s did not.
The overbearing suzerain power had at that date, scattered over a huge
frontier, two cavalry regiments, three field batteries, and six and a
half infantry battalions--say six thousand men. The innocent pastoral
States could put in the field more than fifty thousand mounted riflemen,
whose mobility doubled their numbers, and a most excellent artillery,
including the heaviest guns which have ever been seen upon a
battlefield. At this time it is most certain that the Boers could have
made their way easily either to Durban or to Cape Town. The British
force, condemned to act upon the defensive, could have been masked and
afterwards destroyed, while the main body of the invaders would have
encountered nothing but an irregular local resistance, which would have
been neutralised by the apathy or hostility of the Dutch colonists. It
is extraordinary that our authorities seem never to have contemplated
the possibility of the Boers taking the initiative, or to have
understood that in that case our belated reinforcements would certainly
have had to land under the fire of the republican guns. They ran a great
military risk by their inaction, but at least they made it clear to all
who are not wilfully blind how far from the thoughts or wishes of the
British Government it has always been that the matter should be decided
by force.

In answer to the remonstrances of the Colonial Prime Minister the
garrison of Natal was gradually increased, partly by troops from
Europe, and partly by the despatch of 5,000 British troops from India.
Their arrival late in September raised the number of troops in South
Africa to 22,000, a force which was inadequate to a contest in the open
field with the numerous, mobile, and gallant enemy to whom they were to
be opposed, but which proved to be strong enough to stave off that
overwhelming disaster which, with our fuller knowledge, we can now see
to have been impending.

In the weeks which followed the despatch of the Cabinet message of
September 8, the military situation had ceased to be desperate, but was
still precarious. Twenty-two thousand regular troops were on the spot
who might hope to be reinforced by some ten thousand Colonials, but
these forces had to cover a great frontier, the attitude of Cape Colony
was by no means whole-hearted and might become hostile, while the black
population might conceivably throw in its weight against us. Only half
the regulars could be spared to defend N