The evening times., 1899-10-13
The First Boer Victory.

If the sickening story received this
morning should prove TO be correct. tie
Boers have opened the campaign in South
Africa in truly characteristic fashion. 1t
S reported that a railway train carrying
three hundred women and children refugees
from Rhodesia. bound for the Cape, has
been wrecked with dynamite by the Beers
at Vryburg. one hundred miles south of
Mafeking. The statement would appear
incredible were it not remembered that in
the former war the pious troops Of the
Transyaal We're charged with resorting
to similar tactics. and il is understood
throughout the lower end of the continent
that. when on the warpath, the Beers are
as ready to massacre defenceless people
without regard to age or SEX as their
neighbors, the Bechuanas or Matabele.
Ii Will probably be several days before
any further reliable news can be secured
from the extreme northwest Mafeking, at
latest reports, was still intact, and its
commander, Colonel Baden Powell. ap-
peared hopeful of successfully resisting
General Cronie's force of four thousand
Beers, which was encamped fifteen miles
away dnu W dlldGh AS BdUen-
Powell only has six hundred men, mostly
irregulars, it is to be feared that he cam
not hold out. His railway communications
are at the mercy of the enemy, and doubt
less have been cut by this time re-
lieving column might have to march two
hundred miles through a wild and hostile
country to reach him, if the railway were
Is,cfr IN 10 thn CIT,
Rhodesa worse the Beers have secured
the alliance of the savage Bechuana chief.
Linch-We, who has undertaken to make a
raid of pillage and massacre through
Rhodesia and into upper Cape Colony to
create a diversion favorable to the Trans
yaal arms. The suspicion grows that the
apparently serious demonstration on the
Natal border may be in the nature of a
feint, and that the real Boer objective
for the present is the Kimberly mining
district. A success there would tend TO en-
courage the Cape Colony Afrikanders to
open rebellion, which is a thing greatly
desired at Pretoria, as il would vastly in
crease British difficulties. Kimberly, how
ever, is well defended, and as yet it is
not thought that there are more than
thirty-fye hundred of the enemy in the
neighborhood
Whatever may be the general theory. on
the Natal border there is every indication
Of an intention to attack Ladysmith The
Beers have continued to invade the Neck
of Natal, through Laing's Mex, occupying
and entrenching Ingogo Heights, occupy
ing Charlestown, and threatening Dun
dee. AS stated yesterday, they have also
crossed through Van Reenen's Pass in
front of Ladysmith, and today 1t is an
nounced that several Orange Free State
commanders have marched into the Ba-
suto country of Natal through a pass thir-
ty or forty miles southwest of Ladysmith.
At this point they are likely to encounter
the Basutos who have been gathering in
that vicinity, but what the result may be
it is impossible at this distance to con,
lecture. This Orange movement is prob
ably aimed at Estcourt, seventy miles
south of Ladysmith. and defended only by
hundred men of the naval brigade
The general plan Of campaign adopted
by General Joubert appears to be a move
ment of invasion of two columns, the Beers
advancing into Natal from the north and
the Orange Free State troops from the
west. The British forces at Dundee and
Ladysmith are to be kept on the defensive,
while bodies of the enemy slip around them