[Footnote 198: This battalion reached the Modder battlefield on the evening of the 28th November.] [Sidenote: Minor engagements.] During the halt on the Modder river small affairs had been of daily occurrence. The patrols had frequently come into collision with the enemy. On the 7th December, Prinsloo, the Free State Commandant-General, with about a thousand Boers and three guns had attacked Enslin station, which at that time (prior to the arrival of the Australians) was held by Captain H. C. Godley, with two companies of the Northamptonshire. Prinsloo did not press home the assault, and when the 12th Lancers and the 62nd battery arrived from the camp on the Modder, followed by an armoured train carrying the Seaforth Highlanders, he withdrew to Jacobsdal. Some damage was done by the enemy to the railway and telegraph lines, but this was quickly made good. [Sidenote: Lord Methuen's information Dec. 10th.] When Lord Methuen, on the 10th December, issued orders for an advance, the information which he had been able to obtain from a reconnaissance by Major G. E. Benson, D.A.A.G., and from the reports of scouts, patrols, and strong reconnoitring parties, showed that the enemy's main line of defence ran along the foot of the hills stretching from Langeberg farm to Magersfontein Hill. It was known that the Boers had outposts on the low ridge, that they held Moss Drift, that they had detachments to the south of the river, and that near Langeberg farm and Brown's Drift were laagers of considerable extent. The General estimated the numbers opposed to him at 12,000 to 15,000 men, with six or eight guns. [Sidenote: Plans proposed and rejected.]