Colenso and Wylie were consequently evacuated by the small British forces there present, and on the 4th it was announced officially that they had retired to Estcourt, twenty miles to the southward--twenty-seven by the railroad.
This marked the furthest point of the British retreat; but the fewness of the troops that there made their stand exposed them for some days to very serious danger, had the object of the Boers been, as was by some alleged, with firm purpose to destroy whatsoever of force or of facilities existed to further the advance of relief to the invested garrison, and not merely raiding with a view to increase their resources in the positions they {p.207} had determined to hold, around Ladysmith and on the Tugela.
Up to the 15th of November an armoured train was sent out daily from Estcourt to reconnoitre, but on that day, having pushed too far north, it was intercepted on its return by an advanced party of the enemy, who, by loosening a rail, threw it off the track.

A hundred British, more or less, were here captured; among them Mr.Winston Churchill, a war correspondent.

Three days later, November 18, there were seen from Estcourt the advanced patrols of the various raiding parties, who were sweeping the country on both sides of the railroad over a front of thirty miles or more, from Weenen on the east to Ulundi on the west.
On the 21st they were reported in the direction of Greytown, forty miles east of Estcourt and the same distance from the railroad, which here runs south-east, and also at Impendhla, twenty-five miles west of the road.

Their advance was pushed close to the Mooi River, which the railroad crosses twenty miles to the southward of Estcourt, and there artillery shots were exchanged with the camp where Sir {p.208} Francis Clery was assembling the reinforcements arriving at Durban--the beginnings of the force destined to the relief of Ladysmith.
Communication of Estcourt with Mooi River was for a short while interrupted, both by rail and by telegraph, the enemy occupying Highlands Station, thirteen miles to the southward, on the 20th, and also a position commanding Willow Grange, midway between Highlands and Estcourt.

At no time, however, did the Boers make any serious demonstration, looking towards the permanent isolation of the place; nor was there any attempt to capture it.