The pages of De Brack’s _Light Cavalry Outposts_ are full of instances of successful raids, those of which Curély was the hero being specially attractive and effective.[64] In our own knowledge are the raids of De Wet and others on our line of communication in South Africa, which entailed a large number of troops being allotted to the defence of the railway; whilst little less effective were the operations of our columns against the Boers when, hiding by day and riding by night, they swooped down upon the Boers and captured their herds of cattle and horses. The Boers suffered little inconvenience from those columns which had not recourse to methods combining speed with avoidance of observation, and with secrecy in their preparation. All these operations are obviously those which are favoured by “conditions of sparsely-settled terrain and very partially-developed telegraphic communication, and few roads and railways,” and the success of many of the American raids forms no basis for the assumption, so often made, that equal results would attend their employment in Europe outside Russia.[65] The other side of the question may be seen in some of the unsuccessful raids entered upon by both sides in the American War, when raids became “the fashion”--raids, which were not only unsuccessful, but which even had the effect of depriving their own side of their cavalry at a most important juncture, quite apart from the number of cavalry horses rendered useless. A typical instance of this is seen in Wheeler’s raid on the Federal lines of communications. When beaten off at Dalton he made his way into East Tennessee; his subsequent operations in that region had no effect upon the fortune of the two armies battling round Atlanta. Hood, deprived of Wheeler’s cavalry--“the eyes of his army”--found himself in the dark as to Sherman’s movements. On the evening of the 27th he jumped hastily to the conclusion that Wheeler’s raid had been successful, and that Sherman’s army was retiring from lack of supplies to the other side of the Chattahoochee. For forty-eight hours he adhered to this strange delusion, and by that time the Federals had gained a position from which it was impossible to dislodge them.[66] Quite without permanent result were the big raids by De Wet into the Cape Colony and by Botha into Natal, both of which caused the loss of many overridden horses, and had a bad moral effect on the Boers, who were hunted from pillar to post; but the attack on our mule transport in rear of the columns moving on Kimberley and Paardeberg was an excellent piece of work and far-reaching in its effect. Again, the Russian raids against the Japanese were strangely unfortunate in their results, but it is probable that sufficient secrecy was not observed prior to these raids moving off.