lines of communication.

With the formation of a camp at De Aar, the trend which our campaign may assume becomes more definite. De Aar is but a little removed from Norvals Pont, an important bridge into the Orange Free State, which it is proposed to protect from the immediate base of the troops at De Aar, or to hold altogether from an ultimate base in the same direction at Colesberg. I propose to visit there before the next mail departs, since it be rumoured here that the town of Colesberg has been left entirely undefended by the military authorities, and that the end of the bridge, remote from this border and within the limits of the Orange Free State, is in the hands of an armed patrol from that Republic. When these things happen, and De Aar becomes the centre of a big base camp, the position will constitute another link in the chain of towns which are to be occupied by the Imperial forces along the western and southern borders of the Orange Free State, and whose occupation, should the troops arrive in time thus to execute the initiative, indicates our probable line of advance to be from a number of points, so that General Joubert will be unable to concentrate his troops before any one force. Upon our side, also, those frontier detachments that may be in occupation of the towns, will harass Transvaal and Free State borderside, suppress any rising within our own border areas, and be entirely subsidiary to the main columns, which will be simultaneously thrown forward from these three or four special points on the same extreme line of progression.

Moreover, this plan of operations accentuates the detached and especial character of the Natal Field Force, restraining them to service in that colony, and restricting their activities to that sphere. These troops will occupy Laing's Nek, the ten thousand men already assembled in that Colony being reinforced before hostilities are declared, until the Field Service footing of the Natal Field Force will equal that of an army corps. The critical points in the present situation are the western and eastern borders of the Transvaal, where the young bloods from the backwoods are mostly gathered, and in their present state eminently calculated to force the hand of Oom Paul into an impromptu declaration of belligerency. The movements of the Natal forces will be confined for the moment to holding Laing's Nek, maintaining communication with the permanent base at Ladysmith and Pietermaritzburg, and in occupying Dundee, Colenso, and all such towns as fall within the limits of its exterior lines.

From De Aar a division will support the left flank of the advance of the First Army Corps, divided, for purposes of more speedy concentration upon its ultimate base, into two divisions, which will reunite at Burghersdorp, viâ the railways, to Middelburg and Stormberg Junction from their immediate bases of disembarkation at Port Elizabeth and East London. The total force will then advance in exterior lines upon the Orange Free State, maintaining the railway system upon their individual western flanks, so far as possible, as their individual lines of communication.

While the Second Army Corps supports the situation in Natal, it is hoped that our forces in the Orange Free State border will either crush or drive the Boers back upon their ulterior lines towards Bloemfontein, which, with the assistance of the De Aar flanking column traversing the watershed of the Modder River in the direction of Kimberley, and in possible co-operation with a force from that base, they should be in a position to occupy. The capital will be held by the De Aar and Kimberley divisions, upon whom will then fall the work of protecting the lines of communication of the Southern Army Corps as it advances.

After supporting De Aar, Kimberley, and the lines of communication with defensive units, and maintaining a western column by employing the service of the Mafeking force, the First Army Corps will begin the move upon Pretoria, in collaboration with the Second (Natal) Army Corps, the former once again advancing in twin columns from a mutual base. The western border will probably be held from Kimberley to Fort Tuli by the forces composing the western column, while a flying column is to be in readiness lest a wider area be given to the theatre of war, and it become necessary to cross the Limpopo River. It would appear, too, that there is also some possibility of a column moving from Delagoa Bay. By this advance Pretoria becomes the objective of the campaign after the occupation of the Orange Free State, but this depends to a great extent upon the policy pursued by General Joubert and the nature of the Natal operations. If the Boers give way and, acting upon interior lines, fall back upon Pretoria, as General Jackson fell back upon Richmond in 1864-1865, the Transvaal capital will at once become the objective of the British forces advancing upon exterior lines, the object of the campaign, once the Transvaal has been invaded, being to force a battle upon the combined forces of the Boers or to beset Pretoria. It will thus be seen that the theory of the British advance favours the concentration of troops upon the Transvaal and Orange Free State frontiers so that the Boer forces may be dislocated, retaining the railways and their lines of communication and, leaving the actual protection and pacification of the frontier to the local mounted police and to the special service corps assisted by a few detachments of Imperial troops, while no progressive movement will be made from any one point until the exterior line, upon which the entire advance will be conducted, has been thoroughly established. For the nonce extraordinary precautions are being taken to conceal the movements of troops, and I have withheld from publication at this moment much which could be given in support of the lines by which I have suggested our advance will be governed. This plan of campaign reads very prettily, but it seems to me, that we are making no allowances for possible disasters, for possible defeats, for unavoidable delays, which, should they occur, will hamper the mobility of our advance and restrict the celerity of our movements to a great and most serious extent. Despite the fact that the massing of troops at the selected points between De Aar and Mafeking, between Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, and the ultimate and interested bases will proceed almost immediately, the successful evolution of our plans, the wisdom or foolishness of which are so soon to be put to the test, demands much greater forces than are calculated to be available during the next few weeks. At present, and until the latter days of October, the combined strengths of the Regular and Irregular forces in South Africa will not equal twenty thousand men, and yet we are dabbling with and making preparations against a plan of campaign which requisitions two Army Corps at least, and will probably require the services of not less than one hundred thousand men. I dread to think of what may happen if war should come within a few days, but we can do nothing but face what is a most intolerable position, and one which most easily might have been avoided. The outlook in the absence of efficient men and stores is indeed disheartening.

Since I arrived upon the Orange Free State border I have omitted no opportunity to discuss with the Boers the question of the war. A friendly Boer, hailing from Utrecht, suggested the probable direction which the Boer plans, so far as they concerned Natal, might assume, and while they appear to be feasible, they reveal how curiously predominant among them is the idea that their arms will again defeat the British troops. The Transvaal Boers from Vryheid and Utrecht propose to attempt raids upon Natal and Zululand as the preliminaries to a rush upon Maritzburg and the southern district of Natal,