What is worse, they would have isolated the still smaller force lately thrown forward to Dundee, so as to break the strong defensive position of the Biggarsberg, which cuts off the north of Natal, and can only be traversed by three difficult passes.

Dundee was just as much threatened from the east frontier beyond the Buffalo River, where the Transvaal Boers of the Utrecht and Vryheid district have been mustered in strong force for nearly a fortnight now.
With our two advanced posts "lapped up" (the phrase is a little musty here), our stores lost, and our reputation among the Dutch and native populations entirely ruined, the campaign would have begun badly.
For the Boers it was a fine strategic opportunity, and they were perfectly aware of that.

But "the Old Man," as they affectionately call the President, had his own prudent reasons for refusing it.

"Let the enemy fire first," he says, like the famous Frenchman, and so far he has been able to hold the most ardent of the encamped burghers in check.

"If he should not be able!" we kept saying.