[Page Heading:  A DARING VENTURE]

In July, French was in command of the forces operating in Eastern Transvaal.  There followed a long and arduous march towards the east which, after the capture of Middleburg, ended in the surrender of Barberton.  It was in the beginning of September that French turned his attention to the enemy’s forces collected round the latter town.  He commenced his operations by circulating reports of an intended action in the opposite direction.  While the Boers prepared to meet this he was able to reach Carolina with comparative ease.  Here he remained for three days in order to prepare for a flanking movement against Barberton.  As he must cut himself off entirely from sources of supply, such preparation was very necessary.  French was about to attempt one of the most daring achievements of his career.  He was going to take mounted men over a miniature Alps.  The Boers were prepared for his attacking Barberton from every direction save one.  They never supposed for a moment that the British troops would attempt to force the Nelshoogte Pass.  For what did it mean?  The scaling of precipitous heights, and the passage along narrow ledges of men, horses and guns.  It would have been a difficult task for mountaineers, far less for heavily burdened cavalrymen.

French, however, was determined to do the impossible “once more.”  He would repeat the miracle of Coles Kop on a titanic scale.  Accordingly, after a day’s hard fighting, he rested his men for a night near the entrance to the pass.  On the following morning, the enemy having disappeared, the advance was sounded.  Up a narrow path, whose gradient was frequently one in four, the men crawled, often on hands and knees, while their horses stumbled on behind.  Frequently they were scaling towering crags several hundred feet in height, from which there was sometimes a sheer fall of over a thousand feet.  In teams of sixteen the oxen panted, struggled and frequently perished in the attempt to drag the heavy guns up the fearful incline.  Only a man of indomitable courage would have attempted such a feat.  But French lost not a single man in the process.  Perhaps the division’s perfect belief in his luck did something towards nerving the men for the ordeal.

The top of the pass once reached, French determined to make a sudden descent on Barberton.  Taking a leaf out of the Boers’ book, he left the whole of his baggage behind to lighten the horses, and rushed his men towards the town.  On descending the other side of the pass the soldiers had still to lead their horses, who were as often on their haunches as their feet.  Barberton and the Boers saw the oncoming of the British force with blank amazement.  It was the last thing in the world they expected.  The Boer Commando in possession, six hundred strong, had just time to escape from one end of the town as French entered it at the other.

[Page Heading:  A WAY WITH SNIPERS]

Enraged at the surprise that had been sprung on them, the Boers commenced sniping the town from various vantage points in the vicinity.  But French knew how to treat the sniper.  The following notice was immediately dashed off by the local printing press and posted all over the town.