wounded. If the rank and file suffered in proportion
the losses must have been severe. The British casualties in the two
days amounted to eight killed and thirty wounded, a small total when
the arduous nature of the service is considered. The Canadians and
the Shropshires seem to have borne off the honours of these trying
operations.

In the second week of October, General French, with three brigades of
cavalry (Dickson's, Gordon's, and Mahon's), started for a cross-country
ride from Machadodorp. Three brigades may seem an imposing force, but
the actual numbers did not exceed two strong regiments, or about 1500
sabres in all. A wing of the Suffolk Regiment went with them. On October
13th Mahon's brigade met with a sharp resistance, and lost ten killed
and twenty-nine wounded. On the 14th the force entered Carolina. On the
16th they lost six killed and twenty wounded, and from the day that they
started until they reached Heidelberg on the 27th there was never a day
that they could shake themselves clear of their attendant snipers. The
total losses of the force were about ninety killed and wounded, but they
brought in sixty prisoners and a large quantity of cattle and stores.
The march had at least the effect of making it clear that the passage of
a column of troops encumbered with baggage through a hostile country is
an inefficient means for quelling a popular resistance. Light and mobile
parties acting from a central depot were in future to be employed, with
greater hopes of success.

Some appreciable proportion of the British losses during this phase of
the war arose from railway accidents caused by the persistent tampering
with the lines. In the first ten days of October there were four such
mishaps, in which two Sappers, twenty-three of the Guards (Coldstreams),
and eighteen of the 66th battery were killed or wounded. On the
last occasion, which occurred on October 10th near Vlakfontein, the
reinforcements who came to aid the sufferers were themselves waylaid,
and lost twenty, mostly of the Rifle Brigade, killed, wounded, or
prisoners. Hardly a day elapsed that the line was not cut at some point.
The bringing of supplies was complicated by the fact that the Boer women
and children were coming more and more into refugee camps, where they
had to be fed by the British, and the strange spectacle was frequently
seen of Boer snipers killing or wounding the drivers and stokers of the
very trains which were bringing up foo