enty to thirty of each side were
killed or wounded. Fauresmith was attacked on October 19th, but was also
in the very safe hands of the Seaforths, who held it against a severe
assault. Phillipolis was continually attacked between the 18th and the
24th, but made a most notable defence, which was conducted by Gostling,
the resident magistrate, with forty civilians. For a week this band of
stalwarts held their own against 600 Boers, and were finally relieved
by a force from the railway. All the operations were not, however, as
successful as these three defences. On October 24th a party of cavalry
details belonging to many regiments were snapped up in an ambuscade.
On the next day Jacobsdal was attacked, with considerable loss to the
British. The place was entered in the night, and the enemy occupied the
houses which surrounded the square. The garrison, consisting of about
sixty men of the Capetown Highlanders, had encamped in the square, and
were helpless when fire was opened upon them in the morning. There was
practically no resistance, and yet for hours a murderous fire was kept
up upon the tents in which they cowered, so that the affair seems not to
have been far removed from murder. Two-thirds of the little force were
killed or wounded. The number of the assailants does not appear to have
been great, and they vanished upon the appearance of a relieving force
from Modder River.

After the disaster at Jacobsdal the enemy appeared on November 1st near
Kimberley and captured a small convoy. The country round was disturbed,
and Settle was sent south with a column to pacify it. In this way we can
trace this small cyclone from its origin in the old storm centre in the
north-east of the Orange River Colony, sweeping round the whole
country, striking one post after another, and finally blowing out at the
corresponding point upon the other side of the seat of war.

We have last seen De Wet upon November 6th, when he fled south from
Bothaville, leaving his guns but not his courage behind him. Trekking
across the line, and for a wonder gathering up no train as he passed,
he made for that part of the eastern Orange River Colony which had been
reoccupied by his countrymen. Here, in the neighbourhood of Thabanchu,
he was able to join other forces, probably the commandos of Haasbroek
and Fourie, which still retained some guns. At the head of a
considerable force he attacked the British garrison of Dewetsdorp, a
town some forty miles