to a man, while our right had
been hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy into Ladysmith.
Our guns had been outshot, our infantry checked, and our cavalry
paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when compared
with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such matters are comparative,
and the force which laid down its arms at Nicholson's Nek is the
largest British force which has surrendered since the days of our great
grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders.

Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an investment,
an event for which apparently no preparation had been made, since with
an open railway behind him so many useless mouths had been permitted
to remain in the town. Ladysmith lies in a hollow and is dominated by
a ring of hills, some near and some distant. The near ones were in our
hands, but no attempt had been made in the early days of the war to
fortify and hold Bulwana, Lombard's Kop, and the other positions from
which the town might be shelled. Whether these might or might not have
been successfully held has been much disputed by military men,
the balance of opinion being that Bulwana, at least, which has a
water-supply of its own, might have been retained. This question,
however, was already academic, as the outer hills were in the hands
of the enemy. As it was, the inner line--Caesar's Camp, Wagon Hill,
Rifleman's Post, and round to Helpmakaar Hill--made a perimeter of
fourteen miles, and the difficulty of retaining so extensive a line goes
far to exonerate General White, not only for abandoning the outer hills,
but also for retaining his cavalry in the town.

After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the Boers
in their deliberate but effective fashion set about the investment of
the town, while the British commander accepted the same as inevitable,
content if he could stem and hold back from the colony the threatened
flood of invasion. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the
commandoes gradually closed in upon the south and east, harassed by
some cavalry operations and reconnaissances upon our part, the effect of
which was much exaggerated by the press. On Thursday, November 2nd, the
last train escaped under a brisk fire, the passengers upon the wrong
side of the seats. At 2 P.M. on the same day the telegraph line was cut,
and the lonely town settled herself somberly down to the task of holding
off the exulta