our leaders, that when it was known that Modder River wound over a
plain, the idea of a resistance there appears to have passed away from
their minds. So great was the confidence or so lax the scouting that a
force equaling their own in numbers had assembled with many guns within
seven miles of them, and yet the advance appears to have been conducted
without any expectation of impending battle. The supposition, obvious
even to a civilian, that a river would be a likely place to meet with an
obstinate resistance, seems to have been ignored. It is perhaps not fair
to blame the General for a fact which must have vexed his spirit more
than ours--one's sympathies go out to the gentle and brave man, who
was heard calling out in his sleep that he 'should have had those two
guns'--but it is repugnant to common sense to suppose that no one,
neither the cavalry nor the Intelligence Department, is at fault for so
extraordinary a state of ignorance. [Footnote: Later information makes
it certain that the cavalry did report the presence of the enemy to Lord
Methuen.] On the morning of Tuesday, November 28th, the British troops
were told that they would march at once, and have their breakfast
when they reached the Modder River--a grim joke to those who lived to
appreciate it.

The army had been reinforced the night before by the welcome addition of
the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which made up for the losses of
the week. It was a cloudless morning, and a dazzling sun rose in a deep
blue sky. The men, though hungry, marched cheerily, the reek of their
tobacco-pipes floating up from their ranks. It cheered them to see that
the murderous kopjes had, for the time, been left behind, and that the
great plain inclined slightly downwards to where a line of green showed
the course of the river. On the further bank were a few scattered
buildings, with one considerable hotel, used as a week-end resort by the
businessmen of Kimberley. It lay now calm and innocent, with its open
windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death lurked at the
windows and death in the garden, and the little dark man who stood by
the door, peering through his glass at the approaching column, was the
minister of death, the dangerous Cronje. In consultation with him
was one who was to prove even more formidable, and for a longer time.
Semitic in face, high-nosed, bushy-bearded, and eagle-eyed, with skin
burned brown by a life of the veld--it was De la Rey, on