frontier, and their achievements were notable even if the men lacked gentility of manner.  The brigade took part in almost every one of the Natal engagements and when General Botha retreated from the Tugela Colonel Blake and seventy-five of his men bravely attacked and drove back into Ladysmith a squadron of cavalry which intended to cut off the retreat of Botha’s starving and exhausted burghers.  Blake and his men were guarding a battery on Lombard Kop, a short distance east of Ladysmith, when he learned that Joubert was leading the retreat northward, and allowing Botha, with his two thousand men, to continue their ten days’ fighting without reinforcements.  Instead of retreating with the other commandos, Blake and seventy-five of his men stationed themselves on the main road between Ladysmith and Colenso and awaited the coming of Botha.  A force of cavalry was observed coming out of the besieged city, and it was apparent that they could readily cut off Botha from the other Boers.  Blake determined to make a bold bluff by scattering his small force over the hills and attacking the enemy from different directions.  The men were ordered to fire as rapidly as possible in order to impress the British cavalry with a false idea of the size of the force.  The seventy-five Irishmen and Americans made as much noise with their guns as a Boer commando of a thousand men usually did, and the result was that the cavalry wheeled about and returned into Ladysmith.  Botha and his men, dropping out of their saddles from sheer exhaustion and hunger, came up from Colenso a short time after the cavalry had been driven back and made their memorable journey to Joubert’s new headquarters at Glencoe.  It was one of the few instances where the foreigners were of any really great assistance to the Boers.

After the relief of Ladysmith the Irish Brigade was sent to Helpmakaar Pass, and remained there for six weeks, until Colonel Blake succeeded in inducing the War Department to send them to the Free State, where these “sons of the ould sod” might make a display of their valour to the world, and more especially to Michael Davitt, who was then visiting in the country.  When the Brigade was formed it was not necessary to show an Irish birth certificate in order to become a member of the organisation, and consequently there were Swedes, Russians, Germans, and Italians marching under the green flag.  A half-dozen of the Brigade claimed to be Irish enough for themselves and for those who could not lay claim to such extraction, and consequently a fair mean was maintained.  A second Irish Brigade was formed in April by Arthur Lynch, an Irish-Australian, who was the former Paris correspondent of a London daily newspaper.  Colonel Lynch and his men were in several battles in Natal and received warm praise from the Boer generals.