ht be regarded with equanimity
by the Generals, who understood that the greater strength the enemy
developed at Colesberg the less they would have to oppose the critical
movements which were about to be carried out in the west. Meanwhile
Coleskop had also been abandoned, the guns removed, and the whole force
on February 14th passed through Rensburg and fell back upon Arundel, the
spot from which six weeks earlier French had started upon this stirring
series of operations. It would not be fair, however, to suppose that
they had failed because they ended where they began. Their primary
object had been to prevent the further advance of the Freestaters into
the colony, and, during the most critical period of the war, this
had been accomplished with much success and little loss. At last the
pressure had become so severe that the enemy had to weaken the most
essential part of their general position in order to relieve it. The
object of the operations had really been attained when Clements found
himself back at Arundel once more. French, the stormy petrel of the war,
had flitted on from Cape Town to Modder River, where a larger prize
than Colesberg awaited him. Clements continued to cover Naauwport, the
important railway junction, until the advance of Roberts's army caused a
complete reversal of the whole military situation.

CHAPTER 15. SPION KOP.

Whilst Methuen and Gatacre were content to hold their own at the Modder
and at Sterkstroom, and whilst the mobile and energetic French was
herding the Boers into Colesberg, Sir Redvers Buller, the heavy,
obdurate, inexplicable man, was gathering and organising his forces for
another advance upon Ladysmith. Nearly a month had elapsed since the
evil day when his infantry had retired, and his ten guns had not,
from the frontal attack upon Colenso. Since then Sir Charles Warren's
division of infantry and a considerable reinforcement of artillery had
come to him. And yet in view of the terrible nature of the ground in
front of him, of the fighting power of the Boers, and of the fact that
they were always acting upon internal lines, his force even now was, in
the opinion of competent judges, too weak for the matter in hand.

There remained, however, several points in his favour. His excellent
infantry were full of zeal and of confidence in their chief. It cannot
be denied, however much we may criticise some incidents in his campaign,
that he possessed the gift of impressing and enc