st failures and the ill-luck which had
attended their troops, they maintained a dignified silence and watched
patiently to see what the Government would do.

The latter instantly ordered out more troops and a supply of more
powerful guns, and, in addition, they called upon the ready volunteers
and the yeomanry for their aid. And with what result? There was a rush
to obey the call to arms. Beneath the calm surface of a business life
there lurked in the hearts of our young manhood a passionate desire for
active fighting, to throw off the trammels of an office desk and take
rifle in place of pen. Men flocked from every part of the country, and
those whose age or infirmities prevented their joining in the movement
cut asunder their purse strings and poured out their gold.

The city of London, ever foremost in patriotic work, organised and
equipped a force of 1400 men and sent them to the front by means of
private subscription alone; and all over the country funds were provided
to furnish sturdy yeomen for the war.

Then, too, our colonies, not to be outdone, sent other contingents of
men, and England, recognising the vastness of the task before her,
despatched Lord Roberts of Kandahar--the famous and ever-popular
"Bobs"--and Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, two of her finest generals, to
the Cape to assume chief command and lighten the labours of General
Buller, already sufficiently engaged in the struggle to relieve the
invested town of Ladysmith.

While the Imperial Volunteers and the Yeomanry are being equipped and
hurried on board transports for Africa, accompanied by an
ever-increasing number of big guns, let us once more return to the
neighbourhood of the River Tugela and join the gallant and determined
men under, the command of General Sir Redvers Buller.

Foiled in their frontal attack, they were far from leaving the invested
town of Ladysmith to its fate, and after long and carefully-thought-out
preparations, the army once more advanced on the impregnable Boer
positions. These stretched some ten miles along more or less continuous
ridges on the northern side of the Tugela, and to turn the enemy out of
their trenches a vast flanking movement was attempted. Preceded by a
brigade of cavalry under Lord Dundonald, two-thirds of our force
advanced against the Boer right flank, and captured and covered with
their guns Potgieter's Drift. A pontoon bridge was rapidly thrown
across, and over this the advance was stead