Conditions similar to those just described prevail at the Modder.
There Lord Methuen is face to face with a large force of the enemy who are strongly entrenched, and the two armies are glaring at each other across the earthworks. To assault the Boer entrenchments with our numerically inferior force would risk great loss of life. Therefore Lord Methuen if possible, must also wait, and it is to be hoped that he may be able to do so, for he appears to have plenty of food, and Kimberley, like most besieged towns, can probably, at a pinch, hold out a month longer than any one at first thought likely. Lord Methuen's chief danger is, of course, his oommuni-
cations. These are always in peril of being cut. But even if they are cut he can fight his way back to Orange River. From Generals Gatacre and French the news is scanty, but they seem able to hold their own, and General French is evidently in a position to worry the Boers a good deal. On the whole, the situation is not nearly so bad as it looked at the beginning of the week. The chief difficulty at the moment is to decide where the first batches of rein- forcements shall be sent,—i.e., whether to Natal or to the Modder. That, of course, can only be decided on the spot, but we hope that it will be Natal. In any case, they must not be frittered away between two or three places.
