It is heart-sickening to think of the butchery, the misery, the irreparable losses, the blood of men, and the bitter tears of women, all of which might have been spared had one obstinate and ignorant man been persuaded to allow the State which he ruled to conform to the customs of every other civilised State upon the earth.
Buller was now moving with a rapidity and decision which contrast pleasantly with some of his earlier operations.

Although Dundee was only occupied on May 15th, on May 18th his vanguard was in Newcastle, fifty miles to the north.

In nine days he had covered 138 miles.

On the 19th the army lay under the loom of that Majuba which had cast its sinister shadow for so long over South African politics.

In front was the historical Laing's Nek, the pass which leads from Natal into the Transvaal, while through it runs the famous railway tunnel.