Inkwelo had been held for some days by a portion of Clery's Division. The Boers occupied Spitz Kop and the ridge from Inkweloane to the Pass and a short section beyond it, but their line was thin. The Vryheid and Utrecht affairs had deceived them into the belief that an eastward turning movement was in contemplation. On June 6 Van Wyk's Hill was occupied by Hildyard and held against the enemy on Spitz Kop, who attempted to dislodge him; and by the following morning artillery had been brought up, and the Pass and the enemy's position on the adjacent crestline were commanded. These on June 8 were carried by an infantry movement in echelon with loss of two men killed. Spitz Kop offered no resistance. A fusillade broke out on Inkweloane, but Dundonald's brigade soon quenched it by a determined ascent up alpine slopes to the crestline As at Helpmakaar the enemy set fire to the grass and passed away behind a veil of smoke. The capture of Botha's Pass was an affair which did credit to Buller. It showed that since Colenso he had learnt how to use artillery, and his disposition of his guns was admirable. They rendered the enemy's position untenable and left little but hard climbing to the infantry. It can hardly be termed a battle, it was rather an autumn manoeuvre engagement, conducted on Lord Roberts' principles. A very important position was won and the enemy driven back with scarcely the shedding of a drop of blood on either side. Hildyard was in executive charge of the operations. Thus, after eight months' fighting, the main body of the Natal Army was at last in bivouac in the enemy's country. Buller had taken Botha's Pass with three infantry and two cavalry brigades; and with these he made for his next objective, the town of Volksrust in the Transvaal, a few miles north of Laing's Nek, which Clery at Ingogo was watching from the south. Lyttelton was posted on the left bank of the Buffalo watching the right flank of the advance. Buller's operations in the Free State lasted two days only. On June 10 he engaged a small body of the retreating enemy and entered the Transvaal. In front of him was the Versamelberg, a spur of the Drakensberg, over which the road from Vrede to Volksrust passes at Alleman's Nek, where 2,000 Boers with four guns had taken up a very strong position. The road rises to the Nek between heights, and the initial movements of the attack had to be made across two miles of open veld. The burghers had not had the time, or did not think it necessary, to strengthen the position artificially, but they were observed throwing up some entrenchments when Buller approached.