them into the river, thus avoiding the chance that they might be exploded next morning by shell fire.  The feat of Popham and of Grant was not only most gallant but of extraordinary service to the country; but the highest credit belongs to Nolan-Neylan, of the Police, for the great promptitude and galantry of his attack, and to McNeill for his support.  On that road bridge and on the pontoon bridge at Norval’s Pont Lord Roberts’s army was for a whole month dependent for their supplies.

On March 15th Gatacre’s force passed over into the Orange Free State, took possession of Bethulie, and sent on the cavalry to Springfontein, which is the junction where the railways from Cape Town and from East London meet.  Here they came in contact with two battalions of Guards under Pole-Carew, who had been sent down by train from Lord Roberts’s force in the north.  With Roberts at Bloemfontein, Gatacre at Springfontein, Clements in the south-west, and Brabant at Aliwal, the pacification of the southern portion of the Free State appeared to be complete.  Warlike operations seemed for the moment to be at an end, and scattered parties traversed the country, ‘bill-sticking,’ as the troops called it—­that is, carrying Lord Roberts’s proclamation to the lonely farmhouses and outlying villages.

In the meantime the colonial division of that fine old African fighter, General Brabant, had begun to play its part in the campaign.  Among the many judicious arrangements which Lord Roberts made immediately after his arrival at the Cape was the assembling of the greater part of the scattered colonial bands into one division, and placing over it a General of their own, a man who had defended the cause of the Empire both in the legislative assembly and the field.  To this force was entrusted the defence of the country lying to the east of Gatacre’s position, and on February 15th they advanced from Penhoek upon Dordrecht.  Their Imperial troops consisted of the Royal Scots and a section of the 79th R.F.A., the Colonial of Brabant’s Horse, the Kaffrarian Mounted Rifles, the Cape Mounted Rifles and Cape Police, with Queenstown and East London Volunteers.  The force moved upon Dordrecht, and on February 18th occupied the town after a spirited action, in which Brabant’s Horse played a distinguished part.  On March 4th the division advanced once more with the object of attacking the Boer position at Labuschagne’s Nek, some miles to the north.

Aided by the accurate fire of the 79th R.F.A., the colonials succeeded, after a long day of desultory fighting, in driving the enemy from his position.  Leaving a garrison in Dordrecht Brabant followed up his victory and pushed forward with two thousand men and eight guns (six of them light 7-pounders) to occupy Jamestown, which was done without resistance.  On March 10th the colonial force approached Aliwal, the frontier town, and so rapid was the advance of Major Henderson with Brabant’s Horse that the bridge at Aliwal was seized before the enemy could