The country over which French was operating is dotted with those singular kopjes which the Boer loves--kopjes which are often so grotesque in shape that one feels as if they must be due to some error of refraction when one looks at them.
But, on the other hand, between these hills there lie wide stretches of the green or russet savanna, the noblest field that a horseman or a horse gunner could wish.

The riflemen clung to the hills, French's troopers circled warily upon the plain, gradually contracting the Boer position by threatening to cut off this or that outlying kopje, and so the enemy was slowly herded into Colesberg.

The small but mobile British force covered a very large area, and hardly a day passed that one or other part of it did not come in contact with the enemy.

With one regiment of infantry (the Berkshires) to hold the centre, his hard-riding Tasmanians, New Zealanders, and Australians, with the Scots Greys, the Inniskillings, and the Carabineers, formed an elastic but impenetrable screen to cover the Colony.

They were aided by two batteries, O and R, of Horse Artillery.