In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to De Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns which should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders.  Martial law was proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the invaders came further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the loyalists, who formed themselves everywhere into town guards.  The existing Colonial regiments, such as Brabant’s, the Imperial and South African Light Horse—­Thorneycroft’s, Rimington’s, and the others—­had already been brought up to strength again, and now two new regiments were added, Kitchener’s Bodyguard and Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts, the latter being raised by Johann Colenbrander, who had made a name for himself in the Rhodesian wars.  At this period of the war between twenty and thirty thousand Cape colonists were under arms.  Many of these were untrained levies, but they possessed the martial spirit of the race, and they set free more seasoned troops for other duties.

It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the movements of the western force (Hertzog’s), and afterwards to consider those of the eastern (Kritzinger’s).  The opening of the year saw the mobile column of Free Staters 150 miles over the border, pushing swiftly south over the barren surface of the Karoo.  It is a country of scattered farms and scanty population; desolate plains curving upwards until they rise into still more desolate mountain ranges.  Moving in a very loose formation over a wide front, the Boers swept southwards.  On or about January 4th they took possession of the small town of Calvinia, which remained their headquarters for more than a month.  From this point their roving bands made their way as far as the seacoast in the Clanwilliam direction, for they expected at Lambert’s Bay to meet with a vessel with mercenaries and guns from Europe.  They pushed their outposts also as far as Sutherland and Beaufort West in the south.  On January 15th strange horsemen were seen hovering about the line at Touws River, and the citizens of Cape Town learned with amazement that the war had been carried to within a hundred miles of their own doors.

Whilst the Boers were making this daring raid a force consisting of several mobile columns was being organised by General Settle to arrest and finally to repel the western invasion.  The larger body was under the command of Colonel De Lisle, an officer who brought to the operations of war the same energy and thoroughness with which he had made the polo team of an infantry regiment the champions of the whole British Army.  His troops consisted of the 6th Mounted Infantry, the New South Wales Mounted Infantry, the Irish Yeomanry, a section of R battery R.H.A., and a pom-pom.  With this small but mobile and hardy force he threw himself in front of Hertzog’s line of advance.  On January 13th he occupied Piquetburg, eighty miles south of the Boer headquarters.  On the 23rd he was at Clanwilliam, fifty miles south-west of them.  To his right were three other small British columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and Henniker, the latter resting upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and the whole line extending over 120 miles—­barring the southern path to the invaders.