Guns And Men Were Taken, However,
The Latter To Be Released, And The Former To Be Recovered A Week Or
Two Later By The British Columns.
It is certainly a credit to the
Boers that the spring campaign should have opened by four British
guns
Falling into their hands, and it is impossible to withhold our
admiration for those gallant farmers who, after two years of
exhausting warfare, were still able to turn upon a formidable and
victorious enemy, and to renovate their supplies at his expense.
Two days later, hard on the heels of Gough's mishap, of the
Vlakfontein incident, and of the annihilation of the squadron of
Lancers in the Cape, there was a serious affair at Elands Kloof,
near Zastron, in the extreme south of the Orange River Colony. In
this a detachment of the Highland Scouts raised by the public
spirit of Lord Lovat was surprised at night and very severely
handled by Kritzinger's commando. The loss of Colonel Murray, their
commander, of the adjutant of the same name, and of forty-two out
of eighty of the Scouts, shows how fell was the attack, which broke
as sudden and as strong as a South African thunderstorm upon the
unconscious camp. The Boers appear to have eluded the outposts and
crept right among the sleeping troops, as they did in the case of
the Victorians at Wilmansrust. Twelve gunners were also hit, and
the only field gun taken. The retiring Boers were swiftly followed
up by Thorneycroft's column, however, and the gun was retaken,
together with twenty of Kritzinger's men.
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