corps.  The obvious base of such a movement must be Orange River, and there and at De Aar the stores for the advance began to be accumulated.  At the latter place especially, which is the chief railway junction in the north of the colony, enormous masses of provisions, ammunition, and fodder were collected, with thousands of mules which the long arm of the British Government had rounded up from many parts of the world.  The guard over these costly and essential supplies seems to have been a dangerously weak one.  Between Orange River and De Aar, which are sixty miles apart, there were the 9th Lancers, the Royal Munsters, the 2nd King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, under three thousand men in all, with two million pounds’ worth of stores and the Free State frontier within a ride of them.  Verily if we have something to deplore in this war we have much also to be thankful for.

Up to the end of October the situation was so dangerous that it is really inexplicable that no advantage was taken of it by the enemy.  Our main force was concentrated to defend the Orange River railway bridge, which was so essential for our advance upon Kimberley.  This left only a single regiment without guns for the defence of De Aar and the valuable stores.  A fairer mark for a dashing leader and a raid of mounted riflemen was never seen.  The chance passed, however, as so many others of the Boers’ had done.  Early in November Colesberg and Naauwpoort were abandoned by our small detachments, who concentrated at De Aar.  The Berkshires joined the Yorkshire Light Infantry, and nine field guns arrived also.  General Wood worked hard at the fortifying of the surrounding kopjes, until within a week the place had been made tolerably secure.

The first collision between the opposing forces at this part of the seat of war was upon November 10th, when Colonel Gough of the 9th Lancers made a reconnaissance from Orange River to the north with two squadrons of his own regiment, the mounted infantry of the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Munsters, and the North Lancashires, with a battery of field artillery.  To the east of Belmont, about fifteen miles off, he came on a detachment of the enemy with a gun.  To make out the Boer position the mounted infantry galloped round one of their flanks, and in doing so passed close to a kopje which was occupied by sharpshooters.  A deadly fire crackled suddenly out from among the boulders.  Of six men hit four were officers, showing how cool were the marksmen and how dangerous those dress distinctions which will probably disappear hence forwards upon the field of battle.  Colonel Keith-Falconer of the Northumberlands, who had earned distinction in the Soudan, was shot dead.  So was Wood of the North Lancashires.  Hall and Bevan of the Northumberlands were wounded.  An advance by train of the troops in camp drove back the Boers and extricated our small force from what might have proved a serious position, for the enemy in superior numbers were working round their wings.  The troops returned to camp without any good object having been attained, but that must be the necessary fate of many a cavalry reconnaissance.