The temptation was great to push on in pursuit, but our General was luckily wiser and preferred to reconnoitre across the river before implicating the guns and main body in what turned out to be a most difficult drift. We from our position looked on while the New Zealanders on the right crossed the drift and, spreading out, advanced to the broken ground. We had just made up our mind that all was clear, and that the General had been culpably slow, when a frightful fusillade burst out on the unfortunate reconnoitrers from a range of fifty yards. There was nothing for it but to race back as hard as they could, leaving six casualties behind, two of which resulted fatally. The _coup_ having failed, and horse and man being incapable of more, we all returned to the previous night’s camp. At 6 A.M. on the 20th we reoccupied the same kopjes, forced the passage of the river, and with little further resistance got into the open country five miles beyond. We then marched through bushveldt to Zoutpans, Warmbaths, and Waterval, back to Pretoria, with very little to record in the ten days so occupied, the only interesting feature being the peculiar country known as bushveldt, best described as a sea of stunted thorn trees (familiarly known as toothpick trees), with an undergrowth of coarse grass, no roads, but tracks of heavy sand which delayed the Transport very much. Scouting was practically impossible, as it was very difficult to get horses through the formidable thorny scrub, while vision was limited to thirty yards. The operations are described in fuller detail by correspondents of Indian papers, whose interesting records of events in which they took part need to be dovetailed together for the sake of a connected narrative. It is necessary, however, to say here by way of introduction that after accomplishing its mission in the relief of Rustenburg and the withdrawal of that garrison General Ian Hamilton’s column became involved by force of circumstances in a series of intricate operations with other columns moving from east, west, and south with the object of catching the wily De Wet between them. One correspondent thus describes the march out of Rustenburg: