NEWS OF THE WEEK.
S we write on Friday there is nothing of *great moment
to chronicle in regard to the war. Lord Methuen has, however, had an engagement near Klerksdorp with a force of Boers fourteen hundred strong under Generals De Villiers and Liebenberg. The Boers held a strong position, but they were turned out of it by the 10th Yeomanry, the Victorian Bushmen, and the North Lancashires. We lost three officers killed and five wounded, and thirteen men killed and twenty- nine wounded. The Boers left eighteen men dead on the field, and suffered severely. The reports from Botha's force show that his command is hard pressed and badly supplied, but it still evades contact with our troops. Of De Wet the news is more promising. On Friday a telegram was received from Mr. Edgar Wallace, of the Daily Mail, stating that De Wet's force is caught in the triangle between the Orange and the Brak Rivers, The British troops are behind, and in front the rivers are too deep to be forded. Of course the rivers may fall in time, or he may find a drift, but it certainly seems as if De Wet had at last been "cornered." However, where that able commander is in question it is better to indulge in no premature hopes. A few hours will probably decide the question whether his position is or is not as desperate as it sounds.
