as they saw on the southern horizon the vanguard of De Lisle riding furiously to the rescue.  For the last hour, since they had despaired of carrying the kraal, the Boers had busied themselves in removing their convoy; but now, for the second time in one day, the drivers found British rifles pointed at their heads, and the oxen were turned once more and brought back to those who had fought so hard to hold them.  Twenty-eight killed and twenty-six wounded were the losses in this desperate affair.  Of the Boers seventeen were left dead in front of the kraal, and the forty-five had not escaped from the bulldog grip which held them.  There seems for some reason to have been no effective pursuit of the Boers, and the British column held on its way to Kroonstad.

The second incident which stands out amid the dreary chronicle of hustlings and snipings is the surprise visit paid by Broadwood with a small British column to the town of Reitz upon July 11th, which resulted in the capture of nearly every member of the late government of the Free State, save only the one man whom they particularly wanted.  The column consisted of 200 yeomen, 200 of the 7th Dragoon Guards, and two guns.  Starting at 11 P.M., the raiders rode hard all night and broke with the dawn upon the sleeping village.  Racing into the main street, they secured the startled Boers as they rushed from the houses.  It is easy to criticise such an operation from a distance, and to overlook the practical difficulties in the way, but on the face of it it seems a pity that the holes had not been stopped before the ferret was sent in.  A picket at the farther end of the street would have barred Steyn’s escape.  As it was, he flung himself upon his horse and galloped half-clad out of the town.  Sergeant Cobb of the Dragoons snapped a rifle at close quarters upon him, but the cold of the night had frozen the oil on the striker and the cartridge hung fire.  On such trifles do the large events of history turn!  Two Boer generals, two commandants, Steyn’s brother, his secretary, and several other officials were among the nine-and-twenty prisoners.  The treasury was also captured, but it is feared that the Yeomen and Dragoons will not be much the richer from their share of the contents.

Save these two incidents, the fight at Reitz and the capture of a portion of Steyn’s government at the same place, the winter’s campaign furnished little which was of importance, though a great deal of very hard and very useful work was done by the various columns under the direction of the governors of the four military districts.  In the south General Bruce Hamilton made two sweeps, one from the railway line to the western frontier, and the second from the south and east in the direction of Petrusburg.  The result of the two operations was about 300 prisoners.  At the same time Monro and Hickman re-cleared the already twice-cleared districts of Rouxville and Smithfield.  The country in the east of the Colony was verging now upon the state which Grant described in the Shenandoah Valley:  ‘A crow,’ said he, ’must carry his own rations when he flies across it.’