is
was is still uncertain. Sir Redvers Buller, on the 5th December,
telegraphed to the War Office that it was "very difficult to make any
statement as to the {p.202} enemy's losses. For instance, at Belmont,
81 of their dead were accounted for; they gave 15 as the number of
killed. There is every reason to believe that in the fight at
Ladysmith, on November 9, the enemy's loss was over 800 killed and
wounded." The Boer practice of removing or concealing their slain has
already been noted. The British casualties on this occasion were at
the time reckoned at about 100. Whether subsequent estimates
materially changed this figure is not particularised; but probably it
is nearly correct, for the total losses during the investment,
exclusive of the great assault of January 6, were only 355. The enemy
were effectually repulsed all along the line, and the fighting was
mostly over by 11 A.M. At noon a salute was fired, in honour primarily
of the Prince of Wales's birthday; but, incidentally, doubtless, it
expressed exultation over the garrison's own achievement.

Nearly two months elapsed before the attempt to carry the works by
storm was renewed, and then, doubtless, because it had been recognised
that there was at least a dangerous probability that the place might
hold {p.203} out, until it was relieved by the immense forces known
to be accumulating. But the immediate result of the failure of the 9th
was to dispose the Boer authorities not to risk further slaughter, but
to trust rather to the slow process of famine for overcoming an
endurance which neither they, nor probably the British outside, then
thought could be so long protracted.

Joubert therefore settled down to an investment and bombardment.
Immediately following this determination, and probably consequent upon
it, there were organised a number of raids upon the Natal territory to
the southward. These, though simultaneous in execution, and therefore
mutually supporting, were made by bodies apparently individually
independent; sharing in this a characteristic commonly met in the Boer
operations, and facilitated at once by their individualistic habits of
life, their knowledge of the country, and their freedom from the
organic interdependence which to regular troops becomes a second
nature. Every Boer organisation seems susceptible of immediate
dissolution into its component units, each of independent {p.204}
vitality, and of subsequent reunion in some assigned place;