agreed to.  We could scarcely believe our good fortune.  At Paardeberg we caught 4000, but we used 50,000, more or less, to do it, and we lost about 1500 doing it.  Here we trapped as many or more, composed of some of the best commandoes of the Free State, caught them, too, in a wild mountainous country such as you would think was almost impregnable.  We used 15,000 to do it, and we lost, I suppose, not 200 altogether.  Also, we have taken enormous quantities of horses, oxen, and waggons, which will come in very useful.

It seems to me that Hunter deserves the utmost credit that can be given to him.  We have had plenty of generals who have done direct fighting and done it well; but, with the doubtful exception of Paardeberg, we have had no triumph of tactics.  We have never scored off the Boers, never made a big capture, or cut them up, or taken guns or transport, or bested them in any decisive way by superior strategy till now.  This has always been our lament.  We have always said, “Why, with all these armies in the field, cannot we surround them, or catch them, or deal a decisive blow of some sort?” But hitherto we have never succeeded in bringing off such a coup.  We have pushed them before us, losing as many or more than they at every shift, but, whenever we have thought to get a hold of them, they have always eluded us.  You may think it is a strange thing that they have been caught this time.  The daring of Hunter’s plan and the rapidity it was carried out with made it succeed.  The Boers—­so they tell me at least—­never believed that we should venture with so small a force to penetrate by four or five different routes into such a strong country.  The scheme seemed to lay us open to a disaster if the enemy had rapidly concentrated and flung itself on one of the separated forces.  This danger, however, was more apparent than real, because the ground manoeuvred over was not altogether of very large extent, so that relief might be sent from one column to another, or the enemy, if concentrated against one column, rapidly followed up by one or more of the others.  Besides which, if the country offered strong positions to take, it offered strong ones to hold, and in a very short time any threatened column could have placed itself in such a position as to make it impossible for the Boers to shift it in the time at their disposal.  Still the plan, considering the Boers’ skill in defending strong positions, had an audacious look about it.  Several of the Boer prisoners have since told me—­I don’t know with what truth—­that they thought we should follow them in by the Relief Nek pass, and that it was their intention to work round and threaten our communications, and either cut us off or force us to fight our way out as best we could.