very mobile
force rapidly assembled at the end of March at Pienaar River, which was
the British rail-head forty miles north of Pret