he Bantu races; and the Boers have paid a heavy
penalty for their cruelty and harshness.

On the subject of holding Ladysmith Sir George White was quite clear.
'I never wanted to abandon Ladysmith; I considered it a place of primary
importance to hold. It was on Ladysmith that both Republics concentrated
their first efforts. Here, where the railways join, the armies of the
Free State and the Transvaal were to unite, and the capture of the town
was to seal their union.'

It is now certain that Ladysmith was an essential to the carefully
thought out Boer plan of campaign. To make quite sure of victory they
directed twenty-five thousand of their best men on it under the
Commandant-General himself. Flushed with the spirit of invasion, they
scarcely reckoned on a fortnight's resistance; nor in their wildest
nightmares did they conceive a four months' siege terminating in the
furious inroad of a relieving army.

Exasperated at unexpected opposition--for they underrated us even more
than we underrated them--they sacrificed around Ladysmith their chances
of taking Pietermaritzburg and raiding all Natal; and it is moreover
incontestable that in their resolve to take the town, on which they had
set their hearts, they were provoked into close fighting with Sir
Redvers Buller's army, and even to make an actual assault on the
defences of Ladysmith, and so suffered far heavier losses than could
otherwise have been inflicted on so elusive an enemy in such broken
country.

'Besides,' said the General, 'I had no choice in the matter. I did not
want to leave Ladysmith, but even if I had wanted, it would have been
impossible.'

He then explained how not only the moral value, the political
significance of Ladysmith, and the great magazines accumulated there
rendered it desirable to hold the town, but that the shortness of time,
the necessity of evacuating the civil population, and of helping in the
Dundee garrison, made its retention actually obligatory.

Passing to the actual siege of the town, Sir George White said that he
had decided to make an active defence in order to keep the enemy's
attention fixed on his force, and so prevent them from invading South
Natal before the reinforcements could arrive. With that object he had
fought the action of October 30, which had turned out so disastrously.
After that he fell back on his entrenchments, and the blockade began.

'The experience we had gained of the long-range guns possessed by