ing them into small parties to skirmish round his flanks, always ready to fall back before General Dundonald with his mounted men, preceded by Strathcona's Scouts; the regular cavalry, assisted by the R.H.A., driving them off from the opposite flank. As before, elaborate preparations had been made to receive us by intrenching positions across the road, but the numerous trenches were invariably deserted on the approach of infantry. The general advance was made on a front of as much as twenty miles a precaution rendered necessary by the amount of hidden ground to be searched.

Later on in the evening of the same day the troops marched into Amersfoort, eighteen miles north of their starting-pointa creditable distance for men to accomplish after such a long period of inaction. On the 10th inst. the Vaal was reached, here an inconsiderable stream between rocky banks, where the Boers could have met our troops, while crossing, with good effect. But the drift was deserted--a little skirmishing the only token of the presence of an enemy. On the 12th inst. the cavalry in advance rode into Ermelo, the main body following next day; the Boers having passed through the village two days previously on their way to Machadodorp. On the evening of the 14th inst. the cavalry gained touch with General Gordon's scouts, pushed forward in front of the main column; General Buller encamping next day twenty miles south of Wonderfontein, a station on

the Delagoa Bay railway, twenty-five miles east of Middelburg, and the most advanced point held by Lord Roberts. The two portions of his army being now touch, it was possible to continue the advance, which had been checked at Middelburg while supplies were replenished and everything set in order in the camps.

These continual checks, happening in between Lord Roberts's movements, call up the question whether this new departure in strategy, initiated by him, is altogether as successful as the old-fashioned method which military nations have been accustomed to follow out ever since the memory of man; where no stage in advance was taken till the rear was secured either by the destruction of the enemy's armies in that quarter or the dropping of garrisons sufficiently numerous to discourage attempts at a fresh outbreak. The advance, once begun, moved slowly but surely, leaving the country in rear of it utterly subjugated, to assure the passage of communications. Lord Roberts, on the other hand, moves swiftly, striking his blows with lightning rapidity, trusting to the unexpectedness of the shock to paralyse any further opposition. And this method would have great advantages if it were attempted anywhere else than in such a vast country of unmanageable distances as South Africa. Distance means time, always on the side of the defenders, -time to recover, time to re

organise, time to look about, and the ever-lengthening distance between themselves and the enemy to obscure, only too quickly, the vigour of the blow under which they have bent.

If the war could have been ended by the occupation of Bloemfontein, everything might have been risked; but with this boasted British army hopelessly stranded at the first stoppingplace on the road to victory, full in front of the Boers' eyes, the glamour of that luminous strategic feat dimmed out very quickly to reappear at Kroonstad, and again, most forcibly, at Pretoria. A succession of blows are most telling in attack, but they must be continuous— no pause permitted between;

and and to nature

ensure this, human must be consulted. go for ever;

Horses cannot stores, ammunition, food, and clothes must follow, rapidly also, along lines congested with traffic; wounded have to go back, fresh men to come on, and all the while an enemy recovering his courage, eager to snatch at any one of the hundred chances of reprisal which he sees around him; desperate with the remembrance of what the invader has done to his own home here, and is still doing to his friends' homes miles away. As the boys say

when on the look-out for the farmer's apples, just as he has turned the corner, "He can't see us-let's do it again!"

WHETHER the outlook for the British empire is at present a more stormy one than, say, six months ago, is a question that only very few, if any, can answer; but there can be no possible doubt that it would be the height of rashness not to look most carefully into the state of our defences, when, with scarcely an exception, all our European neighbours are at no pains to conceal their illwill. Such a temperate statesman as Lord Salisbury has gone so far as to earnestly exhort the members of the Primrose League to be forward in promoting the formation of rifle clubs and similar military measures which must be mainly useful, not for the defence of our shores, but for the repulse of the enemy after the defence of our shores has failed, and his armies have obtained a footing on British territory, such as could only be obtained owing to the failure of the navy to prevent a landing.

But the necessity or otherwise of rifle clubs and similar organisations is not the subjectmatter of discussion. In any case, in order to safeguard the dominions of our Queen, a thoroughly efficient navy is absolutely indispensable, and it is above all things desirable that any needs that the navy may own to should be made good without delay. In the case of the land forces of the Crown it may fairly be assumed that some little time will be avail

able for organisation and preparation before the storm-clouds of war actually break over our land, but this time of grace must in great measure depend on the preparedness of the navy. If the navy is at all times ready for any emergency, invasion should never come at all, and our troops will only be required for offensive action beyond the seas. But if the navy, and especially that part of it stationed in European waters, be caught unprepared, the most serious consequences must needs follow.

All this may appear to be a self-evident truism, and it is undoubtedly the case that infinitely more attention is now paid in the navy to immediate readiness for any emergency than was the case, say, fifteen or twenty years ago. Still, the question is not, Have we made any improvement? but rather, Is there anything still undone that we ought to have done?

Notwithstanding the remarkable changes both in men and material that have taken place afloat during the nineteenth century, the navy remains one of the most conservative institutions existing. So much is this the case that the arrangements for manning our ships in the present day are mainly based on the conditions of, say, a hundred and fifty years ago, which conditions have altered most radically and materially in nearly every respect. In the

on the shortest notice. The system of keeping up a large permanent force for manning the navy dates from the close of the Crimean war; but the system has only been fully developed within the last few years. Only fifteen years ago we were content with 57,000 men actually serving. This year the numbers have risen to 114,000, much the largest force ever employed in any navy in time of peace, and considerably exceeding the war numbers with which we had to be content in the earlier years of the great struggle which closed the eighteenth century. But notwithstanding the enormous number of men now maintained on a peace-footing, we have not yet managed to surmount all the difficulties inherited from our predecessors, and which seem almost inseparable from the system of keeping a considerable number of ships without any crews in time of peace. For such a display as the great Review of 1897 we managed to man our ships, and we can get most of those in the Fleet Reserve to sea for the manœuvres; but every one concerned knows full well that these hastily manned ships cannot compare in efficiency with those that have been some months in commission.

On every station there are a few vessels, commonly known as newly commissioned ships, which are not expected to compete on equal terms with those whose officers and men know each other thoroughly, and it commonly happens that in general exercises these ships

fall considerably behind the remainder. Still on the foreign stations these newly commissioned ships form a comparatively insignificant minority, and the general efficiency of the squadrons is not much affected by their presence. But if we come to home waters we find a very different state of affairs. When, as in the annual manœuvres, a large assemblage of ships takes place in home waters, a very considerable proportion of these must needs be manned by scratch crews, who cannot have much confidence in their officers or shipmates, because all are utter strangers to each other. It is on these hastily manned ships that we shall have in great measure to depend on the sudden outbreak of war. The ships off the coast of Australia, of British Columbia, or South Africa may be splendidly manned; but this would be very cold comfort to an admiral charged with the duty of holding the narrow seas against all comers, threatened as he probably would be by the fleets of two allies whom he would find it most difficult to keep from effecting a junction. "If only I had three months to shake officers and men together," would be the regretful soliloquy of such an officer. But there would be no time for sentiment, and the only thing to do would be to make the best of a somewhat unsatisfactory assemblage of ships fairly manned, but whose junior officers especially would be distinctly below the average of those on foreign stations.