was to open a path for an empty convoy returning from Vryheid, and in order to do so it was necessary that Blood River Poort, where the Boers were now seen, should be cleared.  With admirable zeal Gough pushed rapidly forward, supported by a force of 350 Johannesburg Mounted Rifles under Stewart.  Such a proceeding must have seemed natural to any British officer at this stage of the war, when a swift advance was the only chance of closing with the small bodies of Boers; but it is strange that the Intelligence Department had not warned the patrols upon the frontier that a considerable force was coming down upon them, and that they should be careful to avoid action against impossible odds.  If Gough had known that Botha’s main commando was coming down upon him, it is inconceivable that he would have pushed his advance until he could neither extricate his men nor his guns.  A small body of the enemy, said to have been the personal escort of Louis Botha, led him on, until a large force was able to ride down upon him from the flank and rear.  Surrounded at Scheepers Nek by many hundreds of riflemen in a difficult country, there was no alternative but a surrender, and so sharp and sudden was the Boer advance that the whole action was over in a very short time.  The new tactics of the Boers, already used at Vlakfontein, and afterwards to be successful at Brakenlaagte and at Tweebosch, were put in force.  A large body of mounted men, galloping swiftly in open order and firing from the saddle, rode into and over the British.  Such temerity should in theory have met with severe punishment, but as a matter of fact the losses of the enemy seem to have been very small.  The soldiers were not able to return an effective fire from their horses, and had no time to dismount.  The sights and breech-blocks of the two guns are said to have been destroyed, but the former statement seems more credible than the latter.  A Colt gun was also captured.  Of the small force twenty were killed, forty wounded, and over two hundred taken.  Stewart’s force was able to extricate itself with some difficulty, and to fall back on the Drift.  Gough managed to escape that night and to report that it was Botha himself, with over a thousand men, who had eaten up his detachment.  The prisoners and wounded were sent in a few days later to Vryheid, a town which appeared to be in some danger of capture had not Walter Kitchener hastened to carry reinforcements to the garrison.  Bruce Hamilton was at the same time despatched to head Botha off, and every step taken to prevent his southern advance.  So many columns from all parts converged upon the danger spot that Lyttelton, who commanded upon the Natal frontier, had over 20,000 men under his orders.