the
individuals passing easily as innocent wayfarers or peasants among the
population, with which they readily blend. The quality has its
strength; but it has also its weakness, and the latter exceeds. This
capacity for undergoing multifold subdivision, with retention of
function by the several parts, is characteristic, in fact, of the
simpler and lower forms of life, and disappears gradually as evolution
progresses to higher orders. In all military performance, it is not
the faculty for segregation that chiefly tells. It is the
predisposition to united action, the habit of mutual concert and
reliance. By this, concentration of purpose, subordination to a common
impulse, ceases to be an effort, becoming the second nature of the
man; and concentration of action, not merely in great operations but
in the inner spirit, is the secret of success in war. Individual,
intelligent self-direction is not, however, thereby excluded. The two
are complementary elements of the highest personal efficiency; but
they must be regarded in their due relations and proportions. The
individualistic {p.205} tendency is that of the natural man, of the
raw material, of the irregular trooper. Educated in the trained
soldier into due subordination to the superior demands of military
concert, it remains an invaluable constituent of military character;
but where existing in excess, as it does prior to training, it is far
more harmful than beneficial. In considering the experiences of a war
of the kind before us, these facts should be kept clearly in mind; for
under the peculiar conditions of countries partly or wholly
unredeemed, as the American wilderness of a century or so ago, or
South Africa to-day, the special experience of the inhabitant confers
local aptitudes which the trained soldier needs to acquire, which
place him for the moment, and in so far, in a position of inferiority,
and in consequence of which hasty impression lightly reaches the
erroneous conclusion that greater military efficiency resides in
individual liberty of action, than in imposed habits of subordination
and concert of movement. It is not so. The exception should not be
mistaken for the rule, nor the occasional for the permanent.

Incidentally {p.206} to the process of investment, the Boers had
already moved in considerable numbers south of Ladysmith, and had
established batteries on Grobler's Kloof, a ridge two or three miles
west of the railroad, overlooking the Tugela