But though there has been but little powder burned the situation has materially altered, and its alteration has been entirely to our advantage.  We have crossed the Tugela.  The river which for two months has barred the advance of the relieving army lies behind us now.  The enemy entrenched and entrenching in a strong position still confronts us, but the British forces are across the Tugela, and have deployed on the northern bank.  With hardly any loss Sir Redvers Buller has gained a splendid advantage.  The old inequality of ground has been swept away, and the strongest army yet moved under one hand in South Africa stands face to face with the Boers on the ordinary terms of attack and defence.  Let me describe the steps by which this result has been obtained.  On the afternoon of the 16th, as we were sitting down to luncheon, we noticed a change in the appearance of the infantry camps on the reverse slopes of Spearman’s Hill.  There was a busy bustling of men; the tents began to look baggy, then they all subsided together; the white disappeared, and the camping grounds became simply brown patches of moving soldiery.  Lyttelton’s Brigade had received orders to march at once.  Whither?  It was another hour before this part of the secret transpired.  They were to cross the river and seize the near kopjes beyond Potgieter’s Drift.  Orders for cavalry and guns to move arrived in quick succession; the entire cavalry force, excepting only Bethune’s Mounted Infantry, to march at 5.30 P.M., with five days’ rations, 150 rounds per man, and what they stood up in—­tents blankets, waterproof sheets, picketing gear, all to be left behind.  Our camp was to remain standing.  The infantry had struck theirs.  I puzzled over this for some time, in fact until an officer pointed out that our camp was in full view of the Boer outposts on Spion Kop, while the infantry camps were hidden by a turn of the hill.  Evidently a complex and deeply laid scheme was in progress.

In the interval, while the South African Light Horse were preparing for the march, I rode up to Gun Hill to watch the operation of seizing the near kopjes, which stood on the tongue of land across the river, and as nearly as possible in the centre of the horseshoe position of the enemy.  The sailors were hauling their two great guns to the crest of the hill ready to come into action to support the infantry attack.  Far below, the four battalions crept through the scrub at the foot of the hills towards the ferry.  As they arrived at the edge of the open ground the long winding columns dissolved into sprays of skirmishers, line behind line of tiny dashes, visible only as shadows on the smooth face of the veldt, strange formations, the result of bitter practical experience.  Presently the first line—­a very thin line—­men twenty paces apart—­reached the ferry punt and the approaches to the Waggon Drift, and scrambled down to the brim of the river.  A single man began to wade and swim across, carrying a line.  Two or three others followed.  Then a long chain of men, with arms locked—­a sort of human caterpillar—­entered the water, struggled slowly across, and formed up under the shelter of the further bank.  All the time the Boers, manning their trenches and guns, remained silent.  The infantry of the two leading battalions were thus filtering uneventfully across when the time for the cavalry column to start arrived.