Various groups of columns under General Knox and Colonel Rochfort harassed and hunted the remnants of the commandos of Brand, Ackerman, and Loetzee, which still hung and clung to their ancient haunts. The work was fatiguing and monotonous in the extreme, but the clearance of that part of the country was accomplished. One hundred and seventy prisoners were swept up in the course of the month. West of the rail the establishment of constabulary posts between Boshof and Bultfontein went on apace, while Colonel Henry watched the country and kept the Boers at a distance. THE SWAZI BORDER The troops clearing the east in the Piet Retief region and on the Swazi border were hard at work to press back the desperate and almost refugeless Boers. Major Wiggin, with a detached force of the 26th Mounted Infantry Battalion (Colville's column), surrounded a laager at a farm eight miles south of Mahamba (near Piet Retief), and captured Landdrost Kelly and Field-Cornet Van Rooijen, with fourteen of their party; and then this same officer, with another detached force, proceeded on the 16th to repeat his success. At Plat Nek (within the Swazi border) he pounced again on the foe, caught twelve of them, and secured nineteen waggons with teams and a number of Krupp cartridges. General Plumer meanwhile worked considerable havoc among the scattered bands that hung south of the Wakkerstroom-Piet Retief blockhouses. After the 20th he was joined by Colonel Pulteney, and together they scoured the Randberg neighbourhood till the torrents should subside, and General Bruce-Hamilton, in his advance on Ermelo, could be assisted by them. NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER As before said, General French's operations in Cape Colony were making substantial progress, and small commandos only continued to rove about the south-east and south-west fringe of the colony. These were harried and worried by the troops, but their presence was now described as a serious inconvenience rather than as a menace of vital consequence. They confined their annoyance to the Barkley East district and the country to the west and north of the Cape Town-De Aar line. In the former area Monro and Scobell continued their hunts after Myburg, Fouché, and Wessels, who now and then skirmished, but who, owing to their losses, preferred to give the British a wide berth. The astute and indefatigable Hunter-Weston spent his time in chasing a gang of Boers under Naude, who, after shifting and doubling, finally burrowed into the Karee Kloof hills north-west of Philipstown.