osition of the Boers, but
had struck it upon the extreme left wing. The extreme right wing, thanks
to the Koodoosdrift demonstration, was fifty miles off, and this line
was naturally very thinly held, save only at the central position of
Magersfontein. Cronje could not denude this central position, for he
saw Methuen still waiting in front of him, and in any case Klip Drift
is twenty-five miles from Magersfontein. But the Boer left wing, though
scattered, gathered into some sort of cohesion on Wednesday (February
14th), and made an effort to check the victorious progress of the
cavalry. It was necessary on this day to rest at Klip Drift, until
Kelly-Kenny should come up with the infantry to hold what had been
gained. All day the small bodies of Boers came riding in and taking up
positions between the column and its objective.

Next morning the advance was resumed, the column being still forty miles
from Kimberley with the enemy in unknown force between. Some four miles
out French came upon their position, two hills with a long low nek
between, from which came a brisk rifle fire supported by artillery. But
French was not only not to be stopped, but could not even be retarded.
Disregarding the Boer fire completely the cavalry swept in wave after
wave over the low nek, and so round the base of the hills. The Boer
riflemen upon the kopjes must have seen a magnificent military spectacle
as regiment after regiment, the 9th Lancers leading, all in very open
order, swept across the plain at a gallop, and so passed over the nek.
A few score horses and half as many men were left behind them, but forty
or fifty Boers were cut down in the pursuit. It appears to have been
one of the very few occasions during the campaign when that obsolete and
absurd weapon the sword was anything but a dead weight to its bearer.

And now the force had a straight run in before it, for it had outpaced
any further force of Boers which may have been advancing from the
direction of Magersfontein. The horses, which had come a hundred miles
in four days with insufficient food and water, were so done that it was
no uncommon sight to see the trooper not only walking to ease his horse,
but carrying part of his monstrous weight of saddle gear. But in spite
of fatigue the force pressed on until in the afternoon a distant view
was seen, across the reddish plain, of the brick houses and corrugated
roofs of Kimberley. The Boer besiegers cleared off in front of it,