Later.

And so there’s warlike news at last.

A Boer force, reported to be 350 strong, shifted camp to-day to within three miles of the bridge across the Orange river.  Well-informed Dutch inhabitants assert that these are to be reinforced, and will march through Aliwal North to-night on their way to attack Stormberg Junction, sixty miles south.

The bridge is defended by two Cape policemen with four others in reserve.

The loyal inhabitants are boiling with indignation, declaring themselves sacrificed, as usual, by the dilatoriness of the Government.

Besides the Boer force near here, there is another, reported to be 450 strong, at Greatheads Drift, forty miles up the river.

The Boers at Bethulie, in the Free State, are believed to be pulling up the railway on their side of the frontier, and to be marching to Norvals Pont, which is the ferry over the Orange river on the way to Colesberg, with the intention of attacking Naauwpoort Junction, on the Capetown-Kimberley line; but as there are no trains now running to Bethulie it is difficult to verify these reports, and, indeed, all reports must be received with caution.

The feeling here between the English and Dutch extends to a commercial and social boycott, and is therefore far more bitter than elsewhere.  Several burghers here have sent their sons over the border, and promise that the loyal inhabitants will be “sjambokked” (you remember how to pronounce it?) when the Boer force passes through.

So far things are quiet.  The broad, sunny, dusty streets, fringed with small trees and lined with single-storeyed houses, are dotted with strolling inhabitants, both Dutch and natives, engrossed in their ordinary pursuits.  The whole thing looks more like Arcady than revolution.

The only sign of movement is that eight young Boers, theological students of the Dopper or strict Lutheran college here, left last night for the Free State for active service.

The Boers across the Orange river so far make no sign of raiding.  Many have sent their wives and families here into Aliwal North, on our side of the border, in imitation, perhaps, of President Steyn, whose wife at this moment is staying with her sister at King William’s Town, in the Cape Colony.

Many British farmers, of whom there are a couple of hundred in this district, refuse to believe that the Free State will take the offensive on this border, considering that such aggression would be impious, and that the Free State will restrict itself to defending its own frontier, or the Transvaal, if invaded, in fulfilment of the terms of the offensive and defensive alliance.

Nevertheless there is, of course, very acute tension between the Dutch and English here.  No Boers are to be seen talking to Englishmen.  The Boers are very close as to their feelings and intentions, which those who know them interpret as a bad sign, because, as a rule, they are inclined to irresponsible garrulity.  A point in which Dutch feeling here tells is that every Dutch man, woman, or child is more or less of a Boer secret service agent, revealing our movements and concealing those of the Boers.