stimulate a general revolt in the Colony; and
it must be acknowledged that if the powder did not all explode it was
not for want of the match being thoroughly applied.

It might at first sight seem the simplest of military operations to hunt
down these scattered and insignificant bands; but as a matter of fact
nothing could be more difficult. Operating in a country which was both
vast and difficult, with excellent horses, the best of information
and supplies ready for them everywhere, it was impossible for the
slow-moving British columns with their guns and their wagons to overtake
them. Formidable even in flight, the Boers were always ready to turn
upon any force which exposed itself too rashly to retaliation, and so
amid the mountain passes the British chiefs had to use an amount of
caution which was incompatible with extreme speed. Only when a commando
was exactly localised so that two or three converging British forces
could be brought to bear upon it, was there a reasonable chance of
forcing a fight. Still, with all these heavy odds against them, the
various little columns continued month after month to play hide-and-seek
with the commandos, and the game was by no means always on the one side.
The varied fortunes of this scrambling campaign can only be briefly
indicated in these pages.

It has already been shown that Kritzinger's original force broke into
many bands, which were recruited partly from the Cape rebels and partly
from fresh bodies which passed over from the Orange River Colony. The
more severe the pressure in the north, the greater reason was there
for a trek to this land of plenty. The total number of Boers who were
wandering over the eastern and midland districts may have been about two
thousand, who were divided into bands which varied from fifty to three
hundred. The chief leaders of separate commandos were Kritzinger,
Scheepers, Malan, Myburgh, Fouche, Lotter, Smuts, Van Reenen, Lategan,
Maritz, and Conroy, the two latter operating on the western side of the
country. To hunt down these numerous and active bodies the British were
compelled to put many similar detachments into the field, known as
the columns of Gorringe, Crabbe, Henniker, Scobell, Doran, Kavanagh,
Alexander, and others. These two sets of miniature armies performed an
intricate devil's dance over the Colony, the main lines of which are
indicated by the red lines upon the map. The Zuurberg mountains to the
north of Steynsburg, the Sn