After all the marching and turning and fighting and manoeuvring the knowing hordes had been able to steal off from every part of their horse-shoe position round Wepener entirely without chastisement! Here were five infantry and three cavalry brigades with more than seventy guns engaged in surrounding them, and yet they had succeeded in slipping through our fingers! Quite quietly, on the night of the 22nd, they had sent off their waggons; on the 23rd they had taken a parting kick at Wepener; and on the 24th they had retreated--"silently stolen away" to Ladybrand--while part of their force before Dewetsdorp, acting as a covering party, had retired on Thabanchu. That we were foiled and fooled may in a measure have been due to some tactical bungling, but certain it was that the Boers had superior advantages, for they were moving in a country entirely friendly to them, were well informed of all our intentions and movements, and were assisted in all their schemes by so-called farmers who, subtle and shifty, had comfortably surrendered the better to engage in covert operations which, while replenishing their pockets, did not imperil their skins! Moreover they escaped scot free, because Lord Roberts was not inclined to fritter more of his troops on side issues while the great object of the campaign, the seizure of Pretoria and the crippling of the Boers for prolonged military operations, was occupying his entire attention. The capture of De Wet's forces, or a part of them, was of secondary importance in comparison to the protection of railway communication with the sea base, and De Wet's minor successes, even when the disasters of Koorn Spruit and Reddersburg were counted among them, were not sufficient to frighten the Chief into a change of his larger strategical design. Pursuit being useless, General French sent General Brabazon to the relief of Wepener (which was already free), and he himself occupied Dewetsdorp. On the 25th, however, he received orders from Bloemfontein to chase the Boers to Thabanchu, which, at dawn, he proceeded to do, followed later by General Rundle and the Eighth Division. Meanwhile part of the Third Division under Chermside kept the Union Jack floating in Dewetsdorp and watched over the outlying districts. General Pole-Carew, his work in the south done, started for Bloemfontein to prepare for the main advance. * * * * *