There it was a constant jump from one position to
another--one attack here yesterday, another there to-day. It was an
incessant movement made necessary by the display of energy by the British,
whose thrice-larger forces kept the Boers in a state of continued
ferment. On one side of the river, stretched out from the south of Spion
Kop, in the west, to almost Helpmakaar, in the east, were thirty thousand
British troops watching for a weak point where they might cross, and
attacking whenever there seemed to be the slightest opportunity of
breaking through; on the other side were between two and three thousand
mounted Boers, jumping from one point to another in the long line of
territory to be guarded, and repelling the attacks whenever they were
made. The country was in their favour, it is true, but it was not so
favourable that a handful of men could defend it against thousands, and it
was partly due to the great ease and rapidity with which the Boers could
move from one place to another, that Ladysmith remained besieged so long.
The mobility of the Boers was again well demonstrated by the retreat of
the burghers from the environs of Ladysmith. After the Krijgsraad decided
to withdraw the forces into the Biggarsberg, it required only a few hours
for all the many commandos to leave the positions they had held so long;
to load their impedimenta and to be well on the way to the northward. The
departure was so rapid that it surprised even those who were in
Ladysmith.
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