and four guns, with two infantry battalions left close to the
camp, in support, was pushed out on the 24th November by General
Barton from Mooi River to feel for the Boers. It came in touch with
the enemy, but the force was not deemed sufficiently strong to press
an attack. On the 26th General Hildyard, with the bulk of his troops,
advanced to Frere, hoping to intercept the Boers' eastern column, and
on the following day General Barton marched from Mooi River to
Estcourt. But the burghers, now disorganised and alarmed, fell back
too fast to be seriously molested, and on the 28th, when Lord
Dundonald advanced with a field battery and all available mounted
troops on Colenso, the Boer rearguard merely withdrew across the road
bridge. The demolition that evening of the railway bridge was a proof
that any lingering hope, which the Boers may up to that date have
cherished of mastering southern Natal, was abandoned.

[Sidenote: Boers on east hold Helpmakaar and patrol from it.]

On the eastern side of northern Natal,[184] a Boer force about 800
strong, under Commandant Ferreira, consisting of the Piet Retief and
Bethel commandos, and about 120 Natal rebels, was still in occupation
of Helpmakaar, patrolling country on the left bank of the Tugela from
below Colenso. They went as far as Rorke's Drift. One of these patrols
attempted to cross the river at the Tugela Ferry on the 23rd November,
but was repulsed by the Umvoti Rifles, commanded by Major Leuchars.
Further east again small parties of Boers had raided into Zululand,
but their movements were of no importance.

[Footnote 184: See map No. 3.]

CHAPTER XVII.

OPERATIONS ROUND COLESBERG UP TO THE 16th DECEMBER.[185]

[Footnote 185: See maps Nos. 9 and 16.]

[Sidenote: Schoeman at Norval's Pont Nov. 1st.]

[Sidenote: Colesberg Nov. 14th, is annexed.]

A Boer force seized the passage of the Orange river at Norval's Pont
on the 1st November.[186] It consisted of the Philippolis and Edenburg
commandos, with a detachment from the Bethulie district and some
burghers from the Transvaal, and was commanded by a Transvaaler named
Schoeman. Schoeman's subsequent advance was extraordinarily cautious
and hesitating, a caution probably more due to the existence amongst
the Free State burghers of a strong party opposed on political grounds
to the invasion of the colony than to strategical considerations.
Although on the withdrawal of the British garrison