energy, and will is evidently urgently needed in this region. Moreover,
Kimberley is hard beset, and its fall would seem to the whole
countryside to be the visible sign of a British collapse. No wonder,
then, that Sir Redvers Duller has sent Lord Methuen as soon as he could
be ready to the relief of Kimberley. The column consists of the Brigade
of Guards, the Ninth Brigade, made up of such battalions as were at hand
to replace Hildyard's brigade (sent to Natal), of a naval detachment, a
cavalry regiment, and two or three batteries, besides local levies.
Kimberley is five or six days' march from Orange River, and at some
point on the way the Boers will no doubt try to stop the advance. I feel
confident that Lord Methuen, whom I know as an accomplished tactician,
will so win his battle as not to need to do the same work twice over.

The advance of Lord Methuen's division renders imperative the protection
of the long railway line from Cape Town to Orange River. This seems to
be entrusted to General Forestier-Walker's forces, reduced to two
battalions, and to General Wauchope's Highland brigade. One battalion
only is with General Gatacre at Queenstown, and two battalions of
General Lyttelton's brigade which have reached Cape Town are as yet
unaccounted for in the telegrams.

How, then, if all his forces are thus employed could Sir Redvers Buller,
by taking thought, have added anything to Sir C.F. Clery's force on the
Mooi River? The answer is that a commander's decision must usually be a
choice of risks. To have sent on to Natal a part of the troops now in
Cape Colony would have been to have increased the danger of the Cape
Dutch going over to the Boers. Which was the less of two possible
evils--the spread of disaffection in the Cape Colony or the loss of Sir
George White's force? No one at home can decide with confidence because
the knowledge here available of the situation in either colony is very