The objective of the first day’s march was the little town of Brandfort, ten miles north of Karee.  The head of the main column faced it, while the left arm swept round and drove the Boer force from their position.  Tucker’s Division upon the right encountered some opposition, but overbore it with artillery.  May 4th was a day of rest for the infantry, but on the 5th they advanced, in the same order as before, for twenty miles, and found themselves to the south of the Vet River, where the enemy had prepared for an energetic resistance.  A vigorous artillery duel ensued, the British guns in the open as usual against an invisible enemy.  After three hours of a very hot fire the mounted infantry got across the river upon the left and turned the Boer flank, on which they hastily withdrew.  The first lodgment was effected by two bodies of Canadians and New Zealanders, who were energetically supported by Captain Anley’s 3rd Mounted Infantry.  The rushing of a kopje by twenty-three West Australians was another gallant incident which marked this engagement, in which our losses were insignificant.  A maxim and twenty or thirty prisoners were taken by Hutton’s men.  The next day (May 6th) the army moved across the difficult drift of the Vet River, and halted that night at Smaldeel, some five miles to the north of it.  At the same time Ian Hamilton had been able to advance to Winburg, so that the army had contracted its front by about half, but had preserved its relative positions.  Hamilton, after his junction with his reinforcements at Jacobsrust, had under him so powerful a force that he overbore all resistance.  His actions between Thabanchu and Winburg had cost the Boers heavy loss, and in one action the German legion had been overthrown.  The informal warfare which was made upon us by citizens of many nations without rebuke from their own Governments is a matter of which pride, and possibly policy, have forbidden us to complain, but it will be surprising if it does not prove that their laxity has established a very dangerous precedent, and they will find it difficult to object when, in the next little war in which either France or Germany is engaged, they find a few hundred British adventurers carrying a rifle against them.

The record of the army’s advance is now rather geographical than military, for it rolled northwards with never a check save that which was caused by the construction of the railway diversions which atoned for the destruction of the larger bridges.  The infantry now, as always in the campaign, marched excellently; for though twenty miles in the day may seem a moderate allowance to a healthy man upon an English road, it is a considerable performance under an African sun with a weight of between thirty and forty pounds to be carried.  The good humour of the men was admirable, and they eagerly longed to close with the elusive enemy who flitted ever in front of them.  Huge clouds of smoke veiled the northern sky, for the Boers had set fire to the dry grass, partly to cover their own retreat, and partly to show up our khaki upon the blackened surface.  Far on the flanks the twinkling heliographs revealed the position of the wide-spread wings.