Educated in the trained soldier into due subordination to the superior demands of military concert, it remains an invaluable constituent of military character; but where existing in excess, as it does prior to training, it is far more harmful than beneficial.

In considering the experiences of a war of the kind before us, these facts should be kept clearly in mind; for under the peculiar conditions of countries partly or wholly unredeemed, as the American wilderness of a century or so ago, or South Africa to-day, the special experience of the inhabitant confers local aptitudes which the trained soldier needs to acquire, which place him for the moment, and in so far, in a position of inferiority, and in consequence of which hasty impression lightly reaches the erroneous conclusion that greater military efficiency resides in individual liberty of action, than in imposed habits of subordination and concert of movement.

It is not so.

The exception should not be mistaken for the rule, nor the occasional for the permanent.
Incidentally {p.206} to the process of investment, the Boers had already moved in considerable numbers south of Ladysmith, and had established batteries on Grobler's Kloof, a ridge two or three miles west of the railroad, overlooking the Tugela from the north.

Thence they had opened fire on the 2nd of November against Colenso, the town and railway station upon the southern bank, and against Fort Wylie, upon the northern, just to the east of the road.