But they would never have thought of them at all, if they had not been instructed in them by the National Scouts--our own flesh and blood! These tactics were not always successful.

It sometimes happened that the English got "cornered"; sometimes they had to "right about turn" and run for their lives.

The latter was the case at Witkopjes, five miles to the south of Heilbron, and again, near Makenwaansstad.

But on only too many occasions they managed to surprise troops of burghers on their camping places, and, having captured those who could not run away, they left the dead and wounded on the ground.
We soon discovered that these night attacks were the most difficult of the enemy's tactics with which we had to deal.
Sometimes the burghers, surprised by a sudden visit from the English at such an unconventional hour, found it necessary to run away at once as fast as their legs would carry them, so that they often arrived at the nearest camp without their hats.

Indeed a series of these attacks produced such a panic among our men that I have known a Boer lose not only his hat, but also his head.
I come now, in the regular course of my narrative, to an engagement between my burghers and an English force which had marched from Bethlehem to Reitz, a distance of thirty miles.