ard step, though it was clear that they were vastly outnumbered.
Encouraged by the example of Madan and Ford, their gallant young
leaders, they deliberately sacrificed their lives in order to give time
for the guns to come up and for the convoy to pass. Oliffe, Bonynge, and
Maclean, who had been children together, were shot side by side on the
ridge, and afterwards buried in one grave. Of forty-three men in action,
fourteen were killed and twenty severely wounded. Their sacrifice was
not in vain, however. The Boers were beaten back, and the convoy, as
well as Griquatown, was saved. Some thirty or forty Boers were killed or
wounded in the skirmish, and Conroy, their leader, declared that it was
the stiffest fight of his life.

In the autumn and winter of 1901 General French had steadily pursued the
system of clearing certain districts, one at a time, and endeavouring by
his blockhouses and by the arrangement of his forces to hold in strict
quarantine those sections of the country which were still infested by
the commandos. In this manner he succeeded by the November of this year
in confining the active forces of the enemy to the extreme north-east
and to the south-west of the peninsula. It is doubtful if the whole Boer
force, three-quarters of whom were colonial rebels, amounted to more
than fifteen hundred men. When we learn that at this period of the war
they were indifferently armed, and that many of them were mounted upon
donkeys, it is impossible, after making every allowance for the passive
assistance of the farmers, and the difficulties of the country, to
believe that the pursuit was always pushed with the spirit and vigour
which was needful.

In the north-east, Myburgh, Wessels, and the truculent Fouche were
allowed almost a free hand for some months, while the roving bands were
rounded up in the midlands and driven along until they were west of the
main railroad. Here, in the Calvinia district, several commandos united
in October 1901 under Maritz, Louw, Smit, and Theron. Their united
bands rode down into the rich grain-growing country round Piquetberg
and Malmesbury, pushing south until it seemed as if their academic
supporters at Paarl were actually to have a sight of the rebellion which
they had fanned to a flame. At one period their patrols were within
forty miles of Cape Town. The movement was checked, however, by a small
force of Lancers and district troops, and towards the end of October,
Maritz, who was