home to the direction of operations in South Africa. After
practically a year of the unsatisfactory groping referred to in the
text, the conception of the blockhouse system enabled mounted troops to
operate far into the vital interior of the country without returning to
the railway. It must be understood that the main use of the
blockhouse-line was not to stretch an impassable _chevaux-de-frise_
from point to point, but to furnish a series of posts, which ensured
the safety of the convoys that followed their trend. By this means it
was possible to keep columns operating in the interior supplied with
food and forage. So much so, that towards the end many columns had not
been near a town or railway for weeks. The conception of the "drives,"
which ultimately brought the peace movement to a head, was an
afterthought, which is commonly attributed in South Africa to the
sagacity of that intrepid and versatile young cavalry leader, Colonel
Mike Rimington.

[38] Dutch mounted columns.

[39] This very contingent continued to serve with distinction for quite
a considerable period after the little episode narrated above.

XI.

FULL CRY.

Luckhoff, in normal circumstances, has little to distinguish it from
the many rural villages scattered over the South African veldt. If
anything, it is more squalid than the general run of fourth-rate
hamlets. But when the New Cavalry Brigade went into billet there, it
was more or less a deserted and plundered village. The inhabitants may
have totalled a hundred souls, the large majority of whom were women
and children; and we should not have found these in possession if our
Intelligence guide had been able to give earlier notice of our coming.
As is the case with all these hamlets, the inhabitants who had escaped
the clutches of the "clearing-up" columns were in the possession of
_caches_ in the neighbourhood, where they hid away as soon as the
dust-clouds on the horizon forewarned them of the near approach of a
British column. Many columns had already "been through" Luckhoff, from
Clements in the early days, to Settle moving in stately magnificence
with thousands of cattle and hundreds of women in the preceding
spring. Each marauder in turn had left something of a mark, but none
had left so bare a skeleton or had stamped so plainly the impress of
horrid war as a column of somebody's bushmen. The brigadier had
planted his little red pennant in front of the villa of the absconded
Pr