OCR Text |
Show ' WAR III TRANS- 1L NOW ON j I The Campaign Actively Be- 1 gun By the Boers. '. 1 i Concentration of the South African Troops on the Buffalo River. i "t I' London, 0t. .12. All kinds of ruin'ors ore telegraphed from South Africa, re- gardin;; the Ecor mevementF. Apart i from the advanee of the Yolksrust :uvl ' Van lcconan commanders, ropons have arrived of the ooncontraiior. of the Ut-f Ut-f rc-tch and Vryhc-id eomiv.aii-ucs toward i ; the drifts alous tli.e Buffalo river, cK , t.f Dundee. I i ' " - the special correspondents at ; Lady Smith ?. presses tin.' opinion ihat, ' i a Door commando of .some 200 men vis- i i I Jted Sow Cattle on Tuesday, made pur- j ) chase and then withdrew. These lie j t-'Usests?- may 'have Kiven rise to the! -purls regarding: the ,.-t upatiun of j ; ti. Laingsncfc. j I Jfrlci.il confirmation of the announce- j 1 men! that the Oranse. Five State '! hnr;;hers have enured Natal by way j .f Vaiirconana pass is at hand. It leaves no further loom for doubt that ads of war have already bt.t-n com- i f mined and that the campaign has be- . I gun. 1 New of nn invasion on the northern j j j borrk-r is also generally accepted as re- i . I li ild'-. It sctms improbable, therefore, ! j that a clash between the forces of Brit- I ( nn and Boer can lone: be delayed if in- j I j coed it has not occurred already. 'i This morninc; dispatches furnish I ample details of tlie situation on the j i , frontier and enable a clearer exposition I ! of the military status. It now seems! ' that the Bers intend to act in two oel- I f nnins, those from th Transvaal work- ins from the north ar.d those from the ! Orange Free State working from the v(t with the object of keeping- the British forces at Lady Smith and Dun-dee Dun-dee occupied, while parties of Boers slip ,-fi past to destroy the bridges along the ' ' railway forming the line of communica tion between the British at Durban. Natal, the advanced base of Pietermar-itzburg Pietermar-itzburg and the front. -1 It is regarded as possible the Bors I will attempt to occupy Estcourt. where . ' there are only 100 men of the naval I brigade and the news that the Boers ' are raiding Zululand in the neighbor- j s hood of Eshowe is taken as a confir- i mation of this possibility. j j '; An easy road connects Eshowe and I I ;: Estcourt through Greytown and Pam- ' , poenek and from Graytown it is also 1 j s- n easy reach to Nowpiek to the south, j If the bridges along the Umgenie river J were destroyed this would increase the I difficulty of reinforcing the British, j However, it is still suspected that the I ; entire Boer concentration on the fron- tiers of Natal may be merely an elab- orate feint to draw off attention from Mafekiner. which many experts regard 4i the real objective point of the Boers. A successful dash there would give the I , f Boers great prestige with the disaffect-j I ed Afrikanders in Cape Colony. i 1 coimiei j ;aoen ioweu s movement at I Mafeking this morning is held to indi- I cate that he is not prepared for sharp I lighting, but probably expects it at t that point. Five of the leading South African firms in London have subscribed .",0u( each to the lord mayor's fund for the relief of the refugees. The directors of Sir Thomas Lipton's company have de-.; de-.; cidml to acquiesce in a suggestion ca- i f bkd by him from New York that all re- ; J pervists on the company's pay roll be I ; given half pay during their absence,! j : and be reinstated in the company's em- j ! j ploy after hostilities are ended, j Hiram S. Aiaxim, chief engineer and j director of the Maxim-Nordenfeldt j Guns & Ammunition company. Ltd., in r an interview today says: i f "So far as I am aware the Boers pos- I sess thirty Maxims, but the British could not fear the Boer artillery, which i j has always proved a source of weak- f ness rather than strength to the burgh- j ' MS.' ' After wannly aiipoving armored trains and pointing out how useful I ; 1 ihey had been to Americans in the ? Bhiiippir.s. he said: ; :'Tiie Boers remind ino of the people I of the southern states of the American i if nnion. They are excellent marksmen, j j Hnd as go'! fighters as can be found j f Riywin-re in the world. However, none j ever fought better than the sviuthern- j - crs. and yet liny lost. Just so will I I Eugland vanquish the Boers. If you ( ; tvant to know what the English-speak- t ir;g lTix-es can do. look across the At- ,' lantie and sec what America ha done." |