No stirring episodes or dramatic incidents marked the army’s farther advance towards a stronghold which the Free State Boers had declared that they would defend to the last. Colonel Lumsden deals with this part of the operations briefly in the following notes: Dawn on the 10th saw us in the saddle again on the move for Kroonstad. The leading sections were constantly in touch with the enemy, and sometimes under heavy shell fire, from which Corporal Kirwan received a scalp wound not very serious. After a long and weary march we halted at nightfall near a farm, where we were lucky enough to get some Indian corn for the horses and a few sheep for the men. We made an early start on the 11th for the expected big fight at Kroonstad, it having been reported on the previous evening that the enemy were strongly posted five miles on our side of the town. We advanced for ten miles with the utmost military precaution, only to find that the enemy had vacated the position, leaving Kroonstad undefended. Lord Roberts marched in at 3 P.M., followed by the Guards and the rest of the Infantry, the mounted troops flanking both sides of the town. We occupied heights on the left, and halted there for the night, changing ground next morning to our present camping ground, a mile distant, where, with the rest of the army, we are waiting for supplies for horses and men, before a forward movement towards Pretoria can be made. The halt has been a welcome one, as our horses are fairly done, and I doubt if I could mount 150 men to-morrow, and a few more weeks’ work like that of the last would reduce the numbers to 100. We are leaving a dozen horses to-day as unfit to march, and shot six yesterday. Cast horses wander about all over the veldt and lie dead in the river or any other quiet place, and fatigue parties are ceaselessly at work burying the bodies. You can form no idea of the condition of our horses, and, but for the fact that we have been able to commandeer and get remounts _en route_, we should have half our corps dismounted. We have lost quite seventy-five horses already. I have stated officially that we require immediately seventy-five remounts more, and these we expect to get this afternoon. Mrs. Barrow’s ‘Molly Riley’ looks like a bathing-machine horse, and I fear is on her last march. The men are all very well and in good spirits, are most efficient cooks, and if allowed would rank high as looters; but orders against this are very strict, and our men pay liberally for anything in the shape of foodstuffs wherever procurable.