-of a place where meet several roads from the permanent base of
operations, which in the case of the British interior campaign is the
sea. The fall of Springfontein would close every avenue of supply by
rail; but a blow at any one of the four lines which concentrate there
does not necessarily affect the others. Holding across-roads in fact
exemplifies the homely phrase of killing two birds with one stone.

Beyond Springfontein the straightness of the line sufficiently
testifies to the easy practicability of the country it traverses. Upon
this railroad system depend the supplies of the British army, which
presents in both men and animals a concentrated mass of life
heretofore unknown to the territory in which it is moving, and where,
from previous conditions of population and development, necessary
resources of every kind are deficient. This {p.013} system
constitutes the main chain of communications, as the term is
understood in war; by it chiefly, for much of the distance wholly,
must come all the ammunition, most of the food, and not improbably at
times a good deal of the water drunk during the dry season, which
fortunately, from this point of view, is also that of cooler weather.

The difficulty of reinforcing railway carriage by any other system of
road transportation is greatly increased by the local horse-sickness,
from which three-fourths of the horses exposed to it die. Reliance for
that purpose, therefore, must be upon the ox-wagon, which for this
reason, and owing to the open level character of the country, has in
the past played a leading part in the South African migrations.

The main and subsidiary railroads thus summarized should, from the
point of view of our subject, be considered as one, contributory to
the advance of the British army over a substantially even country,
which opposes few natural obstacles to such a movement, though here
and there "accidents of {p.014} the ground"--a range of hills, or a
dry river-bed, as at Paardeberg--may facilitate opposition by a
military force. The system receives no further support until
Johannesburg is reached. There the railroad from Durban comes in, and,
if its carrying capacity were adequate, which is doubtful, would
enable the chief base of operations and main line of communications to
be shifted to the nearer locality, retaining the Cape road only as
secondary.

The advantage to the British of the line of invasion from Cape Town is
that it crosses the moun