d the lines of communication. With this object the
2nd Gordon Highlanders and the 2nd Wiltshires were pushed up along
the railroad, followed by Kitchener's Fighting Scouts. These troops
garrisoned Pietersburg and took possession of Chunies Poort, and other
strategic positions. They also furnished escorts for the convoys
which supplied Plumer on the Oliphant River, and they carried out some
spirited operations themselves in the neighbourhood of Pietersburg.
Grenfell, who commanded the force, broke up several laagers, and
captured a number of prisoners, operations in which he was much assisted
by Colenbrander and his men. Finally the last of the great Creusot guns,
the formidable Long Toms, was found mounted near Haenertsburg. It was
the same piece which had in succession scourged Mafeking and Kimberley.
The huge gun, driven to bay, showed its powers by opening an effective
fire at ten thousand yards. The British galloped in upon it, the Boer
riflemen were driven off, and the gun was blown up by its faithful
gunners. So by suicide died the last of that iron brood, the four
sinister brothers who had wrought much mischief in South Africa. They
and their lesson will live in the history of modern artillery.

The sweeping of the Roos-Senekal district being over, Plumer left his
post upon the River of the Elephants, a name which, like Rhenoster,
Zeekoe, Kameelfontein, Leeuw Kop, Tigerfontein, Elands River, and so
many more, serves as a memorial to the great mammals which once covered
the land. On April 28th the force turned south, and on May 4th they had
reached the railroad at Eerstefabrieken close to Pretoria. They had come
in touch with a small Boer force upon the way, and the indefatigable
Vialls hounded them for eighty miles, and tore away the tail of their
convoy with thirty prisoners. The main force had left Pretoria on
horseback on March 28th, and found themselves back once again upon foot
on May 5th. They had something to show, however, for the loss of their
horses, since they had covered a circular march of 400 miles, had
captured some hundreds of the enemy, and had broken up their last
organised capital. From first to last it was a most useful and
well-managed expedition.

It is the more to be regretted that General Blood was recalled from his
northern trek before it had attained its full results, because those
operations to which he turned did not offer him any great opportunities
for success. Withdrawing from the