On leaving Poplar Grove, Lord Roberts' force, rearranged and divided into three, advanced on Bloemfontein _via_ Driefontein, a place about six miles south-west of Abraham's Kraal and some forty miles from the capital of the Free State. Along the Petrusberg Road, to the right, moved General Tucker's division, with the Gordons and a cavalry brigade. The central column, composed of General Colvile's division, the Guards Brigade (General Pole-Carew), and Colonel Broadwood's brigade of cavalry, accompanied Lord Roberts, while on the left, advancing along the Modder River, was General French with Colonel Porter's cavalry brigade and General Kelly-Kenny's division. The ranks had been filled up by detachments from the Modder and Kimberley, which latter place had been converted into the advanced depôt. Among the additional troops were the Ceylon Mounted Rifles, a soldierly lot and much admired by those who saw them. At 10 A.M. the brigade of cavalry under Colonel Broadwood, which was marching in advance of the central column, came in touch with the enemy. Their position was a strong one, an open, crescent-shaped group of kopjes, with the centre a plateau, dropping on all sides to flat ground. At the extreme end of the semicircle (on the crescent at the north-east) was posted a formidable gun, and this weapon, perched on a commanding kopje at Abraham's Kraal, protected the position from advance from the north-west. It also provided the Republicans with a loophole for escape. Colonel Broadwood had no sooner discovered the enemy in his snake-shaped array of kopjes than he commenced to shell him and drive him forth from the lower projections of the position. That done, he there planted his mounted infantry till reinforcements should come to his aid. [Illustration: DIRECTING AN ARMY FROM A MILITARY BALLOON.]