from the north. Thence
they had opened fire on the 2nd of November against Colenso, the town
and railway station upon the southern bank, and against Fort Wylie,
upon the northern, just to the east of the road. Colenso and Wylie
were consequently evacuated by the small British forces there present,
and on the 4th it was announced officially that they had retired to
Estcourt, twenty miles to the southward--twenty-seven by the railroad.
This marked the furthest point of the British retreat; but the fewness
of the troops that there made their stand exposed them for some days
to very serious danger, had the object of the Boers been, as was by
some alleged, with firm purpose to destroy whatsoever of force or of
facilities existed to further the advance of relief to the invested
garrison, and not merely raiding with a view to increase their
resources in the positions they {p.207} had determined to hold,
around Ladysmith and on the Tugela.

Up to the 15th of November an armoured train was sent out daily from
Estcourt to reconnoitre, but on that day, having pushed too far north,
it was intercepted on its return by an advanced party of the enemy,
who, by loosening a rail, threw it off the track. A hundred British,
more or less, were here captured; among them Mr. Winston Churchill, a
war correspondent. Three days later, November 18, there were seen from
Estcourt the advanced patrols of the various raiding parties, who were
sweeping the country on both sides of the railroad over a front of
thirty miles or more, from Weenen on the east to Ulundi on the west.
On the 21st they were reported in the direction of Greytown, forty
miles east of Estcourt and the same distance from the railroad, which
here runs south-east, and also at Impendhla, twenty-five miles west of
the road. Their advance was pushed close to the Mooi River, which the
railroad crosses twenty miles to the southward of Estcourt, and there
artillery shots were exchanged with the camp where Sir {p.208}
Francis Clery was assembling the reinforcements arriving at
Durban--the beginnings of the force destined to the relief of
Ladysmith.

Communication of Estcourt with Mooi River was for a short while
interrupted, both by rail and by telegraph, the enemy occupying
Highlands Station, thirteen miles to the southward, on the 20th, and
also a position commanding Willow Grange, midway between Highlands and
Estcourt. At no time, however, did the Boers make any serious
demonstratio