Anxiety is for the moment confined to the fate of
Mafe. king. Colonel Plumer, who is advancing from the North to relieve the town, seems to have been stopped about fifty miles off, probably by some difficulty as to supplies. The Boer officer, Commandant Snyman, who is conducting the siege, has therefore marched against him, and has driven in his advanced pickets at Pitsani. By the latest accounts fight- ing was still in progress, and though we need not be. lieve Boer accounts of their successes, it seems clear that relief from the North has been arrested, and may possibly be too late. There is, however, still hope that an undescribed force from the South, which was, it is per. sistently rumoured, despatched immediately after the relief of Kimberley, may be within striking distance. Indeed, reports to that effect are said to have reached the War Office, but up to Friday afternoon this pleasing rumour remained unconfirmed. We should add that at Cape Town the Dutch believed the relief to be certain, and that the Premier, Mr. Schreiner, to conciliate the loyalists, has ordered a general holiday to celebrate the event. Why he picks out that particular triumph for celebration is not explained.
