We will pass now to a consideration of the doings of General Paget, who was operating to the north and north-east of Pretoria with a force which consisted of two regiments of infantry, about a thousand horsemen, and twelve guns.  His mounted men were under the command of Plumer.  In the early part of November this force had been withdrawn from Warm Baths and had fallen back upon Pienaar’s River, where it had continual skirmishes with the enemy.  Towards the end of November, news having reached Pretoria that the enemy under Erasmus and Viljoen were present in force at a place called Rhenoster Kop, which is about twenty miles north of the Delagoa Railway line and fifty miles north-east of the capital, it was arranged that Paget should attack them from the south, while Lyttelton from Middelburg should endeavour to get behind them.  The force with which Paget started upon this enterprise was not a very formidable one.  He had for mounted troops some Queensland, South Australian, New Zealand, and Tasmanian Bushmen, together with the York, Montgomery, and Warwick Yeomanry.  His infantry were the 1st West Riding regiment and four companies of the Munsters.  His guns were the 7th and 38th batteries, with two naval quick-firing twelve-pounders and some smaller pieces.  The total could not have exceeded some two thousand men.  Here, as at other times, it is noticeable that in spite of the two hundred thousand soldiers whom the British kept in the field, the lines of communication absorbed so many that at the actual point of contact they were seldom superior and often inferior in numbers to the enemy.  The opening of the Natal and Delagoa lines though valuable in many ways, had been an additional drain.  Where every culvert needs its picket and every bridge its company, the guardianship of many hundreds of miles of rail is no light matter.

In the early morning of November 29th Paget’s men came in contact with the enemy, who were in some force upon an admirable position.  A ridge for their centre, a flanking kopje for their cross fire, and a grass glacis for the approach—­it was an ideal Boer battlefield.  The colonials and the yeomanry under Plumer on the left, and Hickman on the right, pushed in upon them, until it was evident that they meant to hold their ground.  Their advance being checked by a very severe fire, the horsemen dismounted and took such cover as they could.  Paget’s original idea had been a turning movement, but the Boers were the more numerous body, and it was impossible for the smaller British force to find their flanks, for they extended over at least seven miles.  The infantry were moved up into the centre, therefore, between the wings of dismounted horsemen, and the guns were brought up to cover the advance.  The country was ill-suited, however, to the use of artillery, and it was only possible to use an indirect fire from under a curve of the grass land.  The guns made good practice, however, one section of the 38th battery