And so there's warlike news at last.

A Boer force, reported to be 350 strong, shifted camp to-day to within
three miles of the bridge across the Orange river. Well-informed Dutch
inhabitants assert that these are to be reinforced, and will march
through Aliwal North to-night on their way to attack Stormberg Junction,
sixty miles south.

The bridge is defended by two Cape policemen with four others in
reserve.

The loyal inhabitants are boiling with indignation, declaring themselves
sacrificed, as usual, by the dilatoriness of the Government.

Besides the Boer force near here, there is another, reported to be 450
strong, at Greatheads Drift, forty miles up the river.

The Boers at Bethulie, in the Free State, are believed to be pulling up
the railway on their side of the frontier, and to be marching to Norvals
Pont, which is the ferry over the Orange river on the way to Colesberg,
with the intention of attacking Naauwpoort Junction, on the
Capetown-Kimberley line; but as there are no trains now running to
Bethulie it is difficult to verify these reports, and, indeed, all
reports must be received with caution.

The feeling here between the English and Dutch extends to a commercial
and social boycott, and is therefore far more bitter than elsewhere.
Several burghers here have sent their sons over the border, and promise
that the loyal inhabitants will be "sjambokked" (you remember how to
pronounce it?) when the Boer force passes through.