defence
of three hundred half-armed men against seven hundred Boer riflemen,
with three guns firing shell and shrapnel, was a very good performance.
The same body of burghers immediately afterwards attacked a post held by
Colonel Evans with two companies of the Shropshires and fifty Canadians.
They were again beaten back with loss, the Canadians under Inglis
especially distinguishing themselves by their desperate resistance in an
exposed position.

All these attacks, irritating and destructive as they were, were not
able to hinder the general progress of the war. After the battle of
Diamond Hill the captured position was occupied by the mounted infantry,
while the rest of the forces returned to their camps round Pretoria,
there to await the much-needed remounts. At other parts of the seat
of war the British cordon was being drawn more tightly round the Boer
forces. Buller had come as far as Standerton, and Ian Hamilton, in the
last week of June, had occupied Heidelberg. A week afterwards the two
forces were able to join hands, and so to completely cut off the Free
State from the Transvaal armies. Hamilton in these operations had the
misfortune to break his collar-bone, and for a time the command of his
division passed to Hunter--the one man, perhaps, whom the army would
regard as an adequate successor.

It was evident now to the British commanders that there would be no
peace and no safety for their communications while an undefeated army of
seven or eight thousand men, under such leaders as De Wet and Olivier,
was lurking amid the hills which flanked their railroad. A determined
effort was made, therefore, to clear up that corner of the country.
Having closed the only line of escape by the junction of Ian Hamilton
and of Buller, the attention of six separate bodies of troops was
concentrated upon the stalwart Freestaters. These were the divisions of
Rundle and of Brabant from the south, the brigade of Clements on their
extreme left, the garrison of Lindley under Paget, the garrison of
Heilbron under Macdonald, and, most formidable of all, a detachment
under Hunter which was moving from the north. A crisis was evidently
approaching.

The nearest Free State town of importance still untaken was Bethlehem--a
singular name to connect with the operations of war. The country on the
south of it forbade an advance by Rundle or Brabant, but it was more
accessible from the west. The first operation of the British consisted,