d the beginning of June found him with
twenty thousand men in front of that difficult position. Some talk of
a surrender had arisen, and Christian Botha, who commanded the Boers,
succeeded in gaining several days' armistice, which ended in nothing.
The Transvaal forces at this point were not more than a few thousand in
number, but their position was so formidable that it was a serious task
to turn them out. Van Wyk's Hill, however, had been left unguarded, and
as its possession would give the British the command of Botha's Pass,
its unopposed capture by the South African Light Horse was an event of
great importance. With guns upon this eminence the infantry were able,
on June 8th, to attack and to carry with little loss the rest of the
high ground, and so to get the Pass into their complete possession.
Botha fired the grass behind him, and withdrew sullenly to the north. On
the 9th and 10th the convoys were passed over the Pass, and on the 11th
the main body of the army followed them.

The operations were now being conducted in that extremely acute angle of
Natal which runs up between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
In crossing Botha's Pass the army had really entered what was now the
Orange River Colony. But it was only for a very short time, as the
object of the movement was to turn the Laing's Nek position, and then
come back into the Transvaal through Alleman's Pass. The gallant South
African Light Horse led the way, and fought hard at one point to clear
a path for the army, losing six killed and eight wounded in a sharp
skirmish. On the morning of the 12th the flanking movement was far
advanced, and it only remained for the army to force Alleman's Nek,
which would place it to the rear of Laing's Nek, and close to the
Transvaal town of Volksrust.

Had the Boers been the men of Colenso and of Spion Kop, this storming
of Alleman's Nek would have been a bloody business. The position was
strong, the cover was slight, and there was no way round. But the
infantry came on with the old dash without the old stubborn resolution
being opposed to them. The guns prepared the way, and then the Dorsets,
the Dublins, the Middlesex, the Queen's, and the East Surrey did the
rest. The door was open and the Transvaal lay before us. The next day
Volksrust was in our hands.

The whole series of operations were excellently conceived and carried
out. Putting Colenso on one side, it cannot be denied that General
Buller showed co