Their own resistance and the advance of Brabant to their rescue had caused a hasty retreat of the enemy.

Wepener, Mafeking, Kimberley, the taking of the first guns at Ladysmith, the deeds of the Imperial Light Horse--it cannot be denied that our irregular South African forces have a brilliant record for the war.

They are associated with many successes and with few disasters.

Their fine record cannot, I think, be fairly ascribed to any greater hardihood which one portion of our race has when compared with another, for a South African must admit that in the best colonial corps at least half the men were Britons of Britain.

In the Imperial Light Horse the proportion was very much higher.