the case by night; and this night we seemed to go more slowly than ever,
for besides the usual delay caused by the waggons and tired horses,
there were many burghers on foot.

How slowly we went! Zwartlapberg, which we knew we had to pass, loomed a
dark and undefined mass on the distant horizon, and seemed to come no
nearer. And we began to fear that we should not be able to pass through
Sprinkhaans Nek before daylight. And so it proved. For after we had
ridden for hours, all too soon the morning star arose and a long low arc
of light suffused all the eastern sky with crimson. Rapidly--more
rapidly than we wished--the darkness had vanished, and plains at the
foot of the mountain we were making for lay all revealed in the growing
light of day. We crossed through a rivulet, and when the sun rose we
were marching over the slopes below Zwartlapberg. Though we had hoped to
reach that spot before it became light, our fears had somehow calmed
down as we were riding along there. Was it the daylight that vanquished
the apprehensions and uncertainties of night?

But there was a cause for being at ease. The Bethlehem Commando had
gone on ahead, and had passed through. We should no doubt manage the
passage. So, without perturbation, the laager went forward, slow but
determined, when--Boom!

We hear the thunder of a cannon fired from Zwartlapberg, and a shell
bursts on the ground near the front waggons. A second shell soon
follows, and then a third and a fourth; and the mounted men and those on
foot, the waggons and the carts, immediately wheel from the mountain and
race away, scattered and in confusion, all over the plain to the west,
to get out of range of the cannon.

About three or four miles from the road on which we had been travelling
we came to a standstill. We can now collect our scattered senses. We
discuss the situation. The state of affairs is not encouraging. Let us
see how they stand.

We are certain now to meet with resistance from the forts in front of
us. From the rear the English are advancing in great numbers. To the
right and left it is just the same, for there too we shall come in
contact with the enemy.

What is to be done now? Some say we must remain where we are, others
that we must get through the nek at all costs. President Steyn declares
we must go through, and General Fourie has already expressed the same
opinion, and as neither General de Wet nor General Philip Botha are
present at the moment, this officer puts himself at the head of the
commando and bravely rides on.

The whole commando, waggons and carts, mounted men and those on foot,
follow him. Like a great stream they advance, as far as possible from
the cannon on Zwartlapberg and as near as possible to the mountains to
the west of the nek.

There were three English forts on the left (of which two could fire on
us), and two on the lowest ridges of Zwartlapberg. We must now pass in
between these. We proceed, not knowing what there is in store for us. We
think we are going to our death, or at least that we shall be wounded.
Onward, onward flows the great stream of men on horseback and on foot,
of waggons and carts. Some burghers put their spurs into their horses
and gallop ahead. They take possession of a Kaffir kraal and open a
heavy fire on the right-hand forts.

In the meanwhile the great laager treks on and approaches to the nek,
nearer and nearer. General de Wet, accompanied by General Botha, now
appears on the scene and takes on himself the further conduct of the
passage. There is a deafening rattle of Mausers, to which the British
Lee-Metfords reply. We reach the nek, over which we pass, and find
ourselves in reaped wheat-fields, which makes it difficult for the
waggons and carts to proceed; but the worn-out animals are relentlessly
driven onward.

Some of the burghers take position behind the wheat-stacks here, and
direct a heavy fire on the forts to the right, while the Bethlehem men,
who passed through the nek at daybreak, occupy themselves with the forts
to the left, and with a force coming from Thaba 'Nchu.

The bullets whistle over our heads and strike the ground all along the
route we have to go. The clatter of our rifle fire fills the air. This,
and the general confusion, affects the men in different ways, which can
clearly be read on their countenances. Here one sees indifference, there
calm resolve, yonder fear and alarm, which so paralyse the fearful that
they abandon all their food, blankets, coats. But all press on! After
two hours the great stream of waggons and carts and men has passed
through Sprinkhaans Nek.

We ask ourselves, whence the courage which inspired us to face so
determinedly what was before us? whence the strength which upheld our
worn-out horses? The enemy thought they had hemmed us in, which indeed
was the case. They were in front of us and in our rear, to our right and
to our left. But God was not willing that we should fall into their
hands.

We had just emerged from the wheat-fields when the English hurled shells
at us, but it was marvellous to see how these shells exploded in the
open spaces between the burghers, without doing any harm.

At length, at about eleven o'clock, we halted, so that our poor brutes,
after having been in harness and under saddle for sixteen hours, could
now enjoy a long drink.

Here the Bethlehem burghers joined us. They related to us how they had
come through the nek early in the morning, before dawn, and had been
fired upon, as they were passing close to the forts, with the loss of
two of their number. This was a matter of regret to us all; but a
feeling of gratitude prevailed, for, excepting these two killed, and two
more wounded in making the passage, and a few horses killed and wounded,
we had come--it was a marvel to us--unharmed through Sprinkhaans Nek.

CHAPTER XV

CHRISTMAS 1900

Commandant Hasebroek did not succeed in getting through Sprinkhaans Nek
with us, as he was too far behind; but he broke through the cordon some
days later between Thaba 'Nchu and the Bloemfontein waterworks. Besides
this, our ambulances, under Dr. Fourie and Mr. Poutsma, remained behind;
but General Knox let them go, and in a few days they were once more in
our midst.

Concerning our other losses, it must be noted that the men of one of the
Armstrong guns taken at De Wet's Dorp abandoned it, and as the carriage
of one of the Maxim-Nordenfeldts broke down, there was no help for it
but to leave it behind. Besides these, a few carts and waggons were left
behind.

On Saturday, 15th December, towards nightfall we held a service, as the
Transvaal Government had fixed that day as a day of prayer and
humiliation. The day after was both Sunday and Dingaan's Day. We
celebrated the day at Korannaberg, and commemorated the vow made by our
forefathers.

Almost a week passed now without our having any trouble from our
pursuers. We passed the farm of Mr. Frans Schimper, greatly enjoyed the
delicious oranges which we found everywhere, and remained during wet
weather, on the 18th and 19th December, on the farm Mexico, belonging to
Mr. Jacobus Van der Watt. After this, General P. Fourie proceeded with
a portion of the commando in the direction of Clocolan, where we had
heard that the English were. The rest of us went with General de Wet to
Trommel, as there was another force of English to the left of Leeuw Kop.

On Saturday we were at Rietfontein, the farm of Mr. Stephanus Jacobsz,
and on Sunday we held service on the ridge to the south-west. Then we
went back from the ridge to Rietfontein.

Meanwhile the enemy were again approaching from Leeuwfontein as well as
from Clocolan. General de Wet gave orders that the burghers should take
up positions on the hills westward between Rietfontein and Mouton's Nek.

The following day, 24th December, the English, who were advancing, were
driven back from Leeuw Kop. But by the unfaithfulness of a Field-Cornet,
who deserted his post without the knowledge of the other men, the
English coming from the direction of Clocolan got the chance of
approaching unobserved. These creeping up a ditch were thus able to fire
on our men from behind. The result might have been disastrous. Our
burghers, thus fired at, found themselves also attacked in front, and
could now do nothing but escape from between the two fires. A son of
Commandant Truter was killed there. The burgher Coenrad Labuschagne was
taken prisoner. Fortunately all the others escaped, and rallied in the
evening at Doornhoek.

The following morning was Christmas. "Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace!" Thus in the stilly night the angels sang twenty
centuries before, and we--after all those centuries, we had not peace on
earth, but the sword. Alas! that after these centuries of the preaching
of the good news of peace one mortal should still be seeking to take
away the life of another, that one Christian people--yes, Christian
people; for after Christ, not after Buddha or Confucius, are we
named--should strive to destroy the other! In spite of the gospel it was
not peace but the sword.

Who really understands Jesus of Nazareth, and who of those who do
understand Him are ready to sacrifice all to Him, and to live, whatever
they may have to suffer for it, as He lived? There stood Doorn Kop
behind us, and Wonder Kop to the right. Alongside their saddles and
under the shade of some willows lay the tired burghers. How little of
Christmas rejoicing there was in all this.

It was difficult to believe that we had ever enjoyed Christmas
festivities. Were not the recollections which surged up in
us--recollections of Christmas cheer and Christmas peace--only beautiful
illusions rising from a past which never really existed, as we saw it
then? The day before, with its roar of cannon, seemed to turn the
angels' hymn to irony.

More or less thus had I written in my lost diary, and I had added--But
let me not fall into weak meditation; let me rather, as a faithful
chronicler, deal with the facts as they occurred.

_Ad rem_, then. We buried young Hendrik Truter in the burial-place of
Mrs. Goosen, on the farm Driehoppen. And there in a quiet grave, over
which the poplar leaves restlessly moved soughing in the wind, we laid
him to rest, where the wicked ceased from troubling and the weary were
at rest.

In the afternoon I held a service under the great shady willows of the
farm, taking as text the prophetic words of John, "The kingdom of the
world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will
reign for ever and ever." I felt greatly cheered, and it became plain to
me that if peace eventually came it would come through long centuries of
unrest and of strife. What of that, if only it came at last? But we poor
shortsighted creatures, we would measure the course of the kingdom of
God by seconds! What is an age to Him for whom one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years are as one day? What are a thousand years to
Him who forms the crust of the earth through myriads of years? However
long, then, it might last, the day will yet come when the kingdoms of
the earth shall become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ, and when
He shall reign for ever.

After the service General de Wet said that we were that afternoon to
proceed a little farther. Soon we were marching again, and at nine
o'clock in the evening we camped to the south-west of Senekal, at the
foot of Tafel Kop.

CHAPTER XVI

EVERYONE GOES TO HIS OWN DISTRICT

Here at Tafel Kop, after the chief officers had held a council of war,
the commandos separated. We of Harrismith, together with burghers of
other districts, were now again under the command of General Philip
Botha. The rest were to go under Generals Fourie and Froneman.

General de Wet shortly afterwards fitted out a second expedition to
invade Cape Colony, which, however, did not get farther than Brak River.
I did not accompany it (during January and February 1901), and have
therefore nothing to relate about it. It is, however, well known that
General de Wet, in this second attempt to make an inroad into British
territory south of the Orange River, underwent still greater hardships
than in the first. But although he was prevented by heavy rains from
gaining his object, and had to turn back, he was not altogether
dissatisfied; for on his return he declared, when addressing the
burghers, that he had gained what he wanted. He had certainly succeeded
in forcing the English to march long distances, and to concentrate large
forces at points where at that time it was not convenient for them to do
so.

But let me revert to my own experiences. On the 26th of December, when
darkness had fallen, we left Tafel Kop, and camped for the night to the
north of Wit Kop. There were, when we got to the neighbourhood of
Senekal, no English in that town; but after we had been at Wit Kop for a
day news was brought that a body of the enemy had again entered it.
General Botha therefore sent a number of burghers to take up a position
along the road from Senekal to Bethlehem, whilst the laager remained at
Wit Kop. The object of this was to allow time for about ten waggons,
which had been sent to Ficksburg to fetch meal, to return. Before,
however, these waggons reached Ficksburg the English had again occupied
that town, and with regretful eyes we saw the long train of waggons
returning without having accomplished their purpose.

On Friday, the 28th of December, we went on to Zuringtrans, and early on
the following morning we started from there towards Kaffir Kop, while
General Botha with a number of burghers took up positions. We were
outspanned, and quite at our ease, when a report came that the enemy was
advancing from Wit Kop. At first we did not believe this, but soon it
proved to be true enough, and then there was again a hurried inspanning.
The Maxim-Nordenfeldt was dangerously near, and we had to hasten away
with the greatest speed. We passed the Sand River and Kaffir Kop to the
left, and at night we encamped not far from that kop.

The following day, Sunday, we could hold no service. The burghers had to
take up positions against the advancing foe at Kaffir Kop, while the
waggons and carts went forward during the whole of the day to
Elandsfontein, not far from Lindley.

How unfortunate was the lot of our burghers when, without cannon, they
had to hold a position. Before they could get a chance of firing a
single shot the position was shelled, and the English, far beyond the
reach of rifles, moved round the flanks in large numbers. If, then, our
men wished to avoid being surrounded they had to retreat. This now at
Kaffir Kop. The frequent withdrawal of our burghers from their positions
made the enemy taunt them with being unwilling to fight, and with
running away. But since the English as a rule kept our men at a distance
of five thousand yards with their cannon, and kept themselves also at a
safe distance, how could our people get a chance of fighting?

If the Boers, then, had no chance of fighting, they should not keep the
war going: they should not attack the English when few in numbers and
when they had a fair chance of firing at the enemy's troops on their
flanks. So the English kept on saying; yet, oh mine enemy, what right
had'st thou to prescribe to us how we should fight? Did not thine own
great hero, Wellington, declare that a nation has the right to adopt
every means to resist a foe that is invading its country?

We went on a little farther that night, and the sun rose on us on the
1st of January 1901 not far from Liebenberg's Vlei. We proceeded a short
distance farther, and held service to celebrate the day in the garden of
a farm where we had halted. I addressed the burghers on the subject of
"the Old and the New."

In the evening we proceeded in the direction of Reitz, and camped at the
confluence of Liebenberg's Vlei and Tyger Kloof; for it was General
Botha's object to give the burghers some rest somewhere in the
neighbourhood of that village.

We remained here for some days to look for a suitable spot, and the
General went himself with Commandant Erwee to reconnoitre the forts of
the English at Reitz. Meanwhile we enjoyed the great privilege of being
able to bathe in the river; but we also experienced some discomfort from
rain. At midnight on the second day heavy showers fell, and many
burghers who had off-saddled in low-lying places were inundated. They
had hurriedly to jump up and carry their bedding to higher ground. This
they did laughing and joking, which certainly was a fine proof of the
good spirit that prevailed among them, and of the cheerfulness with
which they were ready to make any sacrifice for the sake of the great
cause.

It appeared that we could not remain in the neighbourhood of Reitz, for
on Thursday, the 3rd of January, our attention was called to an English
force marching from Senekal towards Heilbron. In a fight that day with
this force we unfortunately lost several dead and wounded. On the
following day another engagement took place with another body of English
going in the same direction. General Botha drove the infantry some
distance, but had to give it up when reinforcements with two cannon and
a Maxim-Nordenfeldt belonging to the English who had passed the day
before made its appearance. Whilst the General was engaged in this fight
some of our men halted the ambulance waggons of the enemy, which had
gone on in advance, and found in them a considerable number of the
English who had been wounded on the previous day. There was also one of
our burghers, but he was too weak to be removed.

Meanwhile we had from day to day gone farther and farther from Reitz,
and on Sunday, 6th January, we crossed Liebenberg's Vlei and remained
that night on the bank of that river not far from Leeuw Kop. Here we
remained till the following morning. We then proceeded east of Leeuw
Kop.

From a high ridge there, over which we passed, I saw in the distance
Platberg, at the foot of which Harrismith lies. I had not seen the
mountain for five months. A thrill of emotion went through me when I saw
it, but I had no desire to go to the town at its foot, for no one dear
to me was there now. And when I thought how the enemy had taken
possession of the town, and of all the vulgarity connected with a
military occupation, I felt a sort of aversion to the place.

Whither were we going now, now that we could not rest in the
neighbourhood of Reitz?

There was a rumour that picked men from each commando were to go with
General de Wet to the colony, and that the rest of the men were to
return to their own districts to be employed there as circumstances
might require. And now that we were "trekking" in the direction of
Harrismith it seemed as if this would be the case, at any rate as far as
the Harrismith burghers were concerned; but greatly to the
disappointment of most of us, we had to go back on Tuesday night, and
reached Bronkhorstfontein on Wednesday morning early, not far from
Valsch River.

On the following morning we trekked to Valsch River, not far from the
mill, and on Friday, 11th January, all the Harrismith men got leave to
go to their districts, upon the understanding that they should come
together again on the 22nd at Doornberg.

Afterwards leave was given to those burghers who had accompanied the
Chief-Commandant to Odendalstroom to remain in their own district, while
those who had not gone with him were now to accompany him on his second
expedition to the Cape Colony. There were some, however, of those who
had gone the first time who now went again, among whom were General
Wessel Wessels, Commandant Jan Jacobsz, and some men.

I set off towards Harrismith without the slightest delay. On Saturday
night I was on the farm of Jan Labuschagne, and on the following
afternoon, at sunset, I arrived at Zwart Klip, together with General C.
J. de Villiers.

It was pleasant to be there once more, and to see the trees, which were
leafless when I had last seen them, now clad in all the pride of summer.
Everything was calm and peaceful here, and although the English,
eighteen miles away, had our town in their possession, we could with
difficulty persuade ourselves that there peace had not been restored. We
were naturally glad to see one another again, and had much to tell and
much to listen to. What was particularly gratifying to us was to hear
the particulars in regard to the _quasi_ civil administration of the
English, of which we had already heard some account. Since the middle of
October the function of District Commissioner had ceased also in this
district. The patrols of five or six mounted police could no more ride
about in safety, and if the English wished to go from one town to
another this could not be accomplished unless they were in large numbers
and under the protection of cannon. But the burghers went about in small
numbers--north or south, east or west--wherever they listed. It became
clearer to us than ever, that whatever the English might have, they were
not yet in possession of our country, and that they could do nothing
unless they did it with overwhelming odds and under shelter of cannon.

We felt that this could not but be humiliating to such officers of the
British army as were capable of judging the merits of the case without
prejudice.

CHAPTER XVII

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FARMS

For some time after I arrived at Zwart Klip matters were fairly quiet in
the Free State. I was surprised at this, and considered that the English
were, from their point of view, guilty of neglect of duty.

Their inactivity in the Free State must be accounted for by the fact
that they were occupied by General de Wet on the northern border of the
Cape Colony, and by Generals Hertzog and Kritzinger, who had both
penetrated far into British territory, in the south.

This quiet was very opportune to me. I made use of it to write over my
diary; and on Sundays I held divine service on some farm or other.

During this period the burghers who had returned were stationed all
about as outposts. Two scouting corps--one under Commandant Botha, and
another under his brother, Captain Botha--had already been operating for
some time in the districts of Vrede and Harrismith, and had done much
towards putting a stop to the small police patrols of the enemy who used
to wander about all over the country. And now small bodies of burghers
were stationed as guards near the towns. In the district of Harrismith
there was one guard at Mont Paul, another at Broedersdal, and another at
Groothoek. In the Vrede there was one near Mullerspas in the
Drakensberg, and at various points around the town. In the same manner
matters were regulated all through the country.

The Government also provided for the appointment of _landdrosts_
(magistrates) and justices of the peace for criminal cases in each
district. The guards, of which I have spoken, had very little to do
during this quiet time. Each day they rode out to reconnoitre, and if a
force of English marched from one town to another they harassed their
flanks.

This period of comparative rest continued until about the middle of May,
when the enemy began to become active in every part of the country. In
the districts of Harrismith and Vrede the English approached from the
direction of Heilbron and Frankfort, and marched to Tafel Kop in the
district of Vrede. Others advanced from the Transvaal, and whether or
not they had been guilty, from their standpoint, of neglect of duty,
they now began to do their work thoroughly--or rather, I should say, in
a thoroughly cruel and heartless manner.

It seemed as if they wanted now literally to annihilate us. They made
use of any expedient. The farms were laid waste, the houses burnt down
or damaged in such a manner as to render them uninhabitable, and grain
and forage were given as a prey to the flames. Cattle were looted and
sheep killed in tens of thousands.

Our women, it is true, were not killed out of hand, but they were taken
by force, against their wish or will, and shut up in camps. There they
were exposed to fevers and other camp diseases, and many succumbed. So
it came about that, although, as I have said, it is true that they were
not directly killed, it was nevertheless through the environment into
which they were forced that they were destroyed by thousands.

But I am anticipating.

The hostile forces of which I spoke marched up in the eastern part of
district Vrede, along both banks of Klip River, and before their
dreaded advance there was a general flight on the part of the
inhabitants of the farms towards Wilge River. Waggons loaded with
furniture, bedding, and provisions; carts and spiders with women and
children; great troops of horses and cattle--all fled before the English
as before Goths and Vandals. And all this in winter! How I pitied the
misery of the women and children.

As they passed along, the English looted much cattle--but an incredible
number, especially horses and cattle, were saved by the fugitives.

The enemy's forces went in the direction of the Drakensberg. They
marched over Roode Nek and Vlak Nek, and we began to think that they
would disappear into Natal; and many of the fugitives returned to their
homes; but they had to take to flight again immediately, when they
learnt that only a portion of the enemy had descended into Natal through
Botha's Pass--undoubtedly to bring away the captured cattle. The other
portion suddenly turned back, came through Geershoogte to the Witkoppen,
and continued their work of destruction west of these hills, down
Cornelis River to Verky kers Kop. Towards the 23rd of May the English
had returned from Natal and joined the others west of the Witkoppen.

About four days after this the English had drawn a line of camps from
Tafel Kop (district Vrede) up to Cornelis River, and then moved forward
every day towards Wilge River, devastating and looting on a large scale.
It is wonderful how the fugitives fared, and scarcely credible that they
did not fall into the hands of the British. Some succeeded in getting
round either wing of the cordon by night, others again passed through it
close to the camps. What this means can only fully be realised when it
is known that the fugitives consisted mostly of women and children, and
that (although they were directed how to trek by the fighting burghers)
the women in most cases had to drive the carts, and in some cases even
the ox waggons, themselves. Notwithstanding all these difficulties most
escaped. Here and there a small laager was captured, but the majority
baffled the enemy. A laager of women, however, in which I was by chance,
was not so fortunate.

On Saturday, 25th of May, I had gone to Frankfort to hold divine
service. I remained there till Monday the 3rd of June, and then news was
brought to the town that the great cordon of the English, of which I
have spoken above, was swiftly advancing. The inhabitants of the town,
mostly women and children, left the town on Monday morning and trekked
across the bridge, while I went on to the farm of Mr. Christiaan de
Beer. On Wednesday the laager came there too, and as it was their
intention to trek all through the night, in order to pass round the
south wing of the English, I joined them, hoping to be behind the
British the next morning.

The Frankfort laager had increased considerably since Monday, a number
of Transvaal women having joined it, and now consisted of about seventy
waggons. Some of these Transvaal women had been trekking about for a
year, and, as may be expected, presented a very worn appearance. The sun
had just set when the laager reached the farm of Christiaan de Beer, and
shortly after passed it, and continued in the dark until the moon rose.

It was a long night passed under particularly sad circumstances.
Whatever I had gone through in night marches during this war, this night
added what I had not experienced before. This was the most miserable of
all, on account of the presence of weak women and tender babes. If
anyone wishes to witness real misery, let him go to a large women's
laager.

In this laager there were girls who rode on horseback all through the
night, and that on men's saddles, which had been so arranged that a girl
could ride on it. I saw a little maiden take the riem and lead the team
of oxen before the waggon. And then the poor little children! They
moaned and cried at the bitter cold of the winter nights of June--poor
mites in thin linen or cotton garments. Boys of ten and twelve had to
drive on the cattle, and the parents had perforce to speak harshly to
them, in order to help them in their bitter task.

How my soul rose up with indignation at the merciless force that had
caused such scenes of misery--that exposed babes to the cold of the long
winter nights, and drove women, who refused to be captured, into the
wilderness.

The Basutos in our war with them robbed our cattle, burnt our houses,
and killed our men, but they left our women and children unmolested. It
was reserved for the British Empire, at the height of its power, its
civilisation, and its enlightenment to make war on women and children.
And yet, it was astonishing to see that the poor women, in spite of all
this, were not utterly discouraged. How admirable they were. Whatever
may have been the feeling deep down in their hearts, suppressed and
stifled there, outwardly they were full of courage, and even to some
extent cheerful. One of them even baked dampers at midnight, when we
halted to give the weary oxen a rest. That, however, we ought not to
have allowed, for not only did it cause delay, but our fires showed the
enemy where we were.

After waiting for two hours we went on again. We made considerable
progress until we came near to the farm of Mr. Gert Oosthuizen. There a
waggon got stuck in the mud. This caused delay, and after the waggon had
been extricated, day quickly began to dawn. Again we proceeded, and
shortly before sunrise we had reached Concordia, the farm of Mr.
Abraham Strauss. Here we learned that the English were approaching from
Steil Drift. The waggons immediately went south-westward in the
direction of Reitz over a ridge, and fifty men mounted their horses and
hurried away. I also left the laager and hastened as fast as the mules
could drag the spider.

After driving some distance I looked round and saw that the English had
gained the ridge which we had just crossed. Everywhere on the horizon
the ground seemed covered with horsemen. It began to be plain that there
could be no escape for me, but still the animals were urged to go on as
hard as they could. I was nearly a mile away from the laager, which
meanwhile had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and almost out of
danger when some troops came up. They were indignant that I had not
remained with the laager, and ordered me with curses and indescribably
foul language to halt. I did so, and surrendered myself.

"Outspan them horses!" a soldier shouted to me [they were mules].

I refused.

"I am your prisoner, not your servant," I said.

That was foolish on my part, for I was completely in their power, as I
also later on admitted to an officer, but I was unaccustomed to being
addressed in this way by common soldiers. The rage of my captors now
rose to a climax. Two of them stuck cartridges into their rifles and an
officer levelled his revolver at me. I then thought that, there being no
question of principle here, it would be senseless to allow myself to be
shot for a matter of this sort, and began with my son to unharness the
mules.

Had they struck me then I should have understood that it was done under
provocation; but that I should be struck in cold blood shortly after is
another matter.

Everything was quiet, and I was busy obeying the orders of the
soldiers, when an officer of higher rank than the one who wanted to
shoot me came up, and in learning that there had been a dispute, and
that I had made some objections, he struck me from behind on my head
with the metal head of his horse-whip. I have forgiven him. Probably
also he is dead from the effects of a dangerous wound he received
shortly after.

We had then to inspan again, and were ordered to go to a Kaffir kraal at
Graspan, in the vicinity. Thither also the laager and forty-three
captured burghers were brought.

Some women visited the men there, amongst whom they had husbands and
sons, and brought food and coffee. It was a sad sight to behold; the
women wept and loudly expressed their fears that they would be separated
from their husbands. I tried to encourage them, and besought them not to
shed tears before the enemy.

With what contempt did the English look down upon us. Not some of them
merely, but all. The lowest soldier vented his scorn in foul language,
and even the highest officer there forgot that he should be a gentleman,
and did not refrain from insulting language. As he rode past and cast
his eye over the women, he exclaimed: "What! have we a Japanese show
here?"

And it was in the presence of such men that our women shed tears.

Shortly after we had been captured three or four horsemen appeared on
the same ridge over which we had come, but a volley from the soldiers
soon caused them to disappear.

Meanwhile some officers came and asked me whether it was I who, in the
fight on Platrand (Waggon Hill) on the 6th of January 1900, had bandaged
an English officer, and when I had replied in the affirmative they were
very friendly to me. And now followed some conversation with the
soldiers. We learned that the force consisted of 200 men, who had left
Steil Drift at two o'clock in the morning to capture us. Their column
was advancing, and might be expected at any moment. My son also spoke to
the soldiers and officers.

"What," he asked one of the latter, "do you think of a rescue?"

"Oh!" was the reply, "a couple of volleys will send it flying like the
Boers we just fired at."

A soldier also said to his comrade that they had to keep an eye on my
son, adding: "I bet my bottom sixpence the little beggar will get away
yet."

And that is what did happen! We also learned that we were to be taken to
Kroonstad, and this pleased me, for I did not wish to be marched into
Harrismith as a prisoner-of-war. The time passed slowly till two o'clock
in the afternoon. Then horsemen appeared on the ridge to the north-west.

The English thought this might be their column, and feared lest, not
knowing that the laager had been captured, their troops might begin
bombarding it. The officers placed themselves in a row, and made signals
to the horsemen to come to the laager. They also sent out one of their
men to give notice of the state of affairs. But he did not return, and
when those on the ridge, after riding hither and thither as if undecided
what to do, at last rushed forward towards the laager, and some others
from the south and east came out on the flanks, there was no longer any
doubt that they were Boers.

Orders were hastily given to resist the attack of the burghers. The
soldiers caught their horses, and firing at once commenced, whilst we
who had been captured were placed out of immediate danger behind a sod
wall. The rifle fire now became very severe. The bullets flew in all
directions. Many of us thought of what might now happen to the women
and children. Soon we prisoners-of-war were being fired at by the
burghers who were storming the laager from the south-east side, and our
guards allowed us to seek refuge in one of the huts.

Hardly had we entered it, when we heard the English saying that our
burghers who had attacked from the eastern side had retaken the laager.
This was about twenty minutes after the fight had commenced. The English
now sought shelter. Some ran into two or three huts; others into a
cattle kraal between the huts. There they loopholed the walls and
defended themselves bravely. In the turmoil two wounded soldiers were
carried to the door of the hut in which the prisoners were, and I went
out to help the doctor. Whilst I was thus engaged a bullet whistled past
my ear, and I saw with surprise that it came from our burghers who had
taken the laager from the east side. Ten of them had taken up a position
near a hut and fired thence, a distance of about twenty yards, at the
English in the cattle kraal, and at the same distance also at us.

"We are Boers!" shouted the prisoners. But this did not help, for they
continued shooting. From the hut near which they were firing from, they
saw two or three of the English guards amongst us, and thought probably
that we were acting as guides to the English. Then I also ran forward
and declared that we were Boers.

"If you are Boers, then come out," they cried.

My son and I with one or two more then ran swiftly out, and lay down
behind the sod-wall from which we had gone into the hut. Here I saw how
one of our burghers coming from the laager to the sod-wall was struck in
the right breast and fell down. He called to a comrade. As he was coming
I saw a bullet strike him too. I heard him exclaim as he sank down, "I
am killed too." He died immediately, resting his head on my son's
shoulder. A couple of yards behind us an English soldier was wounded. He
cried aloud for water, and there was no one to give it him. Everywhere
around men, as well as many oxen and horses, were being shot.

At the hut from which the Boers were firing at the English in the kraal
I saw Commandant Davel. I noticed too that he was in command there, and
concluded that he had led the charge. That was the case. It was he who,
with his burghers, had stormed the laager from the east. I also saw
Ex-General P. Fourie. My heart leapt with joy when I saw that brave old
man, and I thought that the charge against him could not have been of a
very serious nature if he were thus again permitted to carry arms.[7]

[Footnote 7: General Fourie had a short time previously been arrested on
the charge of carrying on unlawful correspondence with the English.]

Shortly after we had got to the sod-wall Commandant Davel sent a white
flag to the kraal to tell the English to surrender. I made use of this
opportunity to go--it was only six or seven yards off to the position
held by our burghers at the hut. There lay three burghers and one
Englishman dead. My son armed himself again with the rifle of one of the
dead men.

As was to be expected, the enemy refused to surrender, and the firing
recommenced.

Meanwhile the waggons which were able to do so had begun to retire, and
fifty of them reached a hollow out of range.

It would now certainly not have been long before we should have won the
day completely, had not some scouts of General de Wet ridden up in haste
and reported that a very large reinforcement of the enemy was swiftly
approaching.

Before, therefore, the few that still remained in the huts and in the
kraal could be forced to surrender, the burghers were ordered to retire.
The hut where I was, was deserted.

Then my son said to me that it was time for us also, and asked whether I
would follow him if he went out first. Yes. He thereupon led the way,
and I followed him. But we could not get to our spider. The mules were
unharnessed, and the vehicle moreover stood in the line of fire; but we
were rescued from this difficulty. The cart of Mr. Christiaan de Beer
stood ready inspanned, and whilst my son drove away with it, with Miss
de Beer, who was wounded through the arm, I led Mrs. de Beer and her
daughter out.

It was a brave deed was that done by our burghers at Graspan. From the
bare ridge on the one side and the open plain on the other they had
stormed the laager. Eventually they were firing at the enemy at such
short range as from one Kaffir hut to the other, and were between the
waggons often face to face with the troops. They consisted merely of the
bodyguard of the President under Commandant Davel and those of General
de Wet. There was also a small number of Transvaalers, who had
accompanied General de la Rey on his journey to the President and the
Chief-Commandant. Together they numbered between seventy and eighty men.
But although fewer in number than the enemy, they had again given proof
that it is not possible for 200 Englishmen to move five miles away from
their cannon, and then to be met without disaster by a handful of our
burghers. And this I say not because I wish to convey that the English
are not brave. I have never seen greater courage than that displayed by
them at Graspan. But it remains a fact that, as regards mobility and the
handling of a rifle, they are no match for the Boers; and that when they
have no cannon or have not the odds greatly in their favour, they must
yield to the Boers. It is only by brute force that they could overpower
us.

Dearly was Graspan paid for! Not only were the waggons that had escaped
retaken by the reinforcement, but thirteen of our burghers were killed
and about fourteen seriously wounded.

And what did the English say about the laager that they had taken? They
said that _it was a convoy of General de Wet_. This is one of the cases
of the untruthfulness of their reports. It was a _women's laager_ and
nothing else, with not a hundred men in it, of whom some were
non-combatants and others very old men. There was not a single officer
amongst them, to lead those who were armed; and so it came about that
there was no resistance whatever when the laager was attacked.

I left the laager when the reinforcement approached, and went to Reitz.
In the evening I left the town and got to the farm of Mr. Piet de Jager,
near Rout Kop, at about ten o'clock, whence, however, the people had
fled in fear of the advancing English.

The large force of the English now proceeded in the direction of
Heilbron and Kroonstad; but first buried their and our dead at Reitz.
Two days after, our burghers came and reburied our dead (thirteen
bodies) there better than the enemy had in their haste been able to do.

Before closing this chapter I must still mention that the worst that had
yet befallen us took place towards the middle of July. Other troops
arrived, this time from Platrand Station, Transvaal, following the track
of the columns that had already traversed the country. They destroyed
over again what had already been destroyed. Large flocks of sheep were
collected everywhere and stabbed to death at different centres, in heaps
of thousands upon thousands. In the town of Vrede there was a great
slaughter, and in order to make it impossible for our people to live
there the dead sheep were carried into the houses and left to rot.

Not only in the districts of Vrede and Harrismith did this occur, but
everywhere throughout the State. When I was in the neighbourhood of
Senekal it took place there also. I have myself seen places where the
skeletons of the sheep lay, and could hardly imagine anything sadder
than to see them lying dead in heaps. The destroyers also frequently
drove large herds of young horses or such as were unfit for service into
kraals, or crowded them into ditches, and shot them there by tens,
fifties, or hundreds, and the air was charged with pestilential odours.
The troops completely destroyed the houses. Where the stables and
waggon-houses were not burnt down, the dwelling-houses were devoted to
the flames; and where these were not burnt down, they were so utterly
ruined as to become wholly uninhabitable. The floors were broken up, the
panes of glass smashed with the sashes and all, the doors broken to
pieces, the doorposts and the window-sills torn out. And if it was not
too terrible to permit of its being so described, one might say that the
work of these men was sometimes childish--as, for instance, when on one
occasion they hanged the cats in a barn, and on another shot a horse
inside a house, and then covered it up with a table.

To escape from the troops the women sometimes took refuge in mountainous
parts of the country in caves and grottos. Often they escaped; but on
other occasions the soldiers discovered them in these places of refuge.
An officer found two women with their children in a cave, and expressed
himself very strongly as to what he saw there, saying that he would send
a photograph of the scene to the _Graphic_, as if the picture of such
misery could do credit to himself and his nation! He wrote the following
letter, and handed it to one of the women to deliver to her husband:--

"TO MR. M. LOURENS.

"SIR,--I am leaving your wife and Mrs. Uys in the wretched place they
have to live in. If you had any compassion on your women you would
surrender to superior force and not prolong a hopeless struggle.

                                   "R. B. FIRMAN, Lieutenant-Colonel."

27/7/01.

As one of these women was indisposed the officer left them there; but he
took the little servant-girls away.

To such acts as these the officers of the British columns had fallen.
They were made the persecutors of defenceless women and children. They
carried the work of incendiaries throughout the whole State. They became
the butchers of thousands of horses and tens of thousands of sheep. How
despicable it must have been in their own eyes to perpetrate such acts!
When I think of all this, and look to the far future, then I ask myself:
What will be said of this war when the history of it shall be written
and read by the coming generations?

CHAPTER XVIII

PRESIDENT STEYN ALMOST CAPTURED

The things I needed most after my escape at Graspan were clothes, for
all I possessed had been on the spider that I had had to leave behind.
But even had I been able to rescue it, I should have found very little
in it; for although I had heard an officer ordering the soldiers to lay
their hands on nothing belonging to the burghers except arms and
ammunition, from the Kaffir huts, in which I was held captive, I saw
them removing from time to time from the spider, first one and then
another article of clothing and concealing it about their saddles.

To provide, therefore, for my wants as far as clothes were concerned, I
went to Fouriesburg. Not all at once could I recover my equanimity. The
excitement of my capture and the fight at Graspan had, as may be well
conceived, affected my nerves, and it was as if I could not clearly
realise my escape. But when on the following Sunday, on the farm of Mr.
Heymans, not far from Slabbert's Nek, I again saw a congregation before
me, I once more completely regained my serenity of mind. It was clear to
me that God had shown me that He held my fate in His Hand, and that I
owed to His Mercy my liberty until the day of my capture. It was as if
He had said, "Behold, I delivered you over to the enemy, and closed his
hand upon you so that there was no deliverance. There is therefore
nothing for you to be vain of in that you were the only one of your
colleagues in the Free State who had up to that time not been taken
prisoner. But I have delivered you because I have further work for you
to do. Go forth, and do good to your people. Encourage the burghers.
Seek out the neglected ones. Comfort the defenceless women and children
in their oppression. Preach the gospel."

And I must declare it, that since the unfortunate occurrence at
Nauwpoort I never had more courage than now, nor had I been able till
then to address the burghers with more pleasure than now.

I arrived at Fouriesburg on Monday, the 10th of June, and was there most
kindly entertained by Mr. Jacobus Bester and his wife. The English--so I
heard there--had just quitted the village, and had in the previous month
laid waste everything behind the Roodebergen. In the newspapers they
published how many women and children they had captured, how many
burghers they had killed, how many cattle they had carried off, how many
tons of grain they had burned, how many ovens and stoves they had
destroyed. Thus the British Generals, stern iconoclasts, had become the
takers of ovens by storm. I discovered that not so many burghers by far
had been captured or killed as the English accounts had stated. It was
also surprising how much grain there was left, how much even had been
rescued from the flames, and when on the Sunday after my arrival I held
service in the church, I found the building nearly full of worshippers,
and all were in fairly good spirits. There was, notwithstanding all the
destruction, no thought of surrender. What advantage would we gain
thereby? Should we get the looted cattle back? should we see the
burnt-down houses rebuilt?--No. Then let the enemy do his worst. Let him
ruin us completely if it was our fate to be overwhelmed. The English had
to do with a people who were no barbarians, but with a race sprung from
the same stock as themselves--with the offspring of ancestors who had
sacrificed everything for their Faith--with descendants of forefathers
who had contended for eighty years against a great world-power. Such
means, therefore, as Great Britain had for the last fifty years been in
the habit of employing against barbarous or semi-barbarous races had
till now failed signally when applied to the people of South Africa.

I visited our people on their farms. At one place the family was living
in a waggon-shed, at another in a stable, and again at another in a
house restored sufficiently to make it to some extent habitable.

Some farms had not been visited by the enemy, whilst at others no damage
had been done, excepting the destruction of the grain and the _stoves_!
At one farm which I visited everything had been left as it had been.
There was still a piano, and we spent the evening pleasantly. What
thoughts passed in my mind when one of the young ladies sang well-known
songs to the accompaniment of the piano, and when I remembered that the
same girl, with her mother and sisters, had shortly before, whilst
fleeing before the enemy, passed the night under the open sky. Both the
mother and her daughters were cheerful here, and not here only, but
everywhere I went. No wonder, then, that the hope that sooner or later
we would gain our independence grew stronger and stronger in me. While I
was at Fouriesburg the landdrost, Mr. M. Fourie, came from the Ficksburg
Commando, and told me that he, Commandant Steyn, and Field-Cornet J. J.
van Niekerk would be pleased if I could visit their commando. What else
was I living for? I went gladly, and addressed the burghers, on week
days as well as on Sundays. Amongst the Ficksburgers I found the song,
written by the Rev. G. Thom, which has since become well known.

  "Hope on, hope on, my brothers,
    In our beloved land,
  We're waiting for deliverance,
    Deliverance by God's hand.

  Hope on, hope on, my brothers,
    Though war's dark clouds increase;
  'Tis but a short time longer,
    Then He will give us peace.

  Hope on, hope on, my brothers,
    The daylight is not far;
  When the long night is ended
    Will rise the Morning Star.

  Hope on, hope on, my sisters,
    In our beloved land,
  We too lament your sorrows,
    We on this far-off strand.[8]

  Hope on, hope on, my sisters,
    Your tears, your sighs, your pain
  By Him are not forgotten,
    To whom all things are plain.

  Hope on, hope on, my sisters,
    And still again hope on;
  Through seas of blood and treasure
    Our freedom must be won!"

[Footnote 8: Ceylon. The original of this song is in Dutch, of which the
above is but a feeble rendering.]

This song was not sent out by the Rev. G. Thom for any special purpose,
but it seems that, as it was often sung by the prisoners-of-war in
Ceylon, it was sent out in its entirety or in portions by different
burghers to their relatives as their contribution to the scanty news
they had to send.

Had the censor known how this song would be circulated among us, and
sung everywhere, he would certainly not have let it pass. But perhaps we
have a proof here that the censor, like Homer of old, was also
occasionally apt to nod.

The song was sung by the burghers of Field-Cornet J. J. van Niekerk to
the tune of the old Voortrekkers' hymn, "How pleasant are the days."

I afterwards had this sung wherever I held a service, always requesting
the girls to make copies of it before the service. Mr. Mels' J. Meyers,
then editor of the _Brandwacht_, afterwards printed a number of copies,
which helped me much to spread the song. I have no doubt that these
verses aided in a large measure to keep alive the courage of our people.
While I was in these parts letters came regularly from British territory
through Basutoland to the farm Brindisi, under the kind care of Mr.
Middleton, the owner of the farm. I availed myself of the opportunity
and sent letters to my wife, and received replies by the same means.

The relatives of the captives who had been sent to Ceylon often got news
from that island, and it encouraged us much to see what a good spirit
reigned amongst the exiles. Our ministers there seemed to be effecting
much good by their services, and the younger captives attended schools
which had been erected for them. Others passed their time in the making
of beautiful handiwork of all descriptions out of suitable stone, such
as brooches and similar articles, while others again worked on the roads
for small wages, and in this manner obtained enough money to purchase
paper and postage stamps, as one of them stated in his letter. But what
particularly impressed me was the firm conviction they all had of the
ultimate deliverance of our nation. Here is an extract from a letter of
a young man to his mother:--

"We are full of courage, and do not mind how long we have to remain
here, if only our people get the upper hand--which they certainly will."

From the Ficksburgers I went to the Ladybrand Commando, and held
services for the burghers and the women.

On the farm Peru, belonging to Mrs. A. Ecksteen, senior, I heard that
the English wanted to remove, on the 19th of April 1901, the
mother-in-law of Mrs. Ecksteen. As the old lady was eighty years of age,
and, moreover, suffered from a weak heart, Mrs. Ecksteen protested
against this deportation, whereupon the officer in command said, "She
will have to go, even if she were dead." And so the old woman was forced
to go on the waggon. At Karba, not far from there, the English deported
Mrs. A. Ecksteen, junior, on the same day, notwithstanding her repeated
assurances that she could not possibly go. A son of Dr. Wilson, the
practitioner at Karba, had carried a letter from his father to the
military, acquainting them with Mrs. Ecksteen's condition. But the lad
got his ears boxed, and was taken prisoner (he was, however, released on
the following day); and the officer said to the woman, "You'll _have_ to
go." Mrs. Ecksteen was thereupon taken to the _mine_ on the farm
Monastery, along with the other Ecksteens; she there found shelter under
a waggon, but was taken during the night into a tin shanty, of which all
the doors and windows had been destroyed, and under such circumstances
she gave birth to a daughter!

The following morning the English realised what an inhuman act they had
committed, and left the Ecksteens there with the following note:--

                                        "MONASTERY, _20th April 1901_.

"Mrs. A. Ecksteen, junior, having to our regret been moved from her
house by mistake, when she was not in a condition to travel, Dr. Wilson
has been left to take charge of her, and also her mother-in-law and
grandmother to care of her. All these persons must remain on the farm
Karba.

                         "J. (?) HALKETT,[9] A.P.M., Pilcher's Horse."

[Footnote 9: This was not the officer who had removed Mrs. Ecksteen.]

By mistake! and that with the woman before their eyes and the letter of
the doctor in their hands!

But this is by no means the only case of this sort. A British officer
had also, shortly before, taken away Mrs. Greyling, an old woman aged
eighty-five, from her farm, Magermanshoek, at Korannaberg. The poor old
woman could no longer walk and was totally blind. When her son inquired
whether she could not travel in her spider, his request was refused and
the vehicle burnt. She was carried to a waggon on a chair, and conveyed
to Winburg.

I mention these cases not as exceptions, but as examples of what
continually took place.

Having returned to the Ficksburg Commando on the 1st of July, I found
that my son had had an accident through the explosion of a Martini-Henry
cartridge in his face. This forced us to remain till the 16th at the
farm Franschhoek, belonging to Field-Cornet J. J. van Niekerk. I wish
here to record my thanks for the kindness of all the families there, and
especially for that shown by Mrs. J. J. van Niekerk and Mrs. Meyer in
nursing my son. Before leaving Franschhoek I heard of the narrow escape
of our President at Reitz. He had gone thither with his staff on the
evening of the 10th of July. Early the next morning his cook, a coloured
boy named Ruiter, rushed into the tent where the President was sleeping,
shouting, "The English are here." The President then hastily went out,
without a jacket and with a nightcap on his head, and ran to the stable
where his horse was. The saddle was not near at hand, and Mr. Curlewis
hurriedly put his own saddle on the horse. Without bridle or bit, and
with only the riem of the halter in the horse's mouth, the President
galloped away. A soldier followed and shot at him; but the President's
horse was fresh, and gained on the tired steed of the soldier, until he
was out of danger. Ruiter wanted to follow the President, but when fired
on he allowed himself to be captured. Subsequently, however, he escaped,
and related that, when they had asked him who it was that had ridden
off, he had answered, "It's only a Boer." On a former occasion the
President had slept in a house, and it seems that the majority of the
English had surrounded that same house, and thus they had given him the
chance of escaping.

But the whole of his staff were taken prisoners, with the exception of
the Government Secretary, Mr. J. W. C. Brebner, who was absent on leave.
The brave Commandant, Mr. Davel, who was chief of the bodyguard, was
also captured. Besides the President only seven men of the bodyguard
escaped. An English officer called it _luck_. We call it by another
name.

All the money and State documents fell into the hands of the English.
What made the loss of the documents a serious matter for us, was that
amongst them was a letter from the Government of the South African
Republic giving expression to a very despondent spirit about the
condition of affairs, and saying that there was danger that the
continuation of the struggle would only tend more and more to the ruin
of our people, and that the time was gone by when matters could be
allowed to drift on.[10]

[Footnote 10: That letter was as follows:--

                                      GOVERNMENT OFFICE, ON THE FIELD,

                                                      _10th May 1901._

His Honour, the Government Secretary, O.F.S.,

HONOURED SIR,--Herewith I have the honour to inform you that on this day
the following officers have met the Government here, viz.: His Honour
the Commandant-General, General B. J. Viljoen, General J. C. Smuts
(State-Attorney), the latter representing the western districts. Our
condition was fully discussed, and the following points considered:--

_First._ That small groups of burghers are still constantly surrendering
to the enemy, and that this danger is becoming a more and more serious
one, whereby we are exposed to the risk of our cause coming to a
dishonourable conclusion, because the result may be, that the Government
and the officers may be left in the veld without any burghers. This
imposes a heavy responsibility upon the Government and the officers,
seeing that they represent the people, and not themselves.

_Secondly._ That our supply of ammunition is so exhausted that no battle
of any importance can any more be fought, and that we shall thereby be
reduced to the condition of hopelessly fleeing hither and thither before
the enemy. Owing to this also it is becoming impossible for us to
protect our people with their cattle, who thus are becoming poorer and
more and more despondent, and we shall soon be unable to supply our
forces with food.

_Thirdly._ For the reasons above stated, the authority of the Government
is gradually being weakened, and the danger has arisen that the people
will lose all respect and obedience for their lawful leaders, and lapse
into a state of disorder, and our further persistence in such a struggle
can only tend more and more to ruin our people, and to make it apparent
to them that it is only the enemy who has authority in the land.

_Fourthly._ Not only is our people being disintegrated in the way above
stated, but it will also surely happen that the leaders of the people
whose personal influence has hitherto kept them together will fall into
total disrepute, and will lose all influence, by which every hope of the
revival of the national spirit in the future will be lost.

_Fifthly._ The people constantly insist upon an answer to the question,
what prospect there exists of carrying on the war to a successful issue,
and they have a right to expect that when it is become clear to the
Government and the leaders that there is no longer any sound reason to
be hopeful for our cause, this shall be honestly and candidly made known
to them. Hitherto the Government had expected that through the efforts
of our Deputation and European complications there might be some hope
for our cause.

And this Government feels strongly that before taking any final
resolution another effort should be made to arrive at certainty with
regard to this.

Taking into consideration the above-named points, the Government, with
the officers already named, has resolved as follows:--

1. That a request shall at once be made to Lord Kitchener that by means
of delegates to be sent by us to Europe, the condition of our country
shall be communicated to President Kruger, which delegates should then
return as speedily as possible.

2. That if this request be refused, or should lead to negative results,
an armistice should then be asked for, whereby an opportunity shall be
afforded, in conjunction with your Government, to consult the people of
both States, in order finally to decide what is to be done.

This is, however, subject to any suggestion that your Government,
bearing in mind the above-stated difficulties, may be able to offer.

This Government feels very earnestly that the time is gone by for
allowing this matter to drift, and that the time has come for taking
decisive steps, and would therefore be glad to receive an answer from
your Government.--I have the honour to be,

Your Obedient Servant,

                              (Signed)  F. W. Reitz, State Secretary.]

To this President Steyn wrote a long reply, dated 15th May 1901, in
which he expressed his great regret at this despatch of the Transvaal
Government. He said that although in the Free State they had also had to
see men laying down their arms, yet that it had been surmounted; also
that although ammunition had for a long time been scarce, yet there was
still after every fight enough to begin the next one with.

As to the question, what prospect there was of continuing the struggle
any longer, he would ask, what prospect two little Republics had had
from the beginning of winning in a struggle against the mighty England?
And if at the commencement we had put our trust in God, why should we
now not continue to do so? He also pointed out that if our cause were
utterly hopeless in Europe, we should certainly have heard of it from
our Deputation. He further assured the Transvaal Government that even
if, in case of an armistice, the people of the Free State were
consulted, the resolution of those men who still stood their ground
would be not to lay down their arms.

He also disapproved of the resolution of the Transvaal Government, to
ask Lord Kitchener to be allowed to send somebody to Europe, because
thereby we exposed our hand to the enemy; and he added that he was very
sorry such a resolution had been taken without first consulting the Free
State.

As regards the fear expressed by the Transvaal Government that they and
the officers would be left without burghers in the field, the President
said that in the Free State, even if the Government and the officers
surrendered themselves, the people would not do so. He also showed how
disastrous it would be if the Free State, which had offered up not only
its blood and its treasure, but had also thrown its independence into
the scale on behalf of the sister Republic, were deserted by that
Republic. That then all reliance of Africander upon Africander, and also
all co-operation, would be for ever destroyed, and that it was a chimera
to believe that thereafter the nation would rise again. If we wished to
remain a people, now was the time to endure to the end.

After referring to some matter which he had read of in the newspapers,
he continued in the following forcible language: "All these things make
me believe that we should commit national suicide if we now give in.
Therefore, brothers, continue to stand firm! Do not make our suffering
and all our efforts in the past to no purpose, and our trust in the God
of our fathers be turned to mockery. Encourage rather your weaker
brethren." The President concluded this very remarkable letter with the
question whether we were to desert the colonial burghers a second time.
"May God forbid it!" he said.

Although the unfortunate letter of the Government of the South African
Republic was three months old, and the feeling in the Transvaal had
since its date utterly changed, this sad correspondence, as was to be
expected, gave fresh courage to the English.

Both letters were telegraphed, abbreviated and mutilated, to England,
and the Transvaal letter had, as I subsequently read in the newspapers,
a beneficial influence (for England) in parliamentary circles. But, as I
have already said, a different spirit had arisen in the Transvaal. This
President Steyn found when immediately after the fight at Graspan he,
together with General de Wet, Judge Hertzog, and General de la Rey,
visited the South African Republic. He had not rested, after receipt of
the letter from the Transvaal Government, but had immediately summoned
not only General de Wet and Judge Hertzog, but also the Transvaal
General de la Rey (who had not been present at the Transvaal meeting),
to accompany him to the South African Republic. When he arrived in that
Republic he found that the Government had quite recovered from its
despondency. This had been brought about especially by the following
circumstance: the Government had carried out its resolution to ask Lord
Kitchener's leave to send a delegate to Europe for the purpose of
acquainting President Kruger and the Deputation with our condition, and
to consult with them as to the continuance of the struggle. Lord
Kitchener had refused to grant this, but had given permission to send a
cablegram in the code of the Netherlands consul. The State Attorney,
General Smuts, and Advocate de Wet had gone to Standerton, and sent a
telegram in which the state of affairs was represented in as dark a
light as possible. After a fortnight the reply came. It was short, and
stated that although there was then no chance of intervention, we should
nevertheless continue: the telegram said also that the two Republics
should co-operate. This was said in reference to a statement in the
Transvaal telegram saying that President Steyn did not approve of giving
in. Moreover, two fights, in which our arms had been victorious and
which took place just at that period of despondency, had served to
encourage the Transvaal Government. One at Vlakfontein, where General
Kemp, and the other at Welmanrust, where Commandant Muller had engaged
the English. These were important fights, and refuted what had been
stated in the letter of the Transvaal Government to the effect that no
battle of any importance could any more be fought. Thus one thing and
another had brought about such a change in the minds of the Transvaal
Government, that when the President and his party met them there was no
sign of dejection, and it was difficult to believe that they were the
same persons who had instructed the State Secretary to write the letter
of the 10th of May.

CHAPTER XIX

DAYS OF THANKSGIVING AND HUMILIATION

While President Steyn was in the Transvaal the two Governments held a
combined session, and prepared a proclamation in which the people were
acquainted with what the Government of the Transvaal had telegraphed to
President Kruger, and what the reply had been. This document contained,
besides the firm resolve of both Governments to continue the war with
all possible vigour, a proclamation calling upon everyone to join in a
general thanksgiving on the 8th of August 1901, and in a general day of
prayer on the 9th. Not only were the dates fixed and the objects for
prayer and thanksgiving stated, but the proclamation also admonished us
in what spirit we should set about it. Very rarely, I believe, has a
proclamation been issued by a Government of modern times couched in
similar terms.

I was with the Ficksburg burghers when this proclamation was read to
them, and when I arrived at Fouriesburg, on the 16th of July, I received
a letter from the President asking me to be with him during the days of
thanksgiving and humiliation. I now set out to seek him, where he had
directed me, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Nauwpoort.

It so happened that just on the 29th of July I passed the spot where
General Hunter had encamped a year before, and where he had received the
arms of many of the burghers who had given up the struggle at the
unfortunate surrender of Prinsloo.

Once more I marked the sharp contrast of light and shadow on the proud
mountains; again I gazed on the beauty and grandeur of cliff, ravine,
and torrent, and again I felt my insignificance in the awful presence of
Nature. But I was now in a different mood from that in which I was a
year before. Then I was despondent and discouraged; now I was buoyant
and looked forward hopefully. Then all was dark about me; now I looked
up into the blue sky, and the future seemed nearly as bright and
unclouded as the blue overhead. What a change the year had wrought. My
son and I rode through the mountains at Nauwpoort on the following day,
and remained overnight under the roof of Mr. Abraham Naudé. On the
following day I rode to the house of Mr. Jan Roos, to get further news
about the whereabouts of the President, as the landdrost, Mr. Jan Brand
Wessels, stayed there. There I heard about a gallant thing done by the
burghers of Harrismith under Commandant Jan Jacobsz. Early on the
morning of 28th July a force of English, numbering about 200, and led by
a Kaffir, had attacked one of our guards in a kopje not far from Mr.
Frederick Moolman's house. The guards fled, abandoning horses and
everything else. Soon news of what had happened was brought to
Field-Cornet Frans Jacobsz. He hurried to the scene with a handful of
men and threw the English into confusion by firing on them. When the men
belonging to the guard had procured new horses on the farm of Mr.
Marthinus de Jager, they returned and took part in the fight. The result
of all this was that instead of the force, which had come from
Harrismith, capturing the burghers of Commandant Jacobsz, 43 of them
were taken prisoners and several killed and wounded. On our side only
Field-Cornet Jacobsz was wounded.

The second day, after having passed through Nauwpoort, I found the
President on the farm of Mr. Wessel Naudé. Although he was somewhat
indisposed, he was as buoyant as ever and showed no signs of
discouragement. He told me, however, that he missed the presence of the
old members of his Government and of his bodyguard very much. Mr.
Hendrik van Niekerk, captain of the scouting corps raised in connection
with the bodyguard, had been appointed in the place of Commandant Davel.

The head of our State then was still full of hope!

How I then, as always, envied persons of an optimistic nature, persons
who never gave way to despair! If there were not men like President
Steyn and General de Wet in the world, no obstacles, seemingly
insuperable, would ever be surmounted.

We held the solemn day of thanksgiving and of prayer--the first on the
farm of Mr. Nicolaas Kruger, the second on the farm of Mr. Willem
Blignaut, and then I parted from our lovable and indomitable President,
in the hope of joining him shortly afterwards. But this did not happen
until the 24th of October.

CHAPTER XX

ANOTHER BRITISH PROCLAMATION

I went to Witzieshoek to visit my friend Mr. J. J. Ross. What an Elim
the place was to me during the week I stayed there. The surroundings
seemed to transport me two years back into the past. His children
reminded me of my own!

And the books in the study! I read--no, I tasted--here a line from this
author, there a page from another, which is wrong!--oh, I know that! But
still it satisfies a person of my temperament and tastes no less than,
though perhaps more ethereally, it does the reader--yes, the reader--to
devour every book, word for word, that he attacks.

I skimmed--not that I always do this with books: no, generally I too
read; but now I merely skimmed--here a little and there a little.
Besides, I had no time for _reading_. But I had experienced enough to
know now, after having had so many months of the war, where to seek the
greatest minds.

I saw that the man who dips his pen in ink is greater than he who stains
his sword with blood. The man who, out of sight and unaffected by the
world's turmoil, gives his life to the thoughts which are born in
travail, and which, whatever men may say, do rule the world--that man is
greater than he who, in the great world outside, is made a hero of by a
senseless rabble, because he leads a hundred thousand men. This man
leads an army; that man leads the world.

When I was at Witzieshoek, the English passed through Harrismith to
Bethlehem, as they were in the habit of doing almost every week. This
time they had an extract from a proclamation by Lord Kitchener, which
they left behind in their camps, on the buttresses of the bridge over
Elands River, and elsewhere. It was not long before the full text of the
proclamation[11] appeared, and this was not only sent to the
Governments, but officers came out with _flags of truce_ to the
different commandos.

[Footnote 11: This Proclamation runs as follows:--

PROCLAMATION.

  By His Excellency, Baron Kitchener of Khartoum, G.C.B., K.C.M.G.,
      General Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces in South
      Africa, High Commissioner for South Africa, Administrator of the
      Transvaal, etc. etc. etc.

_Whereas_ the late Orange Free State and South African Republics have
been annexed to His Majesty's dominions:

_And whereas_ His Majesty's forces have for a considerable time been in
full possession of both territories aforesaid, together with their
public offices and all the machinery of administration, as well as of
all the principal towns, and of the railways:

_And whereas_ the great majority of the burghers of the two late
Republics, to the number of 35,000, not counting those who have been
killed in the war, are now prisoners of war, or have submitted to His
Majesty's Government, and are now living quietly in villages or camps
under the protection of His Majesty's forces:

_And whereas_ the burghers of the late Republics who are now under arms
against His Majesty's forces are not only few in number, but have lost
almost all their guns and munitions of war, and are without proper
military organisation, and therefore unable to carry on regular warfare,
or to offer any organised opposition to His Majesty's forces in any
portion of the country:

_And whereas_ the burghers who are now still under arms, although unable
to carry on regular warfare, continue to make attacks on small and
isolated posts, and bodies of His Majesty's forces, to rob and destroy
property and to damage railway and telegraph lines, as well in the
Orange River Colony as in the Transvaal, and other portions of His
Majesty's South African dominions:

_And whereas_ the country is thereby kept in a state of unrest, and the
carrying on of agriculture and commerce is prevented:

_And whereas_ His Majesty's Government has resolved to put an end to a
condition which causes the useless shedding of blood, and needless
destruction of property to continue, and is causing the ruin of the
large majority of the population, who are desirous of living in peace,
and to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families:

_And whereas_ it is right to take steps against those who still resist,
and especially against those persons who, having authority, are
responsible for the continuance of the existing condition of affairs,
and who are urging their fellow-burghers to persist in their hopeless
resistance to His Majesty's Government:

_Therefore it is_ that I, Horatio Herbert, Baron of Khartoum, K.C.B.,
K.C.M.G, General Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces in South
Africa, High Commissioner of South Africa, by _order of His Majesty's
Government_, proclaim and make known as follows:--

All Commandants, Field-Cornets, and Leaders of armed bands, being
burghers of the late Republics, who still continue to resist His
Majesty's forces in the Orange River Colony and Transvaal, or any other
portion of His Majesty's South African Possessions, and all members of
the Governments of the late Orange River Colony and the South African
Republic shall, unless they surrender before the 15th of September next,
be for ever banished from South Africa; the cost of support of families
of burghers still in the field who shall not have surrendered before the
15th of September shall be claimable against such burghers, and shall be
a charge upon their properties movable as well as immovable.

_God save the King!_

Given under my hand at Pretoria this 7th day of August 1901.

                                                   KITCHENER, General,
                                   High Commissioner of South Africa.]

This proclamation made known that the officers and members of the
Government would be banished from South Africa if they did not surrender
before the 15th of September 1901; and that the cost of support of the
families of all burghers who were still under arms on that date would be
claimable against such burghers, and would be a charge upon their
properties, movable as well as immovable. The English had therefore
again issued a proclamation. And how was this received by our burghers?

Many people declared that this proclamation was a sign of weakness;
others spoke of it with the utmost contempt; the majority ignored it,
and everyone looked forward to the 15th September, to see if it would
actually be the case, as everyone expected that this proclamation would
have no effect.

Meanwhile there was, as very frequently was the case, a great deal of
talk about peace. Peace would, it was said, come on the 20th of
September. But the 20th of September came and went, and there was no
peace. After that I never again heard that a day and date had been fixed
on which there would come an end to the war.

From Witzieshoek I went to look for the President, but with the poor
horses that I had I could not reach the place where he was. Meanwhile I
held services wherever I could, both on week-days and Sundays, and where
opportunity offered I noted down my experiences on commando. In this
work I had to cope with peculiar difficulties. Sometimes I wrote at a
table, whilst at other times a window-sill served me as writing-desk;
but the greatest portion of my book was written on the seat of my cart,
whilst I sat crouched on the bottom. I did not always have good ink, and
the first pages of my notes are written in various shades; I had even to
use "Nastagal" ink, made by our women. This ink was to me a new example
of how inventive the Africanders are. Speaking of this gives me the
opportunity of saying something about the many ways in which our people
managed to lighten their burden of misery.

Our boots wore out, and men were appointed to tan hides and make boots;
even women occupied themselves in this kind of work. The war had not
been going for fifteen months when there was a great scarcity of soap.
Then our mothers and sisters boiled a very serviceable article with the
help of the ashes of mealie-cobs and of various weeds. The English
destroyed the mills everywhere; but mills were mounted on waggons and
carried off when the English approached. One such mill ground more than
fifty bags of corn in twenty-four hours. Our corn was done before we had
been fighting a year; but peas, mealies, kaffir-corn, rye, acorns, and
dried peaches were used as substitutes. Through dire necessity a fine
old handicraft of our great grandmothers was revived: the spinning of
wool, which was still plentiful in spite of the devastation of the
enemy. Our mothers and wives and daughters span wool beautifully,
considering the nature of their spinning machines. Spinning-wheels were
fabricated in various ways from old sewing-machines, fruit-peelers, and
so forth. I have seen socks knitted of yarn spun by these primitive
machines, as fine and certainly stronger than those that can be bought
in shops. Our salt was at last quite exhausted, and this was a cause of
great anxiety, especially in districts such as Harrismith, where there
were no salt-pans; but here again our distress was relieved, for wells
were dug in the pans, where no one would have thought of digging before,
and salt water was found. "Everything," it was often remarked, "was
scarce; but nothing completely lacking."

We toiled or plodded along, suffering in silence, where there was no
help for it, but we generally managed to find a way out of the
difficulty. No suffering was too severe, no sacrifice too great but was
gladly undergone or made for the realisation of the great ideal we were
striving for.

What particularly struck me during this period was the boundless wealth
of the Orange Free State. Where all the cattle came from after the
immense devastation by the enemy was beyond my comprehension. We never
were in want of grain, notwithstanding the tens of thousands of tons of
wheat and maize destroyed or rendered unfit for consumption by the
British. And when on a few farms in the grain districts and elsewhere
there was still some wheat over, the fields were again waving, and at
the harvest time they stood yellow for reaping. The problem of clothing
was also solved. I saw several overcoats made from sheepskins, which
answered well. Some burghers wore complete suits made of leather. When
one's clothes wore out they were mended with patches of leather, and
then the garments were called "armoured" coats or pairs of trousers.
Besides this, money was taken to Basutoland, and great quantities of
clothing were bought and secretly brought to the Free State. This was
constantly done notwithstanding the strict vigilance of the enemy.

And then there was the "shaking out" of soldiers; that is, when a
soldier was captured his clothes were taken from him and worn by such
burghers as needed them.

Who will condemn this action?

The enemy had not only cut off all our means of import, so that we were
completely isolated, but had done their utmost to burn our clothes
wherever they could. Whenever, then, a soldier fell into our hands, the
English supplied us with a suit of clothes.

They provided us in the same way with ammunition. Since the commencement
of 1901 the scarcity of ammunition had caused us much anxiety. Many who
were loyal began to ask with misgivings whether this would not
ultimately force us to surrender. But our enemy supplied us. In the
later stages of the war we had scarcely any ammunition at all, except
what we got from England. We were completely dependent on Great Britain,
who took care that we should never be wholly in need. As President Steyn
wrote to the Transvaal Government: "After every fight we had enough
ammunition to commence another with." Towards the end of the war one
seldom saw burghers armed with Mausers. The enemy were fought with their
own rifles and their own ammunition. Has this often happened in the
history of the world? Sunday, 15th of September, was the day fixed by
Lord Kitchener on which the officers and men were given a last
opportunity to lay down their arms without detriment to themselves. The
day came, and who had surrendered? I only heard of two cases in the
districts of Vrede and Harrismith. Besides these, General Brand reported
that about twenty men from his districts had gone to the enemy. I also
heard of one or two cases in other parts of our country. The
proclamation thus was of little effect. There had been a time when the
Boers fell like ripe grain before the scythe of British proclamations.
That time was passed, and the big words and threats of Lord Kitchener
were now of no effect.

This must be attributed partly to the fact that Lord Roberts had not
acted in good faith in relation to what he had promised in his
proclamations; but the chief cause of the firmness of the burghers now
was owing, as General de Wet used to say, to the men having been
"sifted": the chaff was gone, the wheat had remained. The winds of
destruction and the rain-torrents of devastation had finished their work
of attrition on the mountain of Africanderdom. The soft loose soil had
been washed away, only the bed-rock remained.

And what shall I say of those--our own flesh and blood--who went over to
the enemy?

Renegades!--What can I say?

That most of them gave up their arms to the enemy in moments of
despondency I can understand, for I, too, know what dejection is; but
that there were others who drew sword for the English and against us is
hard to understand.

But the traitor, God will punish. It must not, however, be forgotten
that it is not unprecedented in an unformed nation for the faint-hearted
to desert to the enemy. Such a nation still lacks the powerful _esprit
de corps_ which is born of the traditions of the past. There were
thousands of deserters, traitors, and renegades amongst the Americans
during their great struggle.

But the fierce flame of this war has welded us together. The war with
England towers in our past as something mighty and heroic. The future
must always be influenced by it, and our children, looking back, will
realise how close the ties are between themselves and their fathers, and
thereby they will be drawn together into one united people.

CHAPTER XXI

HOW THE PRESIDENT PASSED HIS TIME

On Sunday, 29th September 1901, I held services in the house of Mr.
Gerrit Aveling at Wagenmakers Vlei, after having, during the past week,
addressed the burghers in different parts of the district of Vrede. It
was my intention now to visit my own congregation, and I had already
written to Commandant Meyer to arrange for the holding of services for
his men. But this could not take place. The English had already marched
out of Harrismith, and on Monday we heard that they had arrived in the
neighbourhood of Sandhurst, the farm of Mr. Hermanus Wessels. The people
living in the vicinity of where I was immediately took to flight, and I
temporarily joined the company of Mr. Jan Adendorf.

On Tuesday the English came as far as the farm of Mr. Adendorf,
Christina, and from there a small number of them went to Natal, while
the rest were sent about seizing cattle everywhere and otherwise
conducting themselves after their wont. They did not, however, burn down
houses now, but where they found property that the owners had carried
out of their houses and hidden, they consigned this to the flames.

My son was now taken prisoner by the English, along with Assistant
Field-Cornet Gert van Deventer, and the Burgher Thys Uys. He had
remained behind to fight. One evening it appeared that the English were
retiring from Ottershoek to Brakfontein, and Field-Cornet van Deventer
thought it was safe enough to sleep in a house. He with the two others
therefore went to the homestead of Mrs. Swart. But there was a Kaffir
there who saw them, and when it got dark he went and informed the
English. The consequence was that at daylight the following morning
these three, together with the two little sons of Mrs. Swart, were taken
prisoners. The news was brought me when I was not far from Woodside. It
may be imagined that after my son and I had been chums for so long I
felt very lonely. But I was more anxious about him than about myself,
because I knew that he would be uneasy about me. It was some
consolation, however, that he had been captured and not killed.
Meanwhile I had almost without noticing got into a women's laager.
During the flight the company in which one finds oneself keeps
increasing in numbers--_vires acquirit eundo_. And now I thought that it
was not advisable to remain in a women's laager; for I did not wish to
expose myself to the chance of being captured again in the same manner
as on the 6th of June at Graspan. Therefore, on the day after the news
reached me of my son's capture, I took leave of the good friends with
whom I had spent some days, and went to General Wessels. I arrived there
the following day, having spent the night at the farm of Mr. Kootje
Muller.

Others of the English had meanwhile come from Standerton and reached
Woodside; and before I was well aware of it I was again one of a number
of fugitives. Separating myself from them, when I learnt that the
English had retired from Woodside, I soon found myself, now for the
third time, again in a laager of women. This laager was a Harrismith
one, under Ex-Commandant Truter and Mr. James Howell. I now thought
that I should be able to accompany this laager to the district of
Harrismith, and thus realise my wish to visit my own congregation. But
in this I was again disappointed, for on Tuesday, the 15th of October,
we nearly drove into the English, who were at Newmarket. I therefore
left them, and for the present gave up the idea of visiting the
Harrismith people. An incorrect report, stating that the English were
advancing from Frankfort up the Wilge River, prevented my crossing that
river, as I had intended to do, and I remained the fellow-fugitive of
Mr. Piet de Jager for a week. From his farm I then went to his
brother's, Michal de Jager, and when I had been there two days I heard
from the President. He wrote me a letter wherein he informed me where I
should find him. I started immediately, and on the 24th of October I
arrived in his laager, and resolved, at his friendly request, to remain
with him.

Life was now again the old commando life that I had not known since
January. We knew of no roof but that which spreads over all the earth.
On the grass we spent our time, sitting by our carts or saddles, or
lying down where we happened to be. We ate, drank, and slept under the
open sky. It did sometimes happen that the housewives invited their
President to their tables, and that such invitations were not declined;
but he never went to sleep in a house unless rainy weather forced him to
do so. And even this was not done whenever the enemy was in the
vicinity.

Commandant van Niekerk constantly received reports from his outposts,
which were placed at a certain distance from the laager. They always
kept him informed as to the movements of the enemy, and he made the
little laager shift every evening according to circumstances. We very
seldom slept at the same place on two consecutive nights, and thus, in
spite of ourselves, had to undergo the penalty of wandering. To be
always ready for what might happen, the horses were brought from the
veld every morning at two o'clock and held until the patrols brought a
report later in the morning that all was safe.

The President's horse stood ready saddled from that hour. The President
never took off his boots at night, and was therefore ready every moment
to mount his horse. I always took off my boots at night, unless the
enemy was very near. But I was more circumspect with regard to the
safety of my MS. I never let it off my person. I made a little bag of
old linen, placed my MS. in it, and wore it under my waistcoat, whenever
the English were approaching. If anything should happen there would be a
chance, provided the enemy did not "shake me out," that my book would
not be lost for the second time as at Graspan.

The distance which we "trekked" every night depended upon how far we
were away from the English. If they were far away, we only travelled
three or four miles; if they came nearer, we were sometimes obliged to
push on during the whole night in order to pass through between them or
to get round them.

So I again led the old commando life. But though we were exposed to much
discomfort, the time passed rapidly, especially as we had something to
read in the laager. Newspapers, picked up where the English had camped,
reached us from all sides. And before the carts were done away with, we
carried on them a small library. Here is an incomplete catalogue of our
books: _Krieg und Frieden_, a German translation of Tolstoi's _War and
Peace_, _Anna Karénina_, some books of poetry, a book on physics, a
history of the American War, some theological works, a little book
containing extracts from Seneca in English, a biography of Savonarola.
My pastime was writing. I was incessantly sitting cramped at the seat of
my cart writing my notes.

Yes, the time passed rapidly! Before we were aware of it a week was
gone, and Sunday with its divine service had come. This consoled me, for
the thought constantly occurred to me that we were not crawling but
flying towards the end.

CHAPTER XXII

A DESPATCH FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC

I had hardly arrived in President Steyn's laager when I heard of a
proclamation issued by him, in consultation with the Council of War,
dated the 2nd of November 1901, whereby it was made lawful that boys of
fourteen years old, when their physical condition and health permitted,
should be "commandeered."

It was as if a sword had pierced my heart when I heard of this
proclamation. Our Government had signalled that the Fatherland expected
not only every man, but also every child to do his duty.

It was at this time, perhaps in consequence of this proclamation, that
the English began to tear away little boys from their mothers, and not
only those of fourteen and over, but also those under that age; even
children of eight were mercilessly dragged away.

Immediately after I had joined the President his laager proceeded in the
direction of Lindley. We had now an opportunity of visiting our hospital
under the charge of Dr. Fourie, at the farm of Mr. David Malan. Then we
went in the direction of Senekal to meet General Kritzinger, who had
been driven over the border of the Cape Colony by General French, and
was now staying in the Free State to let his horses rest a while. On
Sunday, the 3rd of November, we held service, near Biddulphsberg, on
the farm of Mr. Leendert Muller, and there General Kritzinger was also
present. The President then resolved to be at Little Clocolan on the
following Sunday, to address the colonists under Kritzinger on the
occasion of divine service being held. This took place at the farm of
Mrs. Bornman. On our way thither something occurred which caused some
uneasiness to the President and the members of the Executive Council.
General de Wet sent a report after him, stating that a letter had
arrived from the Transvaal, and he asked President Steyn to fix a place
where the Executive Council could meet for the purpose of considering
that letter. The President fixed on the house of Christoffel de Jager at
Sand River, and rode back twelve miles to that spot.

The letter in question asked whether we should not again try to enter
into negotiations with the British Government, and to make a proposal
for Peace. The Transvaal Government proposed that as a basis of
negotiation there might be discussed such points as equal rights for the
Dutch and English languages, religious liberty, costs of the war, an
offensive and defensive alliance as far as South Africa was concerned,
etc.

President Steyn replied on behalf of the Executive Council, that in his
reply to Lord Kitchener he had already proposed to negotiate upon the
condition that the Republics should retain their independence, and that
the result was well known. Further, he said that he could not discuss
all the points suggested by the Transvaal Government _seriatim_, but if
there was to be a proposal for an offensive or defensive alliance with
England, then we might as well recall the Deputation from Europe.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE PRESIDENT RETURNS TO THE PLAINS

We had a pleasant time in the grain districts. There was an abundance of
bread and no scarcity of slaughter-cattle. We also found wild-honey in
the fissures of the rocks. Everything looked fresh and full of life in
the early spring. The veld was green, and the trees heavily laden with
young fruit gave promise of a good harvest. All the wheat-fields looked
splendid, and at many places we noticed that people would reap where
they had not sown; for everywhere there were fields where the seed which
had fallen on the ground the previous year had again sprouted and was
growing luxuriantly enough to be harvested. What a beautiful mountainous
country the "Conquered Territory" is! Is it not the Crown of the Orange
Free State?

We spent a pleasant time; but it could not continue, as we were in
danger of English columns which were constantly marching to and fro from
Winburg to Bethlehem. One of these columns, which was just then passing
from Bethlehem to Senekal, took our only Africander medical man, Dr.
Fourie, prisoner in his hospital at the farm of David Malan. We should
now have been wholly without a doctor if Mr. Poutsma, who on the
occasion of General de Wet's second attempt to enter the Cape Colony had
been captured by the English, had not cast in his lot with us again. The
English had let him return to Holland, and now he had come back from
there to South Africa. He was welcomed by us, and the house of Mrs. de
Jager at the farm Bezuidenhout's Drift on Wilge River was arranged as a
hospital for him.

We could not then remain in the "Conquered Territory." We therefore
resolved to return to the plains around Lindley and Reitz. On Sunday,
the 10th of November, we were on the farm of Mr. Claesens, near Wonder
Kop, and I held service under the trees in the garden there for the
burghers, and for two large women's laagers, that were fleeing for fear
of the English.

Three days after we were at the farm of Mr. W. Prinsloo. Here General de
Wet visited the President, and a meeting of the Executive Council was
held.

The General informed the President here that it was his intention to
form a large flying commando for service against the English wherever an
opportunity offered. This commando was to consist of burghers from
Bethlehem under General Prinsloo and Commandant Olivier; and, further,
of men from Heilbron under Commandant van Coller; Kroonstad, under
Commandant Celliers; Ladybrand, under Commandant Koen; Vrede, under
Commandant Botha; and the Transvaalers who were at that time in
Harrismith district, under Commandant Mears.

General de Wet left in the afternoon, and in the evening we trekked
towards Wit Kop, and halted for the night on the ledges near Mr. Krog's
farm, between Wit Kop and Wonder Kop.

The English were once more on the road from Winburg to Senekal, and
Commandant van Niekerk intended passing round their front; but just as
he was on the point of doing this, a false report was brought him that a
force of English was also approaching Senekal from Harrismith, and that
they had got as far as Rexford.

The Commandant now determined to pass round the rear of the enemy, and
a start was made in the afternoon. We had not, however, progressed very
far before we learned that the report that the English were at Rexford
was untrue. Commandant van Niekerk now decided to carry out his original
intention, and the commando returned to the ledges by a round-about way.

The following day, Sunday, the commando again proceeded, passing over
Driekuil and to the east of Tafel Kop, where we halted until dark.

In the clear moonlight we then went on, passing east of Biddulphsberg,
and at eleven o'clock we were near Leendert Muller's farm. There an
occurrence took place which afforded a slight change in the monotony of
the night march. Our scouts, who rode about two hundred yards ahead, saw
two horsemen riding towards them and put them to flight. They were very
nearly fired upon, but luckily both parties perceived betimes that they
were friends.

The two men proved to be burghers, who, along with some others, had
charge of a women's laager not far off. They told us that on the west
the English from Winburg had advanced as far as the farm of Christoffel
de Jager--which fact we were aware of ourselves--and that to the east
there were others from Bethlehem, at Scheur Klip; and furthermore, that
there were British camps in front of us at Blauw Kopje and elsewhere.

It was now too dangerous to go on, and there was nothing to be done but
to return, which we did. And when the eastern sky was reddening with the
light of dawn, we were back on the farm Driekuil.

It was lucky for us that we did this, for on Tuesday morning the English
from Bethlehem made a sortie towards Kaffir's Kop, which lay directly in
our route. We remained in the neighbourhood of Driekuil till Thursday,
28th November, and then rode through the night over Pietersdal,
Bester's Kop, and across the Bethlehem road, till we reached the farm
Nooitgedacht, near Kaffir's Kop.

On the following morning we were in the immediate vicinity of a fight
which General de Wet was having with the English not far south of
Lindley. He arrested their progress, and they retired that night to the
farm of Caspar Kruger at Victoria Spruit.

On the following day the English had disappeared in the direction of
Heilbron, abandoning five waggons. These waggons were loaded with flour,
sugar, tobacco, blankets and tents.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ENGLISH LAY WASTE THE COUNTRY ABOUT LINDLEY

It was in the beginning of December that we returned to the plains, and
on the 3rd and 4th the President visited the great flying commando at
Lindley. On the second day he addressed the men.

Here we met Judge Hertzog, who had come from the western districts to
discuss some important matters with President Steyn. He remained with
the President, while he awaited an answer to a letter written to the
Transvaal with relation to his visit there.

A service was to be held in the town on Sunday, the 8th of December.
Instead of this a fight took place there. The English were seen early on
that day advancing from Valsch River bridge.

General de Wet gave orders that one portion of the burghers should take
up positions on either side of the Kroonstad road, and the others a
position to the east of it, near the Plat Kopje. I witnessed the whole
affair. The enemy were in overwhelming force, and slowly advanced in
widely extended order. It was impossible for our men to hold their
positions. The burghers on the Kroonstad road were the first to give
way. They took up positions on the kopjes where, more than a year
before, the Yeomanry had surrendered. Shortly after the men on the right
flank at the Plat Kop had also to retire. I then saw large numbers of
the English come out over the ridges. How few our little groups of
burghers seemed in comparison to the large numbers that made their
appearance there. Everything was now in the power of the English. They
could bombard the Yeomanry kopjes, and our burghers had to desert them
also. It was not long before the whole commando was in full retreat
towards Elandsfontein.

During the next couple of days the English did as they liked, without
any resistance being offered them. They went about everywhere in the
neighbourhood, devastated the farms, and took away the cattle with which
our people had not fled.

When the President returned there on the 16th of December, after the
departure of the English, I heard from the women how sadly things had
gone. They were, it is true, not taken away, but they were driven out of
their houses, and had to see their dwellings burnt down or destroyed
before their very eyes. Could inhumanity go further? If the English did
not wish to exterminate us, what then did they mean by driving weak
women and children out of doors and destroying the houses? All the food
of the women was carried away or scattered upon the ground; and it was
only through the kind-heartedness of here and there a more humane
officer, or of some simple "Tommy," that a dish of flour was secretly
left behind for the housewife. What made everything still more sad was
the great service rendered by traitorous Africanders as guides to the
enemy.

Mrs. Gert van Niekerk of Windbult told me what had happened to her
before the eyes of one of these, Ex-General Piet de Wet. Alas! that I
should have to record it, but--

    "'Tis true, 'tis pity,
  And pity 'tis, 'tis true."

These Africanders made it possible for the English to travel long
distances at night, and, acquainted as they were with the habits of
their countrymen, they enabled the English to capture Boers, and to
seize cattle, where otherwise they would have been unable to do so, or
at least could not have done so without infinitely more trouble. How
must every noble sentiment have been stifled in these men! It is
impossible to comprehend how they could have endured listening to the
constant abuse which in the camps was heaped on their own
race--incomprehensible how they could constantly, from one farm to
another, look on the misery which they were helping to bring upon women
and children--who were their own flesh and blood.

From Mrs. Niekerk, then, I heard how she had fared. The English came to
the farm Windbult about ten o'clock on the 10th of December, and
immediately began to strike the doors, windows, and furniture with axes
and hammers, smashing and demolishing everything. If Mrs. van Niekerk
attempted to save anything it was snatched from her hands and broken to
atoms. But her daughter, helped by an Africander serving under the
English, succeeded in carrying out some beds, chairs, and smaller
articles.

Meanwhile ex-General de Wet carried on a conversation with Mrs. van
Niekerk, whom he had formerly, as her neighbour, known very intimately.
This conversation ran nearly as follows:--

_P. de Wet._ Do tell the burghers that it is a lost cause. Try to
persuade them that they are blindly going astray.

_Mrs. v. Niekerk._ I will do no such thing.

_P. de Wet._ It is against the Bible to continue the war; for we read
that a king must consider if with ten thousand men he is able to meet
his opponent who is coming against him with twenty thousand.

_Mrs. v. Niekerk._ But, Piet, you were a Commandant yourself; what did
you think of our small numbers against our mighty foe then?

_P. de Wet._ My eyes were opened later. I have seen my mistake.... But
it is just Christian de Wet and old Steyn who keep the thing going by
telling lies to the burghers.

Mrs. van Niekerk had meanwhile kept her eyes constantly fixed on the
soldiers who were destroying her property. Pointing at the ruins, she
appealed to such sense of right as she thought might still be left in
the man, for whom in happier days she had had much respect, and asked:
"Are you not ashamed, Piet? See how you are ruining us."

And what was his reply?--What? I do not know how to describe it, so
feeble it was,--this: "And why do you ruin England so?"

The conversation continued as follows:--

_P. de Wet._ The country is lost.

_Mrs. v. Niekerk._ No, the country is not lost. You are masters for the
moment wherever your camps stand. Elsewhere the burghers do what they
like and go wherever they choose.

_P. de Wet._ Wait a bit, till the 200,000 men who are still to come from
England are here, and the blockhouses which are to be built from town to
town are completed.--Aunt, do tell the burghers what I now tell to
you--All is lost. Do tell the burghers so.

_Mrs. v. Niekerk._ I will not do so. Besides, it would be in vain.

Involuntarily she thought of days gone by, when the man who now stood
before her came to her house under conditions so entirely different. "Oh
Piet," she said, "have we not prayed together, you and I, in our
prayer-meetings, in this very house, that is now being turned into a
heap of ruins? Alas! the image which I then saw in you, I see no more.
You have forsaken God."

"No," he said; "all of you have done that. And as regards
prayer-meetings, every Sunday we do that.... But the consciences of the
burghers who are still fighting have become seared."

The house was destroyed; where the doors and windows were, yawning
openings gaped. The beams were sawn down, a partition wall thrown down,
and the roof fell in,--all this in the presence of Mrs. van Niekerk and
Piet de Wet.

The poor woman then went to an outer storehouse, but the English would
not allow her to remain there, and she took refuge in a miserable hut
used for storing dry cow-dung for fuel.

But on the following day she had to move out of there too, as the enemy
said they needed the place to fire from. And so she and her daughter
were now stranded on her own premises without the least protection from
wind or weather.

But this did not last long. The English ordered her and her daughter to
get into a waggon, saying that they would take her to Kroonstad. This,
however, they did not do; but informed her on the road, that they would
leave her with a woman, and in the afternoon made her alight at the
house of Field-Cornet Thys de Beer.

This building was in flames, and Mrs. de Beer was outside with her
children, one of whom was a sick baby. The women and children spent that
night in a small lean-to, which luckily had not been burnt down.

When Mrs. van Niekerk's son, Jurie, rode to their house on the same day,
to see how his mother was doing, some English were concealed in the hut
where the fuel was kept. They allowed him to approach, and one of the
soldiers called out, "Hands up!" "Hands up, you!" said Jurie van
Niekerk, and fired his revolver at them. But there were too many ready
for him, and he immediately fell, mortally wounded, by three bullets.

The day after, his father, Gert van Niekerk, returned to his house. He
was quite alone, and viewed the ruin of his home. But who shall describe
his thoughts when he--standing there all alone--found the still unburied
corpse of his son! The English returned, after having killed a great
many sheep and taken much cattle. Still, great numbers of cattle were
saved by the burghers at night.

Dingaan's Day with its memories of happy rejoicings once more arrived. I
had ridden to be with the commando on that day, but wherever I came I
always found that it had moved away before me, so that I could celebrate
the day with but a small number of people.

On the 17th of December the President was on the left bank of Tijger
Kloof, and it was there that the news of Commandant Hasebroek's death
reached him. A few days later we learnt that on the 16th of December he
unexpectedly encountered a number of English, and that, while galloping
away from them, he received a bullet through his head. So he too had
given his life for his country's freedom!

Posterity will keep the memory of the gallant Commandant Green. He was a
man of noble character. Opposed to all hypocrisy, he was frank and
open-hearted, and never hesitated to express his opinions fearlessly to
anyone, whoever he might be. He was the idol of his men, and looked
after their wants as if they were his children. He was ever the first to
enter a position--the last to leave it. He was a tower of strength to
our cause; when nearly everyone was discouraged at Nauwpoort, his
courage never wavered. If it had not been for him and a mere handful of
others like him, who knew not what it was to despair, our whole fighting
force would have surrendered to the enemy like cowards. Brave, resolute
Commandant, I reverently lay a wreath upon your grave!

Before I bring this chapter to a close, I must add that when President
Steyn was retiring from Lindley he had received a letter from Lord
Kitchener (in consequence of a letter from Vice-President Schalk Burger
to Lord Salisbury, in which he complained about the removal and
ill-treatment of our women and the bad treatment they received in the
camps). Lord Kitchener wrote on the 1st December 1901 to the two
Presidents, and said, amongst other things, that as the Presidents
complained of the treatment of women and children, and as they must
therefore be able to look after them, he had the honour to inform them
that all women and children at present in his camps who were willing to
leave, would be sent to the Presidents. Lord Kitchener said he would be
pleased to hear where the Presidents desired the women and children to
be handed to them.

President Steyn answered that he could not receive them, especially as
Lord Kitchener had not only had all the houses destroyed, but also the
bedding of the women and children.

CHAPTER XXV

TWO IMPORTANT ENGAGEMENTS

We passed to the south-east of Reitz and came to the farm Inloop,
belonging to Mr. Gert van Rensburg. On our way thither I left the
commando to go to the office of Landdrost Serfontein, in order to visit
the unfortunate de Lange there, who was sentenced to death by a
court-martial for high treason. I found him in very sad circumstances;
but he was sustained by religion. He passed all his time in prayer and
in reading the Bible.

Unfortunately his sentence was not carried out on the appointed day. He
was taken to Reitz, his grave was ready, everything was prepared for the
enactment of the sad tragedy; but the persons who had to carry out the
sentence did not appear. Two days later, on the 21st of December, he was
shot while kneeling before his grave in prayer.

General Wessel Wessels had been charged with the sending of a party of
men to execute the sentence, but on that day when this had to be done
all his attention was occupied by the English near Tafel Kop. The
English were busy building blockhouses from the Drakensberg to Vrede,
and General Wessels was waiting for an opportunity to attack them. On
the following day the opportunity came. There were three forces of
British, when General Wessels, supported by the Commandants Ross and
Botha, gave orders that one of these forces should be attacked. He had
about a hundred and thirty or forty men, while the force attacked were
in far greater numbers, and were provided besides with two Armstrong
guns, two Maxim-Nordenfeldts, and one Maxim.

Our burghers galloped over a bare plain for nearly three and a half
miles, up to the enemy, who were on a kopje. The English let them come
up to six hundred yards, and then opened fire on them with shrapnel.
Their Maxims also and their rifles came into play. But the burghers were
not to be checked. Soon they were so close that they silenced the guns
by shooting down the gunners. They then charged up close to the enemy,
and there were in some cases hand-to-hand encounters, some of the
combatants striking one another with their rifle-butts.

The English were stubborn and fought very bravely; but in a short time
everything was in the hands of our burghers. Some of the English took to
flight, and very many were killed and wounded.

All the field-pieces were now in possession of General Wessels; but
before they could be got away, one of the other two columns turned up
from the direction of Paardenberg. This force was repulsed thrice, and
our burghers would have got off with the guns had not the third force
appeared from the direction of Wilge River.

The only thing to be done now was to gallop out, and abandon the
captured cannon. This was only done with the greatest difficulty. The
one column was a thousand yards to the right, and the other a hundred to
the left; some of the troops were already immediately in front of our
men. But fortunately they got through without casualty. Unhappily,
however, five men had been killed and four wounded in the storming of
the kopje.

Immediately after Assistant Commandant de Kock came in contact on the
farm Beginsel with the column, which had come up as a reinforcement from
Wilge River. He undoubtedly caused them some considerable loss, for five
ambulance waggons were later on busy with the casualties there.
Commandant de Kock had, however, also to retire before this column,
after he had engaged it for an hour and a half, because a reinforcement
made its appearance, and directed the fire of their cannon at him. He
had no casualties. We found out afterwards that the force which General
Wessels attacked was that under Major Damant, while the one that
attacked Commandant de Kock was commanded by Colonel Rimington.

Christmas Day had come again. I was not so low-spirited as on the last
celebration of this memorable day. This must be ascribed to the fact
that we spent the day pleasantly at Liebenberg's Vlei at the house of
Mr. Juri Kemp. I could never have believed that, after a long struggle
of two years and two months, we should be able to see such abundance on
a table as that which Mrs. Kemp and her daughters provided there. It
could not have been surpassed in times of peace. Notwithstanding the
want of sugar, the sweet was not absent. The bees had supplied that. It
did us good, in the midst of our troubles, to enjoy some pleasant hours,
and we did not forget the religious character of the day. In the morning
we held service at "Fanny's home," and in the afternoon at Mr. Kemp's
house.

In the midst of all this joy I did not know that my son was dead eleven
days. It was the same thing over again that evening when we, at some
distance from this pleasant scene, were ready again to retire to rest on
the grass. Before we did so a rumour came that General de Wet had
captured a camp of the enemy early that morning. His report of this
event reached the President the following morning. From this report, and
from what I heard from the mouths of many who were in the fight, I give
the following account of the attack:--

The English were building blockhouses from Harrismith to Bethlehem, and
their advance force, 580 strong, under command temporarily of Major
Williams, was camped at Groenkop on the farm Tweefontein in the district
of Bethlehem. General de Wet had, since he had collected the large
commando, sought for an opportunity to come in contact with the enemy.
After what had occurred at Lindley, and a fight later near Langberg,
which however had not been a success for us, he had as yet done nothing.
When, however, Christmas was approaching, he thought that it would be
the right time for him to act, and the force at Groenkop drew his
attention. He reconnoitred himself, and resolved to make an attack on
the night between the 24th and 25th December. He gave the necessary
orders late in the night of the 24th, and General Prinsloo and the
Commandants marched out with him to the hill.

It was a bright moonlit night, and there was some danger that the
advancing force might be seen from above long before the hill could be
reached. But fortunately there were clouds floating in the air, which
everywhere threw shadows upon the plain, over which the commando had to
pass, and it reassured the burghers when they thought that the several
divisions might look from the hills like patches of shadow below. There
were dongas near the foot of the hill. Our men passed safely through
these, and a little farther on they dismounted and began the ascent.

It was then two o'clock in the morning. The Heilbron and Kroonstad
burghers, under the Commandants van Coller and Celliers, ascended on the
left towards the north, whilst the men of Bethlehem, under General
Prinsloo and Commandant Olivier, formed the right wing. In the centre
were the men of Vrede and Harrismith, under Commandants Hermanus Botha
and Jan Jacobsz, together with Commandant Mears and his men. The
burghers were in the best of spirits. They climbed the hill, the one
striving to pass the other. "It was splendid to see how they charged,"
one man said to me. "They went up like a swarm of locusts." There were
three encampments of sandstone over which our men had to pass before
they could get to the top. Over the first they had clambered, when there
came the usual "Halt! who goes there?" Then the sound of a whistle was
heard, and immediately thereupon the enemy began to fire. Our burghers
advanced with all the more determination over the other two ledges of
sandstone, shouting, "Merry Christmas," etc., and rushed upon the
entrenchments. The English fired twice with grapeshot and several times
with the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, but those who were serving the guns were
killed, wounded, or forced to surrender, as was the case with one who
was just putting a belt into the Maxim-Nordenfeldt. The forts were soon
taken, excepting one on the right hand, and it was from it that most of
our burghers who fell were shot; as soon, however, as General Prinsloo
noticed the heavy fire from that fort, he stormed and soon silenced it.

Our burghers now fired on the tents, and many English were killed and
wounded in them. Many also fled half dressed from the tents, forming, as
they ran, movable targets for our men.

"Within half an hour," so General de Wet stated in his report, "all the
forts were taken, and the cannon and the whole of the camp were in our
hands. The enemy fled, fighting all the while, to at least two or three
hundred yards outside their camp, and the fight continued for another
hour and a half.... I must say that I have never seen better fighting
against an entrenched place. Our officers and burghers literally marched
right through the camp. The booty consisted of a 15-pounder Armstrong, a
Maxim-Nordenfeldt, a Maxim, and many Lee-Metford rifles. Much
ammunition, twenty-seven waggons, laden with all kinds of provision;
overcoats, blankets, and about 500 horses and mules were captured." Poor
Tommy!--Yes, let me speak tenderly of him, however I might otherwise
express myself when speaking in the abstract of the English people, or
in the concrete of Chamberlain, Milner, and many officers of the British
army,--poor Tommy had received his plum-pudding, tobacco, and new
uniform (Christmas presents), and on the evening before he had made a
parcel of them and laid it at his pillow with the object of putting it
on and enjoying it in the morning. For many a Tommy the morning light
did not dawn, and for not one of them came the enjoyment of his
Christmas fare.

Our loss was considerable. "We have," so General de Wet reported, "to
mourn the loss of fourteen men--heroes!--dead; amongst whom are the
gallant Commandant Olivier of Bethlehem, Field-Cornet M. Lourens of the
ward, Lower Bethlehem, and Assistant Field-Cornet Jan Dalebout of
Harrismith." Besides Field-Cornet Dalebout I personally had to lament
the death of another Harrismith man, Jacob Kok.

The number of our wounded was 32. The loss of the enemy was great: 24
were taken prisoners, and, excepting the few who succeeded in escaping,
the rest were either wounded or killed. Major Williams was also amongst
the killed.

General Brand and Commandant Coetzee, who had just come from the west on
a visit to General de Wet, took part in the fight, and their services
were highly valued by the General.

At eight o'clock an English reinforcement came from Elands River
bridge; but by that time our people had already gone off with the booty.
The prisoners-of-war were partially "shaken out" and sent over the
Basuto border.

Prisoners-of-war released!--What a strange war this war of ours was. We
had no ammunition but that which we got from the enemy; hardly any
clothes but those provided us by our adversaries. And when we took
soldiers prisoners, then--they were set free!

CHAPTER XXVI

OUR CASE GROWS MORE AND MORE DESPERATE

Blockhouses were also erected in the northern and south-eastern portions
of the Orange Free State. One line from Kroonstad to Lindley was
finished towards the middle of December; another from Botha's Pass to
Vrede and Frankfort at the end of the year; and a third from Harrismith
to Bethlehem shut off, with the portion that had already been built from
Fouriesburg to Bethlehem, the grain districts behind Nauwpoort, about
the middle of January 1902. People had all kinds of ideas about these
blockhouses. Some thought that they did not signify much, and might be
compared to the flags which are sometimes planted in front of a flock of
sheep. At first the sheep remain within the line, but soon they find
that the flags form no insuperable barrier, and then they graze up to,
and then to the other side of the flags. Others again could not conceal
their fears. The English, they thought, were making the circle narrower,
and we should eventually have to flee from place to place until we were
overtaken and overwhelmed by superior forces. We soon found that there
was truth in both views. The circle was drawn closer and closer. If the
English columns were marching about, we had to keep our horses tied at
nights to be ready every moment to retire to the right or to the left,
so as not to be driven against the blockhouses, or we had to retreat
before the enemy until near some line of blockhouses, and then suddenly
face about and either pass between our pursuers or go round them. On the
other hand, the danger of the blockhouses was not so great as had been
feared. Burghers could always pass them on horseback, and sometimes they
even did so with carts and herds of cattle.

1902.

The New Year had again come; and with the year new trouble and
ever-increasing distress. It was not easy for us, in spite of all that
had thus constantly gone against us, to remain hopeful. Now and then we
read something in the newspapers, picked up on the spots where the
English had encamped, that encouraged us somewhat. What we read of
Anglophobia in Germany would cheer us up a little and revive the
expectation in us that the war would soon be over. But when we would
read in the same papers that the English Government was resolved to
continue the war at all costs, and when we were constantly eye-witnesses
of the uncivilised manner in which the troops carried on the war, then,
as far at least as I was concerned, there appeared to be no prospect of
a speedy termination--no sign in our clouded sky that the storm was
breaking. "Watchman," so I seemed to cry, "what of the night? what of
the night?" and it was as if I always received the answer: "The morning
has come, and yet it is night."

What especially did not tend to encourage was the increasing violence
with which the English continued their destructive work. This took place
in the districts to the east of Lindley, chiefly in the month from 10th
January to 10th February. Especially was this the case where the column
of Colonel Rimington passed.

Colonel Rimington now passed through portions of the districts of
Bethlehem and Harrismith, in the neighbourhood of Reitz. When he came to
a farmhouse, the first questions of his officers and soldiers to the
housewife were, "Where is your husband? Where is de Wet? Where is Steyn?
Where are the Boers?" The woman could honestly reply that she did not
know, whereupon they threatened to burn down her house, if she gave no
information; and while the conversation was still going on she was
summarily ordered to carry out her bedding; the soldiers would then with
loaded guns and fixed bayonets storm into the house to seek for Boers,
under the beds and in clothes presses. They then smashed the