s wont to choose," wrote one there present, "but we felt
that he must come because we menaced his frontier sixty miles away,
and tempted him with such an amount of stores, guns, and ammunition as
would enable him to prolong his warfare at least two months longer
than his own resources would permit." A somewhat narrow view this,
leaving out of the account De Aar's intrinsic advantage in position;
but to continue--"Every day that the Boers delayed our camp grew
stronger, though this was not the case before General {p.125} Buller
arrived at the Cape (October 31). Until then we had only one
battalion--about 800 men--to protect stores estimated at half a
million pounds; but within forty-eight hours a battery and a
half--nine guns--had arrived from England, to be followed by another
half battery from the Orange River."[11]

[Footnote 11: Ralph's "Toward Pretoria," p. 97.]

The position of De Aar indicated it absolutely as a point which the
British must hold, fortify, and use as a depot and base. Camps and
buildings began to be laid out and put up about October 25, and stores
to accumulate; ten days later came the batteries and also
reinforcements; but these--400 in number--imperatively demanded by the
superior importance and exposure of De Aar, which required
concentration upon it, were obtained by evacuating Colesberg and
Naauwport, the latter a most regrettable necessity. But what were the
Boers doing while these fragments were drawing together into a single
body, while batteries were arriving, and works, not yet existent, were
being thrown up? They were besieging Kimberley and Mafeking, 150
{p.126} and 300 miles away, and pottering about just within Cape
Colony, occupying undefended towns and making proclamations of
annexation. "Fancy," says the writer just quoted,--"fancy the Orange
River sixty miles away, with 2,500 men (British) holding the
(railroad) bridge over it, and a battalion of 1,000 men broken into
five bodies of troops isolated at as many points--all, excepting the
force at Orange River, inviting certain destruction."[12]

[Footnote 12: Ralph's "Toward Pretoria," p. 104.]

The concentration ordered by Buller, just mentioned, drew the British,
on the left flank of their line in Cape Colony, into two principal
bodies--2,500 at Orange River Station, where the railroad to Kimberley
crosses the river, and some 1,500 at De Aar. Stormberg Junction on the
right of the line was