Lord Roberts's decision to bring the Colonial volunteers to the support of the Imperial forces was acknowledged to be a great move. The Colonist's services were eminently to be desired, for he had taken the Boer measure. He knew him in all the complex windings of his sinuous, twisting nature. In some respects the Boer had been his lesson-book. From him he had learned the necessity to be a good shot, a smart horseman, and a long stayer. He followed the ins and outs of the Dutchman's war game, and could practise the art of dodging round kopjes and into dongas, hiding in scrub and disappearing from mortal ken at a moment's notice, with the zest and agility of a schoolboy playing at hide and seek, and with a certain enjoyment in the diamond-cut-diamond sort of exercise. On the 26th of January General Brabant arrived at Queenstown to take over the command of the Colonial Division, and on the same day General Kelly Kenny, commanding the Sixth Division, occupied Thebus, a position on the railway between Middleburg and Stormberg Junction. This station is situated about ninety miles from Colesberg, around which General French so untiringly operated, and forty-five miles from Stormberg, the scene of General Gatacre's disaster. On the 1st of February the City of London Volunteers landed. Immediately after their arrival at the Cape they were honoured by a visit from the great man who was about to control the destinies of South Africa. Gracefully he welcomed them, and said how little it had been imagined in days gone by, the days when the Volunteer force had been established, that any of its members would come to take part in a war in South Africa. He expressed his belief that nothing was more calculated to benefit the army than employment together on service of all its component parts, and that these would learn to appreciate each other, and acquire a spirit of comradeship which would have far-reaching results. He reminded them that strangely enough the first Volunteers left home three hundred years ago to fight for the Dutch, and arrived just in time to save Flushing from the Spaniards. On this occasion they would take an equally brilliant part in establishing peace, order, and freedom in South Africa. [Illustration: TYPE OF ARMS--NEW NAVAL 12-POUNDER FIELD-GUN. (Photo, Cribb, Southsea.)] The members of the corps were delighted. Colonel Cholmondeley expressed their thanks, and they all cheered right royally. They were burning to get to the front, and, in spite of the sudden change of temperature from British midwinter to tropical sunshine, their zeal to be up and doing was unabated. They waited at the Cape to be joined by the second detachment and receive their horses, after which they entrained for the western border, where they were so soon to distinguish themselves. [Illustration: ARRIVAL AT CAPE TOWN OF WOUNDED FROM NATAL. Photo by Hosking, Cape Town.]