"Not at once, Chris. Practically, as you see, there is not a soldier here fit to carry arms, nor a horse fit for work, and I should say that it will be a month before General Buller can reckon upon any assistance from the garrison. As to his own army, I expect he will keep the main portion round Chieveley. No doubt he will bring the greater part if not all the garrison of Ladysmith back to Frere and Estcourt, both to get them out of the pestilential air here and for convenience of feeding them. The civilian population will leave, of course, as soon as they possibly can. I should think that Buller will leave in garrison here an infantry brigade, part of the cavalry, and two or three batteries, and this with the sick who cannot be moved, will be about as much as our transport will be able to manage until the railway bridge is repaired and the line put in running order. Till that is done there is no possibility of a general advance; and indeed there will have to be a great accumulation of stores here, as this will then become our base instead of Chieveley. "No doubt a great deal will depend on how things are going on the other side. Now that Roberts has as good as captured Cronje and his force he will of course advance to Bloemfontein and occupy it. He will then be no more able to advance farther than Buller can--in fact, less able. Our line of railway is secured, and we can be fed by it; but at present we have not crossed the Orange River from the south, and the railway between that and Bloemfontein is in the hands of the Boers, and we know that they have blown up the bridges across the river. Until these are restored, and the line secure in our hands, Roberts's army will have to live on the stores that they have brought with them. Then the work of forming a base depot from the coast will begin, and it needs something enormous in the way of provisions and carriage to supply an army of sixty or seventy thousand men, all of whom must as they advance be fed from Bloemfontein.