The news from other parts of the seat of war
is somewhat meagre. It appears that General Buller is disposing his forces so as to envelop the Boer army opposed to him at Laing's Nek, but it is not known what are his prospects of suc- cess. The Boers, no doubt, had originally a considera.ble force and heavy guns, but we fear that they may melt away, guns and all, before General Buller can get at them. Pieces of heavy artillery in a mountain region, and with the railway cut behind them, do not sound the aort of things that can easily be made to disappear, but in the hands of the Boers they seem as mobile as galloper guns. We have not much hope, therefore, of a big capture of cannon. Most of them will probably be dug up a hundred years hence and placed in local museums to illustrate the extraordinarily clumsy contrivances which men in the Victorian epoch were content to use as artillery. General Rundle, it is reported, has had some fighting during the week, Baden-Powell has seized Zeeruat, and Hunter is also said to be moving, but there is no definite or detailed news of any of these movements. It remains to be said that at noon at Bloemfontein on May 28th the Orange Free State was formally proclaimed to be part of the British Empire, under the name of the Orange River Colony.
