The Evening Times

The Invasion of Natal.

We have received what appears to be adequate confirmation of the report that yesterday the Boers, or the Orange Free State burghers, or a combination of both, crossed into Natal by Van Reenen's Pass, otherwise called Cundy Cleugh, thirty-seven miles southwest of Newcastle. It is also reported that a force from Joubert's laager has invaded the colony at Laing's Nek, occupying Ingogo on the Natal side, a few miles from Newcastle, which place, it was expected, would be seized last night or this morning.

The object of these two movements is obvious. By means of them the Boer general threatens the British force at Dundee, and makes it impossible for the officer in command at that point to use his whole strength in aid of the British position at Ladysmith, which is menaced and liable to be attacked by the enemy approaching from Van Reenen's Pass. It is not certain that these tactics will be altogether successful if an assault upon either position, or both, is intended. There are six thousand British soldiers at Dundee and three or four thousand at Ladysmith. They are within an hour of each other by rail. With some readjustment of relative strength, as occasion may demand, it is probable that the two commands will be able to withstand any attack the Boers are at present in condition to deliver. In the event of the latter being able to cut the railway communications between the two positions, the British situation would be more serious; but even then the advantages of strongly entrenched ground and operations strictly on the defensive would rest with the besieged, who, if they can hold out for a week, will be strongly reinforced, and perhaps competent to assume the offensive.

It is learned that the Boers have started raiding in Zululand and are stealing the cattle of the natives. The result of that enterprise will undoubtedly be to enrage the Zulus and cause them to take the warpath. Primarily they will be apt to move against the Transvaal, but such a diversion apparently, in favor of the English will be anything but acceptable to the latter. The Zulus have not forgotten the whipping they received at the hands of England in 1879, and their habitat is uncomfortably close to the Natal white settlements. Once in the field, they would be as likely to turn their spears against the British as the Boers.

Mr. Conyngham Greene, C. B., the British diplomatic agent at Pretoria, has taken his leave and is en route for Cape Town. All possibility of averting a deadly war appears to have vanished. The mad defiance of Kruger to the suzerain power has wiped out the last vestige of opposition in Great Britain, and the whole nation with all of its dependencies is now as one man in the determination to push fighting to the bitter end. The Boers wrote their political doom in writing their crazy ultimatum.