converted the whole surroundings into a vast universe of slime, till the duties of the camp had to be executed in a series of ploughings and plungings which were exhausting to man and beast. On the 24th the Boers engaged French's Cavalry and Hutton's Mounted Infantry about six miles south of Balmoral. Alderson's Mounted Infantry attacked their right, while French made a wide turning movement to their left, which proved entirely discomfiting, for the enemy rapidly "broke and fled," followed by both forces. One officer, Lieutenant Wilson of the Imperial Yeomanry, was wounded. On the 25th Generals French and Hutton continued their pursuit of the Dutchmen, and the former, having crossed Olifant's River, could view, from the east bank, the enemy about seven miles off retiring in disorder towards Middelburg. Violent efforts were made to be even with them, but morass and sludge and temperature were in favour of the Boers. Finally the pursuit had to be abandoned. Rain descended in torrents; the east wind blustered, and the Mounted Infantry spent an ever-memorable night of anguish on the west of the river where they bivouacked. One man died of exposure, while the mules and oxen, uttering sounds that added horror to the already horrific night, suffered so exceedingly that many were dead by the dawn. Owing to the exertions of the right and left wings of the advance, the main army, without seeing a vestige of the Dutchmen, marched to Balmoral where Generals Pole-Carew and Ian Hamilton concentrated, while General French untiringly scoured more distant tracks towards the east. By the 28th the Cavalry commander, having by his wide turning movement driven the Dutchmen from the Wilge River beyond Middelburg, occupied the latter place. He was now eighty miles east of Pretoria and within sixty of Machadodorp, whither the Boers were trekking. Reinforced by Hutton's Mounted Infantry and two regiments of Infantry, General French held the line of the Klein Olifant's River. General Pole-Carew with the Guards Brigade followed to Brug Spruit, twenty miles to west of Middelburg, but Lord Roberts himself returned to Pretoria. The closing month found the British firmly posted some ten miles west of Machadodorp, where they were temporarily checked by the enemy, while General Ian Hamilton's column, "looking very fit and workmanlike," were once more moved back to Pretoria. PROTECTING THE KRUGERSDORP-POTCHEFSTROOM RAILROAD[8] Lord Methuen continued his task of diligently patrolling the district from Heilbron to Kroonstad, and succeeded in capturing at Paardekraal, half-way between the two places, the commandant of De Wet's Scouts, and also Andries Wessels, a person of some magnitude in relation to the Africander Bond.