ith the Free Staters.

[Sidenote: For other points.]

The Philippolis, Bethulie, Rouxville, and Caledon commandos, under the
orders of Commandants Grobelaar, Olivier and Swanepoel, were
assembling at Donkerpoort, Bethulie, and a little to the north of
Aliwal North for the protection, or possibly destruction, of the
Norval's Pont, Bethulie, and Aliwal bridges. These four commandos had
an approximate strength of 2,500 burghers. Detachments, amounting in
all to about 1,000 men, were watching the Basuto border; on the
extreme north of the Transvaal about 2,000 Waterberg and Zoutpansberg
burghers were piqueting the drifts across the Limpopo river. A small
guard had been placed at Komati Poort to protect the vulnerable
portion of the railway to Delagoa Bay, while the Lydenburg and
Carolina commandos, about 1,600 strong, under Schalk Burger, watched
the native population of Swaziland. Thus, including the police and a
few other detachments left to guard Johannesburg, about 48,000
burghers were under arms at the outbreak of war.

[Sidenote: Large influence of Baden-Powell on them.]

The most remarkable feature of the Boer dispositions is the influence
on them of Baden-Powell's contingent. His two little corps, each
numbering barely 500 men, had drawn away nearly 8,000 of the best
burghers. Mafeking was in itself a place of no strategic value, and,
had the enemy been content to watch, and hold with equal numbers,
Lt.-Cols. H.C.O. Plumer's and C.O. Hore's regiments and the police and
volunteers assisting them, a contingent of 5,000 Transvaalers might
have been added to the army invading Natal, thus adding greatly to the
difficulties of Sir George White's defence. Alternatively it might
have ensured the capture of Kimberley, or might have marched as a
recruiting column from the Orange river through the disaffected
districts and have gradually occupied the whole of the British lines
of communication down to the coast.

[Sidenote: Anxiety of British Situation.]

The general distribution, therefore, of the Queen's troops in South
Africa at the outbreak of war appears, with the exception of the
division of the field force in Natal, to have been the best that could
have been devised, having due regard to the advantage of the
initiative possessed by the enemy, and to the supreme importance of
preventing, or at any rate retarding, any rising of the disloyal in
Cape Colony. Nevertheless, the situation was one of grave anxiety. The