astle, fifty
miles to the north. In nine days he had covered 138 miles. On the 19th
the army lay under the loom of that Majuba which had cast its sinister
shadow for so long over South African politics. In front was the
historical Laing's Nek, the pass which leads from Natal into the
Transvaal, while through it runs the famous railway tunnel. Here the
Boers had taken up that position which had proved nineteen years before
to be too strong for British troops. The Rooineks had come back after
many days to try again. A halt was called, for the ten days' supplies
which had been taken with the troops were exhausted, and it was
necessary to wait until the railway should be repaired. This gave time
for Hildyard's 5th Division and Lyttelton's 4th Division to close up
on Clery's 2nd Division, which with Dundonald's cavalry had formed our
vanguard throughout. The only losses of any consequence during this fine
march fell upon a single squadron of Bethune's mounted infantry, which
being thrown out in the direction of Vryheid, in order to make sure that
our flank was clear, fell into an ambuscade and was almost annihilated
by a close-range fire. Sixty-six casualties, of which nearly half were
killed, were the result of this action, which seems to have depended,
like most of our reverses, upon defective scouting. Buller, having
called up his two remaining divisions and having mended the railway
behind him, proceeded now to manoeuvre the Boers out of Laing's Nek
exactly as he had manoeuvred them out of the Biggarsberg. At the end of
May Hildyard and Lyttelton were despatched in an eastern direction, as
if there were an intention of turning the pass from Utrecht.

It was on May 12th that Lord Roberts occupied Kroonstad, and he halted
there for eight days before he resumed his advance. At the end of that
time his railway had been repaired, and enough supplies brought up to
enable him to advance again without anxiety. The country through which
he passed swarmed with herds and flocks, but, with as scrupulous a
regard for the rights of property as Wellington showed in the south of
France, no hungry soldier was allowed to take so much as a chicken as he
passed. The punishment for looting was prompt and stern. It is true that
farms were burned occasionally and the stock confiscated, but this was
as a punishment for some particular offence and not part of a system.
The limping Tommy looked askance at the fat geese which covered the dam
by th