thought brings the critic back always to
the great horse question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at
all seasons of the war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most
damning indictment against British foresight, common-sense, and power
of organisation. That the third year of the war should dawn without
the British forces having yet got the legs of the Boers, after having
penetrated every portion of their country and having the horses of the
world on which to draw, is the most amazingly inexplicable point in the
whole of this strange campaign. From the telegram 'Infantry preferred'
addressed to a nation of rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the
excellent horses on the spot, while importing them unfit for use from
the ends of the earth, there has been nothing but one long series of
blunders in this, the most vital question of all. Even up to the end, in
the Colony the obvious lesson had not yet been learnt that it is better
to give 1000 men two horses each, and to let them reach the enemy, than
give 2000 men one horse each, with which they can never attain their
object. The chase during two years of the man with two horses by the man
with one horse, has been a sight painful to ourselves and ludicrous to
others.

In connection with this account of operations within the Colony, there
is one episode which occurred in the extreme north-west which will
not fit in with this connected narrative, but which will justify the
distraction of the reader's intelligence, for few finer deeds of arms
are recorded in the war. This was the heroic defence of a convoy by the
14th Company of Irish Imperial Yeomanry. The convoy was taking food to
Griquatown, on the Kimberley side of the seat of war. The town had been
long invested by Conroy, and the inhabitants were in such straits that
it was highly necessary to relieve them. To this end a convoy, two miles
long, was despatched under Major Humby of the Irish Yeomanry. The escort
consisted of seventy-five Northumberland Fusiliers, twenty-four
local troops, and 100 of the 74th Irish Yeomanry. Fifteen miles from
Griquatown, at a place called Rooikopjes, the convoy was attacked by the
enemy several hundred in number. Two companies of the Irishmen seized
the ridge, however, which commanded the wagons, and held it until they
were almost exterminated. The position was covered with bush, and the
two parties came to the closest of quarters, the Yeomen refusing to take
a backw