This junction was occupied next day, March 16, by a brigade sent back by Roberts.

By the holding of these points, railroad communication was restored, in a military sense, from Bloemfontein to Cape Town and to East London.

{p.311} To assure it in practice as well, there was needed only certain repairs, and adequate guards disposed round these central positions.
Coincidently with the forward movement of Clements and Gatacre, a similar advance upon the latter's right flank, and, in a sense, covering it, was made by a colonial division of 2,000 men under a colonial officer, General Brabant.

This took its direction to the eastward of the easternmost railway system, midway between it and the Basutoland boundary, traversing the mountainous region in which lay the districts of Cape Colony, Herschel, Aliwal North, etc., that early in the war had been annexed by proclamation of the President of the Free State.

After crossing the Orange, this division continued to skirt the Basuto line by Rouxville and Wepener, thus entering the region south and east of Bloemfontein, which shortly became the scene of the enemy's movements threatening Roberts's communications with Cape Colony--movements characterised by a certain daring in conception and execution, but to which the customary caution of the Boers {p.312} gave a direction too eccentric to constitute a home-thrust.
From February 11, when Roberts left the Modder, to March 13, when Bloemfontein was occupied, his operations and forward movement had been practically continuous.