The war news this week is exasperating, for we have
to chronicle a number of small disasters. They are, no doubt, of very little importance from the military point of view, but they will greatly encourage the enemy, and they seem to show that carelessness in the field is again overtaking our officers. The most serious of the mishaps took place in Northern. Natal, about thirty miles or so from Dundee, the scene of the first action of the war. On Tuesday, September 17th, Major Gough and three companies of mounted infantry, with three guns, while reconnoitring south of Utrecht, were led into a trap by the Boers, surrounded, and after severe fighting were overpowered and forced to surrender, losing their, guns, which, however, they had first rendered useless. Our loss was fourteen men and two officers killed, four officers and twenty-five men wounded, and five officers and one .hundred and fifty men made prisoners. Major Gough and Captain Cra,croft managed, however, to escape during the night, and reported that the enemy consisted of a thousand men under Botha.
