Either the invaders must be stopped, or the second largest town in the colony would be in their hands.

From all sides came tales of plundered farms and broken households.

Some at least of the raiders behaved with wanton brutality.
Smashed pianos, shattered pictures, slaughtered stock, and vile inscriptions, all exhibit a predatory and violent side to the paradoxical Boer character.

[Footnote: More than once I have heard the farmers in the Free State acknowledge that the ruin which had come upon them was a just retribution for the excesses of Natal.] The next British post behind Hildyard's at Estcourt was Barton's upon the Mooi River, thirty miles to the south.

Upon this the Boers made a half-hearted attempt, but Joubert had begun to realise the strength of the British reinforcements and the impossibility with the numbers at his disposal of investing a succession of British posts.