While the Boer attack on our communications was thus being
successfully dealt with, General Buller was making considerable progress on the Natal frontier. Having forced Botha's Pass, he on Monday fought a very successful action, and carried a long ridge, Almond's Nek, "six miles north-east of Gansvlei," held by a large force of Boers. The action, which lasted from 2 o'clock till dark, consisted of an attack on a broad front, in which the East and West Surreys, and the Dorsets, and the Middlesex men carried the hills with the utmost dash and gallantry. Our artillery was also splendidly worked. The Boer losses were very heavy, ours moderate, though the men described the fire as quite as heavy as at Colenso,—yet another illustration of the almost universal maxim in war that victory is the best of all life preservers.
