elivered by Muller's Boers upon
Colonel Park's column on the night of December 19th, at Elandspruit.
The fight was sharp while it lasted, but it ended in the repulse of
the assailants. The British casualties were six killed and twenty-four
wounded. The Boers, who left eight dead behind them, suffered probably
to about the same extent.

Already the most striking and pleasing feature in the Transvaal was
the tranquillity of its central provinces, and the way in which the
population was settling down to its old avocations. Pretoria had resumed
its normal quiet life, while its larger and more energetic neighbour
was rapidly recovering from its two years of paralysis. Every week
more stamps were dropped in the mines, and from month to month a steady
increase in the output showed that the great staple industry of the
place would soon be as vigorous as ever. Most pleasing of all was the
restoration of safety upon the railway lines, which, save for some
precautions at night, had resumed their normal traffic. When the
observer took his eyes from the dark clouds which shadowed every
horizon, he could not but rejoice at the ever-widening central stretch
of peaceful blue which told that the storm was nearing its end.

Having now dealt with the campaign in the Transvaal down to the end of
1901, it only remains to bring the chronicle of the events in the Orange
River Colony down to the same date. Reference has already been made to
two small British reverses which occurred in September, the loss of two
guns to the south of the Waterworks near Bloemfontein, and the surprise
of the camp of Lord Lovat's Scouts. There were some indications at
this time that a movement had been planned through the passes of the
Drakensberg by a small Free State force which should aid Louis Botha's
invasion of Natal. The main movement was checked, however, and the
demonstration in aid of it came to nothing.

The blockhouse system had been developed to a very complete extent
in the Orange River Colony, and the small bands of Boers found it
increasingly difficult to escape from the British columns who were for
ever at their heels. The southern portion of the country had been cut
off from the northern by a line which extended through Bloemfontein on
the east to the Basuto frontier, and on the west to Jacobsdal. To the
south of this line the Boer resistance had practically ceased, although
several columns moved continually through it, and gleaned up the broke