This lull is to allow
Bruce-Hamilton and Macdonald to stop the exits at the eastern end of the
valley. We don't want to push the enemy east till we are sure the passes
in that direction have been secured. Some of us are annoyed at the
delay. We were in touch with the enemy this morning, our scouts and
advance guard exchanging shots with their rearguard. We could see them
prancing about on the bare hills east of Fouriesberg, and making off in
a leisurely way up the eastern valley, and most of us were quite
expecting that we should give chase immediately.
Hunter rode forward to have a look. He watched the tiny horsemen
hovering on the hills or cantering away; then back he came with a quiet
smile on his face, and instead of ordering the advance, as the impetuous
ones expected, he led his column back over the way we had come for
several miles, and then camped.
So here we are, sitting or lying about, sleeping, smoking, or reading.
Our camp is in a small plain, five or six miles from Fouriesberg,
surrounded by ranges of great hills. Those south and east, their gaunt
peaks rising, streaked with white, above the lower and nearer ones, are
in Basutoland. They play an important part in our programme, for it is
against that huge barrier that we are pressing the Boers. There are some
rounded, turf-clad hills, but most are rocky. Sharp points and stony
ridges rise up with jagged and clear-cut outlines into the sky, with
gorges and valleys retreating in between, full of deep blue shade, and
often horizontal bands of strata, showing like regularly built courses
of white masonry along the flanks of the mountains.
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