nd fresh disaster to many who had imagined that
the war had passed for ever away from them. Under compulsion from their
irreconcilable countrymen, a large number of the farmers broke their
parole, mounted the horses which British leniency had left with them,
and threw themselves once more into the struggle, adding their honour
to the other sacrifices which they had made for their country. In any
account of the continual brushes between these scattered bands and the
British forces, there must be such a similarity in procedure and result,
that it would be hard for the writer and intolerable for the reader if
they were set forth in detail. As a general statement it may be said
that during the months to come there was no British garrison in any
one of the numerous posts in the Transvaal, and in that portion of
the Orange River Colony which lies east of the railway, which was not
surrounded by prowling riflemen, there was no convoy sent to supply
those garrisons which was not liable to be attacked upon the road, and
there was no train upon any one of the three lines which might not find
a rail up and a hundred raiders covering it with their Mausers. With
some two thousand miles of railroad to guard, so many garrisons to
provide, and an escort to be furnished to every convoy, there remained
out of the large body of British troops in the country only a moderate
force who were available for actual operations. This force was
distributed in different districts scattered over a wide extent of
country, and it was evident that while each was strong enough to
suppress local resistance, still at any moment a concentration of the
Boer scattered forces upon a single British column might place the
latter in a serious position. The distribution of the British in October
and November was roughly as follows. Methuen was in the Rustenburg
district, Barton at Krugersdorp and operating down the line to
Klerksdorp, Settle was in the West, Paget at Pienaar's River, Clements
in the Magaliesberg, Hart at Potchefstroom, Lyttelton at Middelburg,
Smith-Dorrien at Belfast, W. Kitchener at Lydenburg, French in the
Eastern Transvaal, Hunter, Rundle, Brabant, and Bruce Hamilton in the
Orange River Colony. Each of these forces was occupied in the same
sort of work, breaking up small bodies of the enemy, hunting for arms,
bringing in refugees, collecting supplies, and rounding up cattle. Some,
however, were confronted with organised resistance and some were