abeth, and upon arrival, November 18, took
command of all the forces in the colony south of Ladysmith. He was
followed exactly a week later by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Redvers
Buller, drawn in person by the irresistible logic of events to the
scene which his own action, or that of the Government, had determined
to be the chief among several centres of active operations.

Meantime, since the day of investment, much had been happening, and
conditions were rapidly taking shape. Upon the 9th of November Joubert
directed an attack upon the defences of Ladysmith. This delay of a
week {p.196} has not yet been explained, and is to be justified only
upon grounds of necessity, in the Boer commander's inability, however
occasioned, sooner to get his numbers together, concentrated and
disposed for so grave an enterprise. The solution is probably to be
found partly in his own natural temperament, which his previous
career, though political rather than military, indicates to have been
cautious, and lacking in the aggressive quality that has given
President Kruger, in civic contests, a continuous triumph over his
more cultivated and progressive, but less combative, rival.

It is to this trait of wariness, seeking to compass ends by
indirection and compromise rather than by open conflict, that
Joubert's failure to achieve success in public life has been plausibly
attributed, and from it arose the nickname "Slim (crafty) Piet"
attached to him by his countrymen. "It was this want of assertiveness
and of determination in following any marked line of action which
prevented Joubert from playing a great part in the fortunes of the
Republic. Opportunities occurred again and again after the advent of
the {p.197} Uitlanders when a vigorous assertion of himself would
have placed him in a position to defeat Mr. Kruger. But the habit of
indolence, so often found associated with a big physical frame, and a
certain element of Scotch 'canniness,' which led him to refuse to
accept risks, prevented his offering serious opposition to the Kruger
clique."

This estimate of Joubert's characteristics is recently confirmed by
two sympathetic observers from within the Boer lines. "Mr. Davitt, in
a letter from Kroonstad to the Dublin _Freeman's Journal_, declares
that the Boers were not at all dismayed by the death of General
Joubert, which they agreed was in no sense a misfortune. He was too
merciful in his notions of warfare. Ladysmith could easily hav