At Constantia Farm, where he found them in position, it is difficult to imagine that there were more than three thousand men.

Their left flank was their weak point, as a movement on that side would cut them off from Wepener and drive them up towards our main force in the north.

One would have thought that a containing force of three thousand men, and a flanking movement from eight thousand, would have turned them out, as it has turned them out so often before and since.

Yet a long-range action began on Friday, April 20th, and lasted the whole of the 21st, the 22nd, and the 23rd, in which we sustained few losses, but made no impression upon the enemy.

Thirty of the 1st Worcesters wandered at night into the wrong line, and were made prisoners, but with this exception the four days of noisy fighting does not appear to have cost either side fifty casualties.