to tempt the most covetous. An empty treasury and two native wars
were the reversion which we took over. It was honestly considered
that the country was in too distracted a state to govern itself,
and had, by its weakness, become a scandal and a danger to its
neighbours. There was nothing sordid in our action, though it may
have been both injudicious and high-handed.

In December 1880 the Boers rose. Every farmhouse sent out its
riflemen, and the trysting-place was the outside of the nearest
British fort. All through the country small detachments were
surrounded and besieged by the farmers. Standerton, Pretoria,
Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom, Rustenberg, and Marabastad
were all invested and all held out until the end of the war. In the
open country we were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small
British force was taken by surprise and shot down without harm to
their antagonists. The surgeon who treated them has left it on
record that the average number of wounds was five per man. At
Laing's Nek an inferior force of British endeavoured to rush a hill
which was held by Boer riflemen. Half of our men were killed and
wounded. Ingogo may be called a drawn battle, though our loss was
more heavy than that of the enemy. Finally came the defeat of
Majuba Hill, where four hundred infantry upon a mountain were
defeated and driven off by a swarm of sharpshooters who advanced
under the cover of boulders. Of all these actions there was not one
which was more than a skirmish, and had they been followed by a
final British victory they would now be hardly remembered. It is
the fact that they were skirmishes which succeeded in their object
which has given them an importance which is exaggerated. At the
same time they may mark the beginning of a new military era, for
they drove home the fact--only too badly learned by us--that it is