But the check which he had received was sufficient to prevent any important advance upon the part of Botha, while the swollen state of the rivers put an additional obstacle in his way.  Already the British commanders, delighted to have at last discovered a definite objective, were hurrying to the scene of action.  Bruce Hamilton had reached Fort Itala upon September 28th and Walter Kitchener had been despatched to Vryheid.  Two British forces, aided by smaller columns, were endeavouring to surround the Boer leader.  On October 6th Botha had fallen back to the north-east of Vryheid, whither the British forces had followed him.  Like De Wet’s invasion of the Cape, Botha’s advance upon Natal had ended in placing himself and his army in a critical position.  On October 9th he had succeeded in crossing the Privaan River, a branch of the Pongolo, and was pushing north in the direction of Piet Retief, much helped by misty weather and incessant rain.  Some of his force escaped between the British columns, and some remained in the kloofs and forests of that difficult country.

Walter Kitchener, who had followed up the Boer retreat, had a brisk engagement with the rearguard upon October 6th.  The Boers shook themselves clear with some loss, both to themselves and to their pursuers.  On the 10th those of the burghers who held together had reached Luneburg, and shortly afterwards they had got completely away from the British columns.  The weather was atrocious, and the lumbering wagons, axle-deep in mud, made it impossible for troops who were attached to them to keep in touch with the light riders who sped before them.  For some weeks there was no word of the main Boer force, but at the end of that time they reappeared in a manner which showed that both in numbers and in spirit they were still a formidable body.

Of all the sixty odd British columns which were traversing the Boer states there was not one which had a better record than that commanded by Colonel Benson.  During seven months of continuous service this small force, consisting at that time of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 18th and 19th Mounted Infantry, and two guns, had acted with great energy, and had reduced its work to a complete and highly effective system.  Leaving the infantry as a camp guard, Benson operated with mounted troops alone, and no Boer laager within fifty miles was safe from his nocturnal visits.  So skilful had he and his men become at these night attacks in a strange, and often difficult country, that out of twenty-eight attempts twenty-one resulted in complete success.  In each case the rule was simply to gallop headlong into the Boer laager, and to go on chasing as far as the horses could go.  The furious and reckless pace may be judged by the fact that the casualties of the force were far greater from falls than from bullets.  In seven months forty-seven Boers were killed and six hundred captured, to say nothing of