By this time Lord Kitchener, with the local rank of General, had assumed command of the troops in South Africa, Lord Roberts having started for England in complete confidence that his successor would accomplish the pacification of the country in due time. His work was most complicated, for besides being impoverished by the scarcity of troops (the Volunteers and Colonials having many of them left on the expiration of their year of service), the lack of horses put a perpetual stopper on the flow of military operations. Clausewitz has said that when cavalry is deficient, "La riche moisson de la victoire ne se coupe pas plus alors à la faux, mais à la faucille" (The rich harvest of victory is not cut with scythe but with the sickle.) And never was the truth of his aphorism more keenly felt than at this moment. The harvest of splendid victories that had been achieved was being reaped with the sickle, and the reaping operations were taking months, which, had mounts been available, would have taken moments! December opened with animation. General C. Knox, near the Bethulie-Smithfield Road, on the 2nd harassed the Boers with a convoy and succeeded in capturing seven prisoners. General Paget's mounted men skirmished successfully around Lieufontein, and near Utrecht some of the garrison engaged 200 of the foe for two and a half hours and put them to flight, leaving six Dutchmen _hors de combat_. In the Cape Colony the members of the Bond were preparing for a Congress, and sundry chameleon complexioned gentlemen indulged in speeches regarding the question of loyalty and future settlement, which were sufficiently ambiguous to have served as examples in the art of blowing hot and cold with the same mouth, but fortunately the eagle eye of Kitchener was upon them and the result of their verbosity was a careful readjustment of such forces as were at the Commander-in-Chief's disposal, to advert any general rising among those who had previously been pacified.