booming of the same bombardment which I had heard two
months before, and which all the time I was wandering had been
remorselessly maintained and patiently borne.

Looking backward over the events of the last two months, it is
impossible not to admire the Boer strategy. From the beginning they have
aimed at two main objects: to exclude the war from their own
territories, and to confine it to rocky and broken regions suited to
their tactics. Up to the present time they have been entirely
successful. Though the line of advance northwards through the Free
State lay through flat open country, and they could spare few men to
guard it, no British force has assailed this weak point. The 'farmers'
have selected their own ground and compelled the generals to fight them
on it. No part of the earth's surface is better adapted to Boer tactics
than Northern Natal, yet observe how we have been gradually but steadily
drawn into it, until the mountains have swallowed up the greater part of
the whole Army Corps. By degrees we have learned the power of our
adversary. Before the war began men said: 'Let them come into Natal and
attack us if they dare. They would go back quicker than they would
come.' So the Boers came and fierce fighting took place, but it was the
British who retired. Then it was said: 'Never mind. The forces were not
concentrated. Now that all the Natal Field Force is massed at Ladysmith,
there will be no mistake.' But still, in spite of Elandslaagte,
concerning which the President remarked: 'The foolhardy shall be
punished,' the Dutch advance continued. The concentrated Ladysmith
force, twenty squadrons, six batteries, and eleven battalions, sallied
out to meet them. The Staff said: 'By to-morrow night there will not be
a Boer within twenty miles of Ladysmith.' But by the evening of October
30 the whole of Sir George White's command had been flung back into the
town with three hundred men killed and wounded, and nearly a thousand
prisoners. Then every one said: 'But now we have touched bottom. The
Ladysmith position is the _ne plus ultra_. So far they have gone; but no
further!' Then it appeared that the Boers were reaching out round the
flanks. What was their design? To blockade Ladysmith? Ridiculous and
impossible! However, send a battalion to Colenso to keep the
communications open, and make assurance doubly sure. So the Dublin
Fusiliers were railed southwards, and entrenched themselves at Colenso.
Two days later th