Racial feeling grew stronger and fiercer day by day, and Mr. Kruger's threat to "stagger humanity" was by some declared to be within an ace of being fulfilled. The Boer is inherently as tough as the Briton, and as obstinate: he was now well equipped for warfare, well led, and the chances of a terrific and bloody struggle seemed hourly to become more and more certain. Fortunately, each day brought our troops nearer to the Cape, and after the 9th of November they began to disembark--a total, so far, of 11,000 in all. At first sight this military multitude seemed an imposing addition to our force, but, in view of the losses we had sustained and the general complications of the position, some 100,000 was nearer the figure required. However, the Home authorities chose to send out their help in driblets, and the same Home authorities were supposed to know how the driblets might be adequately disposed. It was only to the ignorant "man in the street" that the problem of how to meet the massed armies of the Boers with diffused handfuls of troops became incomprehensible. Among the misfortunes with which the British had to contend was the unfit state of the horses after prolonged travel. Horses are intensely liable to sea-sickness; they also suffer much from being cribbed, cabined, and confined for any length of time; and the difference between the state of the Australian and the British animals on landing was very marked. The former were in good working fettle, while the latter had swollen and stiff joints, and were generally below par. The New Zealand chargers were all that could be desired, and they made an excellent show when compared with those of some of the other mounted regiments. Horse-sickness had also to be contended with, and it was with great difficulty averted. Some of the officers, however, discovered that by keeping the horses protected by their nosebags during the dewy hours of early morning the liability to the complaint was lessened. The question of horses was a serious one, almost as important as the question of guns. The exceeding mobility of the Boer army for long had been a matter of surprise, if not to the initiated, at least to the general public, and, as it later appeared, to the Government itself. They had sent out important generals and learned tacticians, and a fairly large and unwieldy mass of men, who were bound by their healthy appetites to stick to their base and hug the railway lines, while the enemy shifted about with the most annoying and confounding velocity, delighting to deceive as to their position, and in their deception being for the most part eminently successful. There is a passage in the Scriptures that mentions that "the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountain," and this quotation on the approach of our weighty military machine, the Boers, ever Biblical, must have been inclined to remember and to appreciate.