It will not be forgotten that a despatch written a month earlier on the Zoutspan Drift action was perused by critics at home with amazement and perplexity. The easy insouciance with which the late Adjutant-General of the Forces, who for seven years had been primarily responsible for the training of the officers and men of the army, referred to their want of training when tried in the field, it was felt, could not easily be surpassed. ‘I suppose,’ he wrote, ‘our officers will learn the value of scouting in time, but in spite of all one can say, up to this our men seem to blunder into the middle of the enemy, and suffer accordingly.’ But his despatches of 30th January throw this one into the shade in their complete detachment from all responsibility, and recall, more than anything else, the reports of an umpire at peace manœuvres, which praise this side and blame that, with the comfortable assurance that the writer is an independent observer, on whom no one can turn the tables. In the first of the two despatches of 30th January Sir Redvers Buller gives no indication, as we have already pointed out, of what he intended Sir Charles Warren to do when he sent him across the Tugela. He merely regrets that an expedition, which he thinks should have succeeded, failed, and refers to Sir Charles Warren’s despatch for particulars. The only comment on Sir Charles Warren’s dispositions was that he had ‘mixed up all the brigades, and the positions he held were dangerously insecure.’ In the second despatch, while maintaining the same attitude of irresponsibility, he adopts the _rôle_ of the captious critic. He objects to Sir Charles Warren’s statement that three and a-half days’ supplies were insufficient to advance by the left through Acton Homes, because, he says, he had promised to keep--and was actually keeping--Sir Charles filled up. As if this in any way affected the amount of provisions he could carry with him when once he had cleared the position in front and moved forward and away from the Tugela. From this trivial and futile criticism Sir Redvers jumps suddenly to 23rd January, on which day, he says, he went over to see Sir Charles Warren and pointed out that he had no further report, and no intimation of the special arrangements foreshadowed in a telegram from him on the 19th. It might from this be supposed that since the 19th Sir Redvers had had no communication with Sir Charles Warren, was getting anxious, and thought it time after four days’ silence to inquire what he was doing; it would hardly occur to any one that he was in constant telegraphic communication with Warren, and that he had been with him both on the 21st and the 22nd of the month. What were the special arrangements referred to in Sir Charles Warren’s letter of the 19th, and why is it suggested that they were kept, so to speak, up his sleeve, until his Commander could stand it no longer?