Immense supplies
had been gathered at De Aar which were at the mercy of a Free State
raid, and the burghers, had they possessed a cavalry leader with
the dash of a Stuart or a Sheridan, might have dealt a blow which
would have cost us a million pounds' worth of stores and dislocated
the whole plan of campaign. However, the chance was allowed to
pass, and when, on November 1st, the burghers at last in a
leisurely fashion sauntered over the frontier, arrangements had
been made by reinforcement and by concentration to guard the vital
points. The objects of the British leaders, until the time for a
general advance should come, were to hold the Orange River Bridge
(which opened the way to Kimberley), to cover De Aar Junction,
where the stores were, to protect at all costs the line of railway
which led from Cape Town to Kimberley, and to hold on to as much as
possible of those other two lines of railway which led, the one
through Colesberg and the other through Stormberg, into the Free
State. The two bodies of invaders who entered the colony moved
along the line of these two railways, the one crossing the Orange
River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie.
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