action; and it may perfectly well be that considerations of urgency,
amounting even to impossibility, make them inapplicable to the case
before us. Nevertheless, it can scarcely fail that, till such special
considerations are known, and their validity admitted, it is to this
point that military scrutiny and inquiry will be irresistibly drawn.

Whatever the cause of Joubert's retirement, the {p.215} fact was
beyond doubt on the evening of November 25, and on the 26th Hildyard
had advanced a detachment twelve miles, to Frere, hoping thence to act
upon the enemy's line of retreat. Herein he was disappointed, but with
this began the general advance of the British forces in Natal, which a
fortnight later brought the adversaries confronting one another on the
opposite banks of the Tugela. During this period White also was not
idle. Two well-planned and energetic night attacks were made upon the
enemy's siege batteries--on the 8th of December at Gun Hill, a kopje
pertaining to Lombard's Kop, and on the 10th at Surprise Hill, north
of the town, towards Nicholson's Nek. The former, executed chiefly by
Natal colonial forces, resulted in destroying a 6-inch gun and a
4.7-inch howitzer. The second, by Imperial troops, destroyed another
howitzer of the same size. Like the sorties of Kekewich from
Kimberley, these, by compelling the enemy's attention to the place,
contributed to further the movements of Buller, between whom and the
garrison communication, hitherto dependent {p.216} chiefly upon
runners, had now been opened by heliograph and electric-light signals.

Frere had now become the British point of assembly. On the 8th of
December there were there concentrated four infantry brigades,
designated numerically as the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th, as well as the
cavalry and artillery, which a week later took part in the battle of
Colenso. The Boers on their side had taken advantage of the interior
position they held, between the relieving column and the garrison, and
of the fact that the latter could scarcely attempt to break out to the
north, to withdraw their forces in great measure from the latter
quarter, disposing them between Ladysmith and the Tugela in such wise
that they might most easily be concentrated upon the centre, should
the British attack be made there, as it first was, or upon either
flank should a turning manoeuvre be attempted. Their arrangements for
such action appear to have been sagaciously made, as were also the
p