ing could
be devised and made by the ship's engineering staff in twenty-four
hours."

While the brigade was pushing on to the front, General Joubert was
falling back, with a view to disputing the passage of the Tugela River.
He was believed to be concentrating three corps--one on Ladysmith, one
on the Tugela, and one to east of Maritzburg.

As the scene of the armoured train disaster was only about two miles
from Frere camp, several of the officers rode out to look at the
wreckage of the machine. The trucks were still lying on the line, a
most lamentable evidence of shock and collapse. One armoured truck was
off the metals, two unarmoured trucks were also overturned, one
containing the platelayers' tools standing on its head, wheels
uppermost, in a state of melancholy abandonment. All the trucks were
mute witnesses to the fierce fire to which the train and men had been
subjected. Shell-holes were here, there, and everywhere, and the iron
was ripped up and rent as though it had been matchwood. The spring of
one of the waggons had been blown into space, and the Naval gun which
was posted on one of the low-sided trucks must have gone with it, for no
trace of its existence remained. The method of derailing the train had
been simple. A railway metal had been arranged across the lines with
stones at the end to weigh it down and keep it from being pushed clear.
Besides this, fish-plates had been loosened, and stones put under the
rails. Round the scene still lay helmets and remnants of clothing, many
of these being blood-stained and ragged.

At Estcourt all was quiet. Farmers were returning to their homes and
provisions streaming in. Much satisfaction was displayed at the arrival
of some 500 cattle and sheep which the Boers had apparently looted and
left behind them.

With Lord Methuen's advance in the west and General Buller's arrival in
the east the campaign may be said to have begun in earnest. The Boer
programme in a fashion seemed to have collapsed; the support of the Cape
Dutch, on which it had relied, was not forthcoming. The idea of the
Republics was to consolidate themselves and capture Natal, while minor
forces were to blockade Mafeking, Vryburg, and Kimberley. This latter
place was to be the rallying-point of the Cape Dutch. But fortunately
the Cape Dutch did not see it. They did not rise to time and cut off all
the railway systems, and Lord Methuen in his part of the world was too
active in bringing up his adv