Every train of thought brings the critic back always to the great horse question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons of the war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning indictment against British foresight, common-sense, and power of organisation.

That the third year of the war should dawn without the British forces having yet got the legs of the Boers, after having penetrated every portion of their country and having the horses of the world on which to draw, is the most amazingly inexplicable point in the whole of this strange campaign.

From the telegram 'Infantry preferred' addressed to a nation of rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the excellent horses on the spot, while importing them unfit for use from the ends of the earth, there has been nothing but one long series of blunders in this, the most vital question of all.

Even up to the end, in the Colony the obvious lesson had not yet been learnt that it is better to give 1000 men two horses each, and to let them reach the enemy, than give 2000 men one horse each, with which they can never attain their object.

The chase during two years of the man with two horses by the man with one horse, has been a sight painful to ourselves and ludicrous to others.
In connection with this account of operations within the Colony, there is one episode which occurred in the extreme north-west which will not fit in with this connected narrative, but which will justify the distraction of the reader's intelligence, for few finer deeds of arms are recorded in the war.