Botha seems to have regarded his success as unreal. He hesitated to follow it up, and soon the Buffalo in flood effectually barred the way to Dundee. He now proposed to enter Natal through Zululand, below the junction of the Tugela and the Buffalo. On the point of the angle which, at that time, the Transvaal thrust into Zululand were two British posts, Forts Prospect and Itala. Botha was beginning to be doubtful about the eventual success of his Natal raid, but thought that as he was on the spot he might as well be doing something. He therefore ordered these posts to be taken, entrusting to his brother C. Botha the attack on Itala, and to Emmett and Grobler the attack on Prospect. The failure of each attack with considerable loss on September 26 made Botha reconsider his position. There was no more thought of another campaign on the Tugela, and he determined to retire. Lyttelton's dispositions continued for some days to be directed against the Natal raid upon which Botha was supposed to be still engaged, and the discovery that he had abandoned it was not made until October 1. His capture did not seem to be a very difficult task, as his only way of escape was the Piet Retief defile by which he had entered the district three weeks before. There was, however, an intermediate barrier, the irregular Pondwana range lying eastward of Vryheid, where he might be arrested. Lyttelton's plan was that Clements and B. Hamilton should press towards this barrier from the S.W., while W. Kitchener acted as a stop on the north side of it. The range is pierced by several neks, at one of which, lying between the main heights and the Inyati spur, Botha was checked by Kitchener on October 2. He then made a cast eastward to another nek and by abandoning his transport succeeded three nights later in getting round Kitchener's left. He easily kept Kitchener off in a rearguard action and made for Piet Retief. Neither Clements nor B. Hamilton was ever in the running, and Kitchener was hampered by the necessity of watching several neks along a front of twenty miles. There was, however, one more barrier for Botha to cross or to turn, the Slangapiesberg between Wakkerstroom and Piet Retief; but it scarcely delayed him for an hour. Except one column, which was covering the building of a blockhouse line and which he evaded without difficulty, there was nothing to oppose him. When a column under Plumer came upon the scene he had passed away on October 11 through Piet Retief towards Ermelo. His movements had bewildered his opponents, who intent on frustrating a raid on Natal, had omitted to bar and bolt the door by which he had entered. His capture would, in all probability, have ended the war.