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 C. W. W. McLEAN. 2nd Lieut. 
 
 8th Princess Louise's 
 
 New Brunswick Hussars. 
 
 F. C. JONES, Captain and 
 
 Adjutant 3rd New Brunswick 
 
 Regt. Canadian Artilery. 
 
 J. H. KAYE. Lieutenant 
 
 The Royal Can-dian 
 
 Regt. of Infantry. 
 
 Photo, by Harold Climo. St. John. N. B. 
 
 Engraved by F. C. Wesley Co., St. John, N. B. 
 

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 Lieut. JOHN C OLAND. Jr., 
 of Co. H., Dartmouth. N. S. 
 
 Photo, by Gauvin & Gentzel, Halifax, N. S. 
 
 Capt, H. B. stairs, 
 of Co. H.. Halifax, N. S. 
 
 Lieut. R B. WILLIS, 
 of Co. H., Halifax, N. S. 
 
 Engraved by F. C, Wesley Co., St. John, N. B. 
 
 
 -*tMU.ll» 
 
Rbv. T. F. FULLERTON, Charlottetown, 
 
 Chaplain from P. E. I. of the 
 
 First Contingent. 
 
 Major W. A. WEEKS. Capt. of •'G" Co. 
 
 Charlottetown, in command of the 
 
 N. B. and P. E. I. Company 
 
 of the First Contingent. 
 
 Photo, by Westlake Eros., Charlottetown, P. E. I. Copyright 1899 by Robert L. Cotton, Charlottetown. P. E. I. 
 
 Engraved by F. C. Wesley Co.. St. John. N. B. 
 
 B. WILLIS, 
 lalifax. N, S. 
 
 .. St. John. N. B. 
 
 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND DETACHMENT OF FIRST CONTINGENT. 
 Photo, by Westlake Bros., Charlottetown, P. E. I. Copyright 1899 by Robert L. Cotton, Charlottetown, P. 
 
 Engraved by F. C. Wesley Co.. St. John. N. B. 
 
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 Caft. C. F. HARRISON. 
 Eighth Princess Louis? H-issirs. N. B,. appointed 
 Transpor; Officer of the Canad an Mounted 
 Rif/esof 2nd Cmtingenl. 
 Pholj. by Hariid Climi. St. John. N. B. 
 
 Engrjved by Wesley Co.. St. John. N. B. 
 Died of Enteric Fever at Wynberg. June <5. 1 900. 
 
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 Capt. W. C. good. 
 Carlston Co.. N. B.. of 2nd Contingent. 
 Photo, by G. A. Keith, Woodstocli. N. B. 
 
 Engraved by Wesley Co., St. John. N. B. 
 
 Cap 
 
 Enlisted ^ 
 
 Photo, bj 
 Engravec 
 
 CARLETON COUNTY VOLUNTEERS OF THE 2nd CONTINGENT. 
 Photo, by G. A. Keith. Woodstock. N. B, Engraved by Wesley Co., St. John, N. B, 
 
~ontingent, 
 
 ;. N. B. 
 
 . John. N. B. 
 
 Rev. W. C. LANE, 
 Methodist Chaplain to the SecDnd.Canadian 
 
 Contingent. 
 Photo, by Allison Spence. Parrsboro. N. S. 
 Engraved by Wesley Co.. St. John. N. B. 
 
 Capt. B. R. ARMSTRONG, 
 Enlisted with B.Squadrjn Mounted Rifles. 
 
 in 2nd Contingent. 
 Photo, by H?.rold Cltmo. St. John. N. B. 
 Engraved by Wesley Co., St. John, N. B. 
 
 Lieut. J. H. PARKS. 
 Enlisted vi^ith B.|Squadron'Mounted Rifles, 
 in 2nd Contingent. 
 Photo, by Sheldon & Davis. Kingston. Ont. 
 Engraved by Wesley Co.. St. John, N. B. 
 
 ! 
 
 Lieut. R. H. ARNOLD, 
 Enlisted with B Squadron Mounted Rifles, 
 
 in 2nd Contingent. 
 Photo, by Geo. Hallet, Sussex. N. B. 
 Engraved by Wesley Co,, St. John. N. B. 
 
 Lieut. RALPH. MARKHAM. 
 Enlisted with B Squadron Mounted Rifles, 
 
 in 2nd Contingent. 
 Photo, by Harold Climo, St. John, N, B. 
 Engraved by Wesley Co.. St. John, N. B, 
 
 John, N. B. 
 
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 CoKHoRAi. FRED. W. V/ITHERS. of St. John. N. B. 
 Killed at the battle i.ear PaarJpberg. Feb. 27th. 
 on the morning of Cronje's surrender. 
 P .to. by Harold Climo. St. John. N. B. 
 
 Engraved by F. C. Wesley Co. St. John. N. B. 
 
 PATRICK H. MoCREARY. 74th Batt. 
 Killed in Africa, near Modder River. 
 Feb. 18th, 1900. 
 Photo, by J. R. McLean. Hampton, N. B 
 Engraved by F. C. Wesley Co.. St. John. N. B. 
 
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 ST. JOHN AND SUSSEX DETACHMENTS OF 2nd CONTINGENT. 
 
 Photo, by Gauvin & Gentzel. Halifax, N. S. Engraved by F. C. Wesley Co.. St. John, N. B. 
 
 Photogravures of Major Williams and Staff, and others representing the departure of the 2nd Contingent from Halifax, N. S. 
 
 by the " Milwaukee," for the seat of War. were also taken by Messrs, Gauvin & Gentzel. 
 
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 RY. 74th Batt. 
 
 VIodder River, 
 
 900. 
 
 Hampton. N. B 
 
 ey Co., St. John, N. B. 
 
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 Willie Kitchin. Benj. Harris. 
 
 12th Newcastle Field Battery Volunteers in the First Canadian Contingent. 
 
 This Group has been supplied per kindness of Messrs. Anslow Bros., of the Newcastle Advocate. 
 
 John. N. B. 
 It from Halifax, N. S. 
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 CHARGE OF THE NINTH HUSSARS. 
 
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 BOERS HAULING HEAVY ARTILLERY TO THE FRONT. 
 
 
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 .•feWlttri'^V ^A-u .^»inu.i»f ' 
 
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 HISTORY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 War in South Africa, 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT STRUGGLE 
 BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND THE BOERS, 
 
 1NCI,UDING . . . 
 
 The Causes of the Conflict; 
 Vivid Descriptions of Fierce 
 
 Battles ; 
 Superb Heroism and Daring 
 
 Deeds ; 
 
 Narratives of Personal Ad- 
 ventures; 
 
 Life in Camp, Field and 
 Hospital, etc. 
 
 \ 
 
 TOGETHER WITH . . . 
 
 The Wonderful Story ot the 
 
 Transvaal ; 
 The Orange Free State ; 
 Natal and Cape Colony; 
 Rhodesia and Bechuanaland ; 
 The Kaffirs and Zulus; 
 Richest Gold and Diamond 
 
 Mines in the World, etc. 
 
 By JAMES H. BIRCH, Jr. 
 
 who has recently returned front South Africa, 
 
 Hon. HENRY DAVENPORT NORTHROP, 
 
 the well-known author, and 
 
 IN COI,I,ABORATION WITH 
 
 Rev. ROBERT WILSON, Ph. I)., 
 
 author of ''Judea and the fews," ''Britain 
 
 Among the Nations, '' etc. 
 
 PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED 
 
 With Special Half-tone Phototype and other Engravings. 
 
 R. A. H. MORROW, 
 
 59 Garden Street, St. John, N. B. 
 
 1900. 
 

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PREFACE. 
 
 The English Army and the Boers have met in the shock of 
 battle in South Africa. All attempts to avert the desperate conflict 
 have failed and the eyes of the whole world are turned to watch the 
 progress of the fierce struggle. 
 
 The first settlement of the Boers in South Africa — another 
 name for Dutch inhabitants — dates from the sixteenth century. 
 They have received accessions from the Huguenots of France, but 
 retain the old Dutch character. After the final cession of the Cape 
 of Good Hope to England in 1814 they disliked the new Govern- 
 ment, especially its friendly policy to the natives and the emancipa- 
 tion of the slaves in 1833, the Boers having long been slaveholders. 
 They moved northward and occupied the Orange Free State and 
 the Transvaal. 
 
 The Boers are the landholders and farmers of South Africa, 
 famous for their courage and endurance, of strong and well- 
 developed physique, good horsemen and splendid marksmen. 
 They have proved themselves to be terrible fighters on many 
 occasions. Previous to 1870 the Boers had much trouble with the 
 surrounding native tribes, which resulted in many sanguinary 
 battles. Wars were of frequent occurrence and little progress was 
 made in the development of the country. The selfish policy of the 
 Boers caused constant irritation with England. In 1877, owing to 
 an exhausted public treasury and accumulated debts brought about 
 by conflicts with d.e Zulus and other tribes, the Transvaal, or South 
 African Republic, was on the eve of dissolution and the country 
 about to relapse into barbarism. To avert this catastrophe the 
 British Government assumed the care of it, subjugated the rebel- 
 lious natives, and put the finances of the State in good condition. 
 
 Afterward England declared that the promises made by the 
 Boers at this time were not carried out, One of the thrilling inci- 
 
 ui 
 
iy PREFACE. 
 
 dents of the war that followed was the slaughter at Majiiba Hill, 
 where, in 1881, a regiment of British troops was defeated, with the 
 loss of their leader, Sir George Colley, by a greatly superior force 
 of Transvaal Boers. Majuba Hill has become famous in the story 
 of vSouth Africa. It is claimed that the conditions upon which 
 peace was finally secured have been violated. 
 
 The contention of the Boers is that the agreement of 1881, by 
 which the British had secured certain rights, was set aside by the 
 Treaty of 1884, and the British had no longer any right to regulate 
 the internal affairs of the Transvaal. On the other hand, England 
 contends that the convention or treaty of 1881 has never been abol- 
 ished or impaired. The British Government, acting upon this in- 
 terpretation, has insisted upon certain changes in the domestic 
 government of the Transvaal tc idling the franchise, education and 
 parliamentary representation, which were emphatically refused by 
 the Boers. The people of the South African Republic refuse to 
 grant what the British demand, and deny them any say in the 
 affain-s of the Transvaal. 
 
 This is the issue which diplomacy failed to settle, and which 
 resulted in an appeal to arms and the God of battles. 
 
 Intense interest in South Africa was awakened by the san- 
 guinary war raging there. Questions have arisen as to the character 
 of the country, its diversified tribes, its fabulous wealth in gold and 
 diamonds, and the remarkable circumstances under which the 
 country has become known to the world. 
 
 This comprehensive volume answers all these questions, states 
 the causes of the war, furni;:, .es tL-llling descriptions of the des- 
 perate battles and portrays the grea^. leaders on both sides, Oom 
 Paul Kruger, General Joubert, General Yule, Cc^il Rhodes, Dr. 
 Jameson, Barney Barnato, General Sir George White, General Sir 
 Redvers Henry Buller, Field Marshal Roberts, and r ' others. 
 It abounds in stories of heroic exploits and daring . -. .s. The 
 grand panorama of exciting events in South Africa, startling and 
 thrilling, and presenting remarkable exhibitions of courage and 
 patriotism, passes swiftly before the eyes of the reader, and hi* 
 interest increases from chapter to chapter. 
 
 GOLD 
 
 CECIL 
 
 TRAGI" 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE STATE *. . . 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE BOEkS AND KAFFIRS 84 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 WHITE SETTLERS AND THE ZULUS 62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS 66 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA 86 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA 98 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 VAST STORES OF NATURAL WEALTH 112 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAL 123 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 GOLD AND DIAMONDS IN SOUTH AFRICA. . . , 134 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 CECIL J. RHODES— "THE UNCROWNED KING" 148 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 COM PAUL KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS ..•••.... 155 
 
 CHAPTIiR XII. 
 TRAGIC STORY OF MAJUBA HILL AND LAING'S NEK. . . . , J, . . 176 
 
 V 
 
! I 
 I 
 
 ^ CONTENTS. 
 
 ' PAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 ^ FAMOUS RAID OF pR. JAMESON ^^3 
 
 CHArrKR XIV. 
 - CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD 210 
 
 CHAPTKR XV. 
 THE S':'RUGGLE FOR EQUAL RICHTS I\ THE TRANSVAAL 223 
 
 CIIAPTKR XVI. 
 OALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS OFF FOR THE WAR 238 
 
 CHAPT.TR XVII. 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS UETWEEM HE URITISH AND BOERS 257 
 
 CHAPIER XVIII. 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL 274 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH 290 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 BRITISH VICTORIES IN THE WESTERN CAMPAIGN . 315 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS 332 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 REMARKABLE FEATURES OF THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT OF THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT 368 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 . ATTEMPTS TO RAISE THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH 381 
 
 CHAPTER XXV, 
 THRILLING STORIES OF THE BATfLES W SOUTH AFRICA 896 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 ICENES AND INCIDENTS OF THE GREAT STRUGGLE 413 
 
 BRITISH ' 
 
 BRITISH J 
 
 iJRITlSH J 
 
 GREAT R: 
 
 FIGHTINC 
 
CONTENTS. ^ 
 
 PAG? 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 THE BRITISH END THE SIEGE OK KIMBERLEY 485 
 
 CHAPTER XXVni. 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE AND HIS ENTIRE FORCE . , , . 468 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 BRAVE GARRISON AT LADYSMITH SAVED BY GENERAL BULLER'S ARMY 472 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 RAPID ADVANCE OF GENERAL ROBERTS' COLUMN 489 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. ^ 
 
 DEATH OF GEN. JOUBERT, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE BOER ARMY 513 
 
 ' CHAPTER XXXII. 
 THE SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT 622 
 
 CHAPTER XXXni. "^ 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE 68& 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES THE BOERS TO FLEE 553 
 
 • CHAPTER XXXV 
 liRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER THE CAPITOL OF THE TRANSVAAL ... 581 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI • • 
 LESSONS AND ISSUES OF THE WAR 697 
 
 - CHAPTER XXXVII 
 GREAT REJOICINGS IN CANADA OVER BRITISH VICTORIES 602 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA 617 
 
Glossary of Dutch Terms. 
 
 bush-covered 
 
 Aarde^ -earth, grounfl. 
 
 Afgang — slope. 
 
 Beek — brook. 
 
 Berg — a mountaia 
 
 Blanuw — blue. 
 
 Boer — a farmer. 
 
 Boom — tree. 
 
 Brock — marsh, pool. 
 
 Boschveld — an open, 
 plain. 
 
 Burg — a town. 
 
 Burgher — a citizen. 
 
 Commandeer — to levy troops. 
 
 Commando — a military force of P«y 
 number. 
 
 Daal — a valley. 
 
 Donga — ravine. 
 
 Dorp— '3. village. 
 
 Drift — a ford. 
 
 Dusselboom — pole or tongue of an ox 
 wagon. 
 
 Fontein — a spring. 
 
 Gebied — district. 
 
 Hout — wood, timber. 
 
 Inspan — to harness up for starting. 
 
 Karroo — a geographical term for cer- 
 tain district. In Hottentot, a 
 '* dry place." 
 
 Klei-^diy, 
 
 Kloof-"^ valley or ravine 
 Kop or Kopje — ^a hilL 
 Kraal — a native village, common 
 among Kaffirs and other tribes. 
 
 laager — a camp or an enclosure for 
 defense ; often made of a circle 
 of wagons. 
 
 Landrost — local governor. 
 
 Loop — course, channel. 
 
 Modder — mud. 
 
 Moot — pretty. 
 
 Nachtmal — Lord's Supper. 
 
 l^ck — neck, applied to a depression 
 between two mountain.s. 
 
 Niemve — new. 
 
 Outspan — to unharness. 
 
 Pan — bed of a dried-up salt marsh. 
 
 Poort — a passage between mountains. 
 
 Raad — an assembly — the legislature. 
 
 Roomck — term of contempt applied 
 
 to British by Boers. 
 Ruggens — a barren, hilly country. 
 Sehantze — a heap of stones used to 
 
 protect a marksman against 
 
 opposing rifle fire. 
 
 Sluit — a ditch. 
 
 Spruit — a small river. 
 
 Stad — a town. 
 
 Trek — a journey. 
 
 Veldt — an open plain. 
 
 Vley — a prairie-like meadow. 
 
 Volksraad — the national council, or 
 parliament. 
 
 Uitlander, or Outlander — a foreigner, 
 usually applied to unnaturalized 
 citizens of the Boer Republics. 
 
 Uitspan — to unharness, to stop. 
 
 Ziiid fl ottth. 
 
Chronology of the War 
 
 BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND THE BOERS. 
 
 October Ii — Time fixed by the 
 Boers for compliance with their " ulti- 
 matum" expired at 5 P. M. Free 
 State Boers make preparations for 
 war. 
 
 Oct. 12 — Armored train captured by 
 the Boers at Kraiipan, near Mafeking. 
 
 Oct 13 — Reconnoissance in force 
 from Ladysmith. 
 
 Oct. 14 — Boers march on Kimber- 
 ley and Mafeking. 
 
 Oct. 1 5 — Transvaal flag hoisted at 
 Newcastle, Kimberley isolated. Boers 
 repulsed at Mafeking. 
 
 Oct. 16 — Boers reported massing 
 near Dundee. Armored train affair at 
 Spytfontein, near Kimberley. 
 
 Oct. 17 — Railway communication 
 with Aliwal North interrupted. 
 
 Oct. 18 — White's patrols find Boers 
 at Acton Homes. 
 
 Oct. 19 — Transvaal flag hoisted at 
 Vryburg. Boers encountered on the 
 Limpopo by a patrol from Tuli. Boer 
 commando crosses the Biggarsberg 
 range and attacks a train at Elansd- 
 laagte. 
 
 Oct. 20 — Boers shell British camp 
 near Dundee. Boerposition onTalana 
 Hill captured by the British under 
 Symons. Klipdam occupied by the 
 Boers. 
 
 Oct. 21 — White moves out force 
 under French to eject Boers from 
 Elandslaagte. Boers routed. 
 
 Oct. 22 — Yule retires from Dundee 
 on ladysmith via Beith. 
 
 Oct. 23 — Death of General Symons 
 at Dundee. Bombardment of Mafe- 
 king. 
 
 Oct. 24 — Action at Ritfontein. 
 Sharp fighting outside Kimberley. 
 
 26 — ^Junction of Yule with White 
 at Ladysmith. Plumer has engage- 
 ment with Boers near Tuli. 
 
 Oct. 38 — Enemy reported closing 
 round Ladysmith. 
 
 Oct. 30— General sortie from Lady- 
 smith. Naval guns silence Boer siege 
 artillery. Surrender of part of two 
 battalions and a mountain battery at 
 Nicholson's Nek. 
 
 Oct. 3 i^GeneralSirRedvers BuUer 
 lands at Cape Town. 4ocx> Boers 
 reported concentrated at Bethulie. 
 
 November i — Boers invade Cape 
 Colony. 
 
 Nov. 2 — Ladysmith isolated and 
 bombarded. Colenso evacuated by the 
 British garrison. Boers reported to 
 be invading Zululand. 
 
 Nov. 3-4 — Naauwpoort and Storm- 
 berg evacuated by British garrisons. 
 
 Nov. 6 — Cavalry action outside 
 Ladysmith, near Dewdorp. 
 
 Nov. 9^The Roslin Castle (the first 
 of the transports conveying the Army 
 Corps) arrives at Cape Town and pro- 
 ceeds to Durban. General attack on 
 Ladysmith repulsed with heavy loss 
 to Boers. 
 
 Nov. 10 — Reconnoitering force 
 from Orange River engaged with 
 Boers near Belmont. 
 
 ix 
 
,^^- 
 
 No\^. ! t — Orders issued for mooiliza- 
 lion of a Fifth Division for South Africa. 
 Nov. 14 — Free State flag hoisted at 
 Aliwal North. 
 
 Nov. 15 — Armored train wrecked 
 by Boers near Chieveley. Over 100 
 British troops captured. 
 
 Nov. 18 —Sir W. Gatacre arrives at 
 Queenstown. Sir C. F. Clery as- 
 sumes command of troops south of 
 Ladysmith. 
 
 Nov. 19 — Lord Methucn's column 
 forthereliefofKimberley concentrated 
 ' at Grange River. Boers in Natal oc- 
 cupy Highlands Station to south of 
 Estcourt. Estcourt isolated. 
 
 Nov. 22 — Gatacre moves forward, 
 Nov. 23 — Methuen attacks Boers at 
 Belmont with Guard's Brigade and 
 Ninth Brigade. Boers driven from 
 their position. Sortie from Kimber- 
 ley. Hildyard engages Boers near 
 Estcourt. Restores communication 
 with Maritzburg. Boers repulsed at 
 Tugela Drift by Natal troops. 
 
 Nov. 25 — Methuen attacks Boers in 
 position at EnsUn and dislodges them. 
 General Sir Redvers Buller arrives in 
 Natal. British force moves up to 
 Frere. 
 
 Nov. 27 — Gatacre occupies Bush- 
 men's Hoek. Main body at Putter's 
 Kraal. 
 
 Nov. 28-r-Methuen engages 1 1,000 
 Boers at Modder River, battle lasting 
 all day. Boers evacuate position. 
 Sortie from Kimberley, 
 
 Nov. 30--Sixth Division for South 
 Africa notified. 
 
 December i — Australian and Cana- 
 dian contingents leave Cape Town 
 for the front. 
 
 Dec. 2 — Clery arrives at Frere. 
 
 Dec. 3 — Plumer enters the Trans- 
 vaal. 
 
 Dec. 8 — Successful sortie from 
 Ladysmith under Hunter. Boersattack- 
 Methuen's line of communications at 
 Enslin. Plumer returns to Tuli. 
 
 Dec. 10 — Gatacre attempts night 
 attack on Stormberg, but is surprised 
 and forced to retire. Methuen's artillery ' 
 .shell Boer pos'tion to north of Mod 
 der River camp. Sortie of Second 
 Rifle Brigade from Ladysmith. 
 
 Dec. 1 1 — Methuen attacks Boer po- 
 sition at Magersfontein. British troops 
 repulsed with heavy loss. General 
 Wauchope killed. Cavalry from Frere 
 campreconnoitre to Colenso and come 
 in touch with the enemy. 
 
 Dec. 1 3 — Boer attempt on Naauw- 
 poort frustrated by portion of 
 French's forces, under Colonel Porter. 
 
 Dec. 14 — Engagement between 
 mounted infantry near Orange River 
 and Boers. Latter retreat to Goeman- 
 berg. 
 
 Dec, 15 — Buller advances from 
 Chieveley against Boer position near 
 Colenso. British force repulsed on 
 Tugela with i i o o casualties. Mob- 
 ilization of Seventh Division ordered. 
 
 Dec. 18 — Lord Roberts appointed 
 commander-in-chief in South Africa, 
 with Lord Kitchener as chief of staff! 
 
 Dec. 19 — Regulations issued for 
 employment of yeomanry and voU 
 unteers in South Africa. 
 
 Dec. 20 — Formation of City of Lon- 
 don Volunteer Corps for South Africa 
 announced. 
 
 Dec. 23 — Departure of Lord Rob- 
 erts from Southampton. 
 
 Dec. 24 — Reported sortie from 
 Mafeking. Detachment from Gatacre's 
 force occupies Dordrecht. 
 
 Dec 
 West. 
 
 Dec 
 Lord] 
 
 Dec 
 Small 
 cued I 
 worth, 
 defeate 
 Janu 
 evacual 
 their fl; 
 cher de 
 thirty 
 taking 
 prisone: 
 
 Jan. 6 
 Battalio 
 permissi 
 ture of £ 
 burg, 
 endeavo 
 assault, 
 some of 
 Wagon 
 enemy i 
 14 offic 
 135 mei 
 
 Jan. 
 Caesar';^ 
 British 
 with h< 
 
 Jan. 
 Kitcher 
 take chd 
 disappoj 
 at Capel 
 for new! 
 
 Jan. 
 cross til 
 patrol 
 cers ned 
 
 Jan. 
 
Dec. 26 — Boers appear at Victoria 
 West. . 
 
 Dec. 27 — Lord Kitchener joins 
 Lord Roberts at Gibraltar. 
 
 Dec. 30 — Skirmish near Dordrecht. 
 Small British force cut off, but res- 
 cued (Dec. 31) by Captain Golds- 
 worth, Cape Mounted Police. Boers 
 defeated with loss. 
 
 January i — French forces Boers to 
 evacuate Colesburg by threatening 
 their flank. Lieutenant Colonel Pil- 
 cher defeats commando at Sunnyside 
 thirty mies northwest of Belmont, 
 taking the enemy's laager and forty 
 prisoners. 
 
 Jan. 6— Colonel Watson, of the First 
 Battalion Suffolk Regiment, obtains 
 permission to attempt the night cap- 
 ture of a kopje in the vicinity of Rens- 
 burg. Total casualties, 162. Boers 
 endeavored to carry Ladysmith by 
 assault. Fighting lasted all day, and 
 some of the British entrenchments on 
 Wagon Hill were thrice taken by the 
 enemy and retaken. British loss was 
 14 officers killed and 27 wounded ; 
 135 men killed and 244 wounded. 
 
 Jan. 8 — BuUer engages the Boers at 
 Caesar's Camp and Wagon Hill. 
 British hold positions and Boers retire 
 with honors about even. 
 
 Jan. 10 — Lord Roberts and Lord 
 Kitchener sent out from London to 
 take charge of the situation, which was 
 disappointing up to this time, arrive 
 at Cape Town. Arrangements made 
 for new move for relief of Ladysmith. 
 
 Jan. i6^British forces prepare to 
 cross the Tugela. Boers capture a 
 patrol of the New South Wales Lan- 
 cers near Rensburg. 
 
 Jan. 17-18 — Generals Warren and 
 
 m 
 
 Lyttleton cross the Tugela at Pot- 
 gieter's Drift. General Dundonald 
 engages the Boers in battle at Acton 
 Homes. 
 
 Jan. 23-24 — Battle of Spion Kxtp. 
 General Warren retires after sufifeiing 
 terrible losses. 
 
 Jan. 26-27 — ^Troops under General 
 Warren recross the Tugela River. 
 
 February 5 — Buller's forces cross 
 the Tugela a^ain. Attempt to relieve 
 Ladysmith fails. Vaal Kranz cap- 
 tured. 
 
 Feb. 6 — Boers attack and turn back 
 an armored train carrying British 
 troops from Chievely to Colenso. 
 
 Feb. 12 — General French starts on 
 the forced march for Kimberley. This 
 is the turning point in the war. Brit- 
 ish forces sent out from England are 
 rapidly taking the field, and Lord 
 Roberts has full charge of operations. 
 
 P'eb. 15 — General French relieves 
 Kimberley after a brilliant march 
 with his cavalry and mounted infantry. 
 
 Feb. 16 — General Cronje leads pre- 
 cipitate Boer retreat, pursued by Gen. 
 eral Kelly-Kenny. Great quantities 
 of Boer suppHes captured. 
 
 Feb. 20 — Boers under Cronje go 
 into laager near Raardsburg. Lord 
 Roberts established lines of siege and 
 bombards Boer laager. Forces under 
 Botha trying to relieve Cronje are dis- 
 persed. 
 
 Feb. 27 — Cronje surrenders, with 
 4080 Boers. British troops aie ap- 
 palled at the frightful condition of the 
 captured Boer laager when they enter 
 it. 
 
 Feb. 28 — Ladysmith, after 1 18 days 
 of siege, is relieved by General Dun- 
 donald. London goes wild with joy. 
 
 H',. .'..»] 
 
3 
 
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 !• 
 
 I' 
 
 March i — General liiiller at last 
 enters Ladysmith and inspects the 
 .starvin<j garrison. 
 
 March 4 — Lord Roberts, Buller, 
 Gatacrc and IJrabant begin forward 
 movements. 
 
 March 7 — Boers routed at Poplar 
 Grove. Gatacrc occupies Burghers- 
 dorp. 
 
 March 12 — General French occu- 
 pies hills commanding liloemfontein. 
 Boers offer weak resistance. 
 
 March 13 — Lord Roberts enters 
 /iloemfontcin without firing a shot. 
 
 March 16 — Colonel Plumcr, with 
 2000 men, beaten back by Boers, four- 
 teen miles from Mafeking. 
 
 April 3-4 — British force captvredat 
 ReddersbiMg. The Boer General, 
 Villebois-Mareuil, killed in battle. 
 
 Apr. 8-23 — Boers besiege Wcp- 
 cner. 
 
 May 17 — Relief force enters Ma- 
 feking, after a siege of 216 days. 
 
 May 20 — Lord Roberts enters 
 Kroonstad. 
 
 May 22 — Lord Robeits arrived at 
 Honing Spruit. 
 
 May 29 — Roberts' army after march 
 from Rhenoster River, enters Johan- 
 nesburg by the capture of Germis- 
 ton Junction. 
 
 June 3 — Lord Roberts and his 
 army in front of Pretoria, the Trans- 
 vaal capital. 
 
 June 5. — British occupy Pretoria, 
 General Roberts making his ofificial 
 entry at 2 o'clock i: m. 
 
 June 8. — The Boers retreat from 
 Laiiig's Nek, before General Buller's 
 advance. Five hundred British cap- 
 tured by the Boers. 
 
 June 12. — Commandant Botha 
 retires east from Pretoria, followed by 
 Lord Robert's troops. 
 
 June 20. — Hostilities again com- 
 menced in the South part of Orange 
 River Colony. 
 
 June 22. — Commander Lin Hamil- 
 ton and General Buller unite their 
 forces. 
 
 June 26. — General Warren an- 
 nounced that the rebellion in Cape 
 Colony north of Orange River was 
 over. 
 
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 LIEUTENANT COLONEL BUCHAN 
 
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 CANADIAN SOLDIERS KILLED AT THE MODDER 
 
 W. T. MANlv*N 
 C. E. JACKSON 
 
 J. ROY VICKERS 
 
 NORMAN F. GRAV 
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 KILLED AT MODDER RIVER, FEBRUARY 18th, 1900 
 
MAJOR CRADOCK 
 COMMANDINQ SECOND NEW ZEALAND CONTINGENT 
 
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SERGEANT WALTER R. WHITE 
 
 B COMPANY, CANADIAN CONTINGENT, KILLED AT PAARDEBUHQ DRIFT, 
 FEBRUARY 18th, 1900 
 
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 PAUL KHUGER 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC 
 
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 SERGEANT WILLIAM McLEOD 
 
 SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT, COMMENDED BY LORD 
 
 ROBERTS FOR CAPTURING SINGLE-HANDED 
 
 TWO BOERS AND SIXTEEN OXEN 
 
WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 'Mr- 
 
 THE ENGLISH AND THE BOERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Transvaal and Orange Free State. 
 
 p ^ Y the outbreak of war between the English and the Boers 
 '^ universal interest was at once awakened concerning the 
 countries in South Africa involved in the fierce struggle. 
 The storm of conflict has been gathering for more than half a cen- 
 tury. South Africa, being rich in its native products, has long been 
 a prize for European nations. Its wild animals have been a strong 
 temptation to the hunter. Its diamond and gold fields make it one 
 of the richest parts of the globe. It is not strange, therefore, that 
 it has drawn many immigrants, some of whom were little else than 
 reckless adventurers. 
 
 The march of civilization has rapidly transformed the south- 
 em part of the Continent of Africa. In the mining districts 
 towns have sprung up, imigrants have come from all parts of the 
 world, and important centres of business have been established, 
 such as Kimberley, Mafeking, Johannesburg, Bulawayo, and many 
 others that might be mentioned. A wide territory once peopled 
 only by native tribes and famous for its wild animals has been 
 subdued, and is now one of the wealthiest and most promising 
 countries of the globe. Among the most enlightened portions 
 of Africa are the republics in the south, some knowledge of 
 which will be of great advantage to the reader. 
 
 The South African Republic and the Orange Free State, which 
 constitute the hostile territory, aite bounded on the southeast by 
 Natal and Basutoland, on the south and southwest by Cape 
 Colony, and on the west by British Bechuanaland and Griqualand 
 
 2 17 
 
]. 
 
 I 
 
 !'■ L 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 , t a 
 
 
 U THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 West. Natal runs up into the Boer country in the shape of an acute 
 triangle, with its apex at Laing's Nek. It is here separated from the 
 Orange Free State by the Drakenberg Mountains, in which there 
 are numerous defensible passes, affording ingress for the Boers 
 
 into British territory. 
 
 The boundary on the south of the Orange Free State is the 
 Orange River ; on the west the boundary is marked by no natural 
 feature. The Vaal River separates the Orange Free State from the 
 South African Republic. Natal and Basutoland are in the moun- 
 tains. The boundary on the west runs through rather flat country, 
 while the interior of the hostile territory is principally veldt, a pla- 
 teau in the neighboriiood of four thousand feet high, broken here 
 and there by rough ground and affording many strong positions. 
 
 The boundaries of the Transvaal, long a subject of dispute 
 with Great Britain and the conterminous states, were at last pre- 
 cisely defined by the convention of February 27, 1884. 
 
 TERRITORY OP THE TRANSVAAL- 
 
 Transvaal thus forms a compact inland territory nearly as 
 broad as long, not more than 45 or 50 miles from the Indian Ocean 
 at Delagoa Bay, but otherwise lying completely within the outer 
 rim of the vast South African table-land. A line drawn from the 
 southwest extremity, where it touches Griqualand West, north- 
 eastwards to the Limpopo-Shasha confluence, gives an extreme 
 length of 500 miles, the distance from the same confluence south- 
 wards to the Natal frontier being 425, and the greatest length east 
 and west between the Zulu and Bechuana frontiers about 400 
 miles. In the absence of accurate surveys, the total area has been 
 variously estimated at from 110,000 to 120,000 square miles. 
 
 Physically Transvaal forms a well-marked section of the great 
 South African plateau, an elevated shallow basin with a mean alti- 
 tude of over 3000 feet, whose conformation has been compared to 
 that of a saucer. On the south and east this basin is separated 
 from the coast by a lofty inne? and less elevated outer rim, the 
 former from 6000 to 10,000, the latter about 2000 feet high, sweep- 
 ing round in curves concentric with that of the seaboard, from 
 
THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE vSTATE. 
 
 19 
 
 Cape Colony through Natal and the east side of Transvaal north- 
 wards to the equatorial regions. 
 
 The inner rim, whose various sections in the extreme south 
 are known as the Roggeveld, Nieuweveld, and Quathlamba ranges, 
 takes in Natal and Transvaal the general name of the Drakenberg 
 Mountains. Fiom the Natal frontier to the Lipalule (Olifant) 
 
 MAP OP SOUTH AFRICA SHOWING TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 tributary of the Limpopo, the Drakenberg maintains the aspect of 
 a more or less continuous range 5000 to 7000 feet high, culmina- 
 ting in the Mauchberg, 8725 feet, the highest point in Transvaal. 
 A little to the east is the Spitskop, 5637 feet, and further south 
 the Klipstad, 6020 feet, and Holnek, 5600 feet. 
 
 This section falls everywhere* precipitously eastwards towards 
 the lyibomba range, or outer rim of the plateau, which maintains 
 a mean elevation of 2000 feet along the eastern border of Trans- 
 
20 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGK FRKR STATK. 
 
 vaal. Beyond the Lipalule, the Drakciibcrg loses tlie character of 
 a well-defined mountain system, broadening out into uplands 
 moderately elevated above the surrounding plateau, and breaking 
 into ridges, such as the Murchison and Zoutpansberg ranges, which 
 run east and west between the Lipalule and Limpopo. The whole 
 system slopes gently westwards to the central table-land, which is 
 itself intersected by several broken ranges, all mostly trending in 
 the direction from east to west. But few of these ridges rise much 
 above 4000 feet, and, as the plateau has a mean altitude of consid- 
 erably over 3000 feet, they detract little from the aspect of a vast 
 level or slightly rolling upland plain, almost everywhere presented 
 by Transvaal west of the Drakenberg Mountains. 
 
 The numerous fossil remains of aquatic life, together with 
 extensive sandy tracts and the presence in several places of water- 
 worn shingle, give to the central table-land the appearance of an 
 upheaved lake basin, whose waters escaped at one time through 
 the Limpopo to the Indian Ocean, at another through the Vaal to 
 the Orange river, and thence to the Atlantic. The Vaal and Lim- 
 popo are still the two great fissures in the plateau, which carry off 
 most of the surface waters to the surrounding marine basins. The 
 water-parting between these two river systems lies, not in the 
 Drakenberg, itself pierced by the Lipalule and several of its 
 affluents, but in the Witwater Rand towards the southwest of the 
 State. 
 
 ONE OP THE PRINCIPAL RIVERS. 
 
 From this point the Limpopo, or Crocodile, sweeps round first 
 to the west, then to the northeast, describing a semi-circle of about 
 1000 miles to the Limvuba (Pafuri) confluence, where it leaves 
 Transvaal, flowing thence for nearly 340 miles through Portuguese 
 territory southeast to the Indian Ocean. Captain G. A. Chaddock 
 has shown that it is navigable for steamers to this confluence, above 
 which it is obstructed by the Tolo Azime and other rapids. 
 Throughout its whole course it receives numerous affluents on 
 both sides, and others from Tralisvaal, of which region it. drains 
 fully 95,000 square miles. ^ . 
 
 With the exception of a few tracts watered by tbe kea^ streams 
 
THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FRKK STATE. 
 
 21 
 
 of the Buffalo, flowing in independent channels eastwards to the 
 Indian Ocean, all the rest of Transvaal is drained by the Vaal 
 westwards to the Orange and Atlantic. The Vaal has its eastern- 
 most sources in the Wakkerstrooni district on the west slope of 
 the Drakenberg, whence it flows for about 450 miles, partly within, 
 but mainly along, the southern frontier of Transvaal, of which, 
 with the Hart and other tributaries on its right bank, it drains 
 about 20,c)CX) square miles altogether. 
 
 Besides these perennial streams, there are numerous shallow 
 lagoons or salt-pans scattered over the western and northern dis- 
 tricts, as well as thermal and mineral waters, such as the Warmbad 
 in the Nyl valley. But the only lake properly so called is Lake 
 Chrissie, a sheet of water nearly 40 miles round, and in parts very 
 deep, which lies on the west side of the Drakenberg, 5755 feet 
 above sea level, and filling an immense circular basin. 
 
 HEALTHY AND PLEASANT CLIMATE. 
 
 Although lying on the border of and partly within the tropics, 
 Transvaal, thanks to its great elevation above the sea, and to the 
 absence of extensive marshy tracts, enjoys on the whole a healthy 
 invigorating climate, well suited to the European constitution. 
 Owing to the dryness of the air, due to the proximity of the Kala- 
 hari desert, the western and central districts are specially favorable 
 to persons suffering from consumption and other chest complaints. 
 But some of the low-lying moist tracts along the Limpopo and 
 other river valleys, close to or within the torrid zone, are extremely 
 insalubrious, fever of the general African type being here endemic, 
 and its prevalence usually marked by the presence of the destruc- 
 tive tsetse fly. 
 
 The route from Delagoa Bay to the interior also traverses a 
 fever-stricken coast district between the sea and the Libomba 
 escarpment, dangerous especially in the rainy summer season. 
 The rains generally begin about October, sometimes a little before 
 or after, and last intermittently till April. But the rainfall is very 
 unequally distributed, most of the moisture-bearing clouds from the 
 Indian Ocean being arrested by the great barrier of the Drakeu- 
 
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 I I 
 
 li 
 
 
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 ■ 1 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 
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 II >l 
 
 83 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGK FRKK STATE. 
 
 berg, or counteracted by tlie dry west winds from the Kalahari 
 desert. Tlius, wliile tliere is abundance of rain in the east, the 
 country ^^radually becomes drier as it approaches Bechuanaland. 
 
 During tlie dry winter season (April to September) keen frosty 
 winds l)l()w from the south, sweeping freely over the central plains 
 and carrying the moisture to be precipitated as snow along the 
 eastern higlihmds. Nevertheless, according to the careful meteoro- 
 logical observations made by Mr. Lys at Pretoria between 1877 
 and 1880, the mean anniuil temperature is considerably over 68°, 
 falling to about 40" in June, and rising to 90° and occasionally 
 even 95" in January. The rainfall in the same central district 
 seldom reaches 30 inches, which is probably a fair average for the 
 whole of Transvaal, falling to 12 towards the western and rising 
 to 60 on the eastern frontier, increasing towards the coast. 
 
 VAST MINERAL RESOUROES. 
 
 Transvaal yields to no other African region in the abundance 
 of its mineral resources, while it is altogether unrivalled in their 
 extraordinary variety. These include, besides the precious metals 
 and diamonds, iron, copper, lead, cobalt, sulphur, saltpetre, and 
 coal, this last with gold, copper, and iron being probably the most 
 abundant and widely distributed. Gold, largely diffused through- 
 out the Drakenberg, and in the northern Zoutpansberg and 
 Waterberg districts, and in the Rustenburg and Marico districts 
 in the extreme west, as well as in the highlands between Transvaal 
 and the Zambesi, has hitherto been worked chiefly in the rich auri- 
 ferous region of Lydenburg about Mount Mauchberg and Mount 
 Spitskop in the central parts of thr; Drakenberg range, and farther 
 south in the Johannesburg district. 
 
 The Lydenburg deposits, discovered in 1873, lie at an eleva- 
 tion of 4500 to 5000 feet 40 miles south of the Lipalule river and 
 125 northwest of Lorenzo Marques on Delagoa Bay, the chief 
 diggings being at Pilgrim's Rest and Mac Mac close to the Spitskop. 
 In the Middleburg district the chief centres of mining operations 
 are the recently founded towns of Barberton and Johannesburg. 
 Iron ores are also widely distributed, and the Yzarberg (" Iron 
 
m 
 
24 
 
 THE TRANSVAAI, AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 ^ ■! I 
 
 Mountain ") near Marabastad consists of an enormous mass of rich 
 iron ore, which the natives have worked for ag«s. Diamonds are 
 chiefly confined to the Bloemhoflf district on the Vaal above the 
 great diamantiferous region of Kimberley in Griqualand West. 
 Coal abounds in the southeasten districts, and also farther north 
 in Middelburg (Nazareth) and Lydenburg. 
 
 In some places seams 7 or 8 feet thick lie so near the surface 
 that they are quarried and the conl carted away by the natives. 
 The prevailing formations where this great mineral wealth is 
 embedded are quartz, porphyry, granites, clay slates, greenstone, 
 Lower Devonian strata, conglomerates, and limestones. 
 
 In Transvaal, as in most of the continent, an herbaceous flora 
 prevails largely over forest growths, which are here confined 
 chiefly to the deep kloofs (gorges) of the mountain ranges, and to 
 the courses of the larger streams. Bush, including mimosas, thorn 
 thickets, and creepers, covers extensive tracts on the northern and 
 southern plains, and the districts towards Natal are well wooded. 
 But elsewhere the characteristic features are grass lands, downs, 
 hill slopes, flats, and even many parts of the higher uplands being 
 covered with savannahs generally affording good pasturage and 
 fodder for cattle, which are a large source of wealth. 
 
 FINEST WHEAT IN THE WORLD. 
 In the woodlands the prevailing species are three varieties of 
 yellow wood, often growing to an enormous size, the Cape beech, 
 several varieties of the wild pear, and of stinkwood, ironwood, and 
 ebony. The Boers and other settlers have hitherto occupied them- 
 selves chiefly with stock-breeding (sheep, cattle, and horses), but 
 th-re can be no doubt that much of the country is eminently 
 suited for the cultivation of cereals, yielding two annual crops and 
 % producing some of the finest wheat in the world. Tobacco, the 
 vine, and most European fruits and vegetables also thrive well, 
 while semi-tropical products, such as cotton, sugar, and cr'^:ee, 
 might be raised in the warmer northern districts. 
 
 By the early settlers Transvaal was described as the " paradise 
 of hunters," abounding in the characteristic large animals, such as 
 
THE TRANSVAAIv AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 25 
 
 the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, giraflfe, zebra, quagga, several 
 varieties ef antelope, and the ostrich, which roam over the continent 
 from Soudan to the Cape. All these animals still exist, but in 
 greatly reduced numbers, being now largely replaced by the 
 domestic animals — cattle, sheep, and horses — introduced by the 
 white settlers. All the large rivers are inhabited by the hippopot- 
 amus and crocodile, the latter giving an alternative name to the 
 Limpopo; the buffalo, gnu, eland, springbok, wildbeeste, baboon, 
 and several other members of the ape family are also frequently 
 met with. 
 
 The country is occasionally swept by destructive flights of 
 locusts ; but the greatest enemy of the stock breeder is the tsetse 
 fly, which infests the coast lands and many of the river tracts, but 
 shows a tendency to disappear with the large game, retreating with 
 the advance of the plough. A tsetse belt forty miles wide along 
 the whole course of the Limpopo still bars the spread of European 
 settlements beyond Transvaal in the direction of the Zambesi. 
 
 PROPORTION OP WHITES AND NATIVES. 
 
 Of the population only a fourth part are whites, mostly Boers 
 (descendants of the early Dutch, French and German immigrants 
 to the Cape), with a large and increasing percentage of British 
 settlers, attracted in recent years especially to the Lydenburg and 
 other mining districts. All the rests are natives, belonging mainly 
 to the Basuto and Bechuana branches of the Bantu family, and con- 
 sequently allied in speech and to a large extent in physique to 
 their Zulu-Kaffre neighbors. A considerable number of these 
 natives have abandoned the tribal state and taken service, either 
 freely or by compulsion, with the whites as farm laborers in the 
 rural districts, aud as domestic servants in the towns, and are also 
 largely employed in mining operations. The great bulk of the 
 rest, who retain their national usages and recognize the authority 
 of more or less independent tribal chiefs, are concentrated in the 
 northern and eastern provinces. 
 
 There are also natives in Bloemhoff (extreme southwest), and 
 in the western provinces of Rustenburg and Marico, but only a few 
 
26 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 U .i 
 
 scattered groups in all the rest of the country. These western and 
 southwestern tribes are all Bechuanas ; the others mainly Makatis, 
 as the Basu^^os are here collectively called. It may be stated in a 
 general way that the whole country south of the Lip^lule is now 
 free of native claims and open to European colonization, while the 
 northern region between that river and the Limpopo is still to a large 
 extent occupied by unreduced or unbroken Basuto communities. 
 
 In the southern part of Lydenburg lies the somewhat detached 
 district of New Scotland, comprising some 500,000 acres selected 
 by the late Mr. McCorkindale as a Scotch pastoral and agricultural 
 settlement. It is a healthy prosperous country, lying on the slopes 
 of the Drakenberg, within 310 miles of Durban, Natal. But the 
 most thickly settled province is Potchefstroom, a fertile tract, 3500 
 to 5000 feet high, abundantly watered by the Mooi, Schoen, and 
 other streams flowing to the Vaal, and well suited for tillage and 
 pasturage. Its capital of like name is one of the largest towns in 
 Transvaal. The only other places deserving the name of town are 
 Pretoria, capital of the province of like name and of the state, 
 occupying a somewhat central position 100 miles northeast of 
 Potchefstroom, 980 from Cf.pe Town, 820 from Port Elizabeth, and 
 400 from Durban ; Barberton, in the Lower Kaap mining district, 
 150 miles by road from Delagoa Bay, and Johannesburg, centre of 
 the gold fields of the same name, 30 miles southeast of Pretoria, 
 and 72 east of Potchefstroom, founded in 1886. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE TRANSVAAL. 
 
 The historic life of Transvaal begins with the " Great Trek,5* 
 or general exodus of the Cape Colony Boers, ^ ho, being dissJiti*- 
 fied, especially with the liberal policy of the Butish Government 
 towards the natives, removed northward in large numbers between 
 the years 1833 and 1837. % 1836 some thousands had already 
 crossed the Vaal, that is, had reached the "Trans- Vaal " country, 
 which at that time was mostly under the sway of the powerful 
 refugee Zulu chief Moselekatze, whose principal kraal was at 
 Mosega in the present Marico district on the west frontier. To 
 avenge the massacre of some emigrant bands, the Boers under 
 
THE TRANSVAAIv AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 2i 
 
 Maritz aud Potgieter, attacked and utterly defeated Moselekatze at 
 this place in 1837. 
 
 Next year the Zulu chief withdrew beyond the Linipopo, 
 where he founded the present Matebele state between tliat river and 
 the Zambesi, thus leaving the region between the Vaal and Limpopo 
 virtually in the hands of the Trekkers or Boers. But their position 
 was rendered insecure on the east side by the military despotism 
 of the fierce Zulu chief Dingaan, who, after the murder of his 
 brother Chaka, had asserted his authority over the whole of Zulu- 
 land and most of the present Natal. The situation was rendered 
 almost desperate by the complete rout and wholesale massacre, in 
 1838, of the right division of the emigrant Boers, who had ven- 
 tured to cross the Buffalo under Pieter Retief, and who were defeated 
 by Dingaan, when as many as 800 fell before the irresistible 
 onslaught of the disciplined Zulu warriors. At this critical junc- 
 ture the Trekkers were saved from utter extermination by Andries 
 Pretorius of Graaff Reinet, by whom Dingaan met with a first 
 check before the close of 1838, followed in January, 1840, by a still 
 more crushing defeat, from which he did not recover. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE BOER REPUBLIC 
 
 Dingaan having been soon after murdered, the friendly Panda 
 was set up in his place, and Natal proclaimed a Boer repiiblic. But 
 the British occupation of that territory in 1843 induced the Boers 
 to retire in two bands across the Drakenberg, the southern divi- 
 sion settling in the present Orange Free State, the northern again 
 passing into Transvaal. But, owing to internal dissensions, and 
 the perpetual bickerings of the two most prominent personalities, 
 Pretorius and Potgieter, all attempts at establishing an organized 
 system of government throughout Transvaal ended in failure, till 
 Pretorius induced the British Government to sign the Sand River 
 convention, January 17, 1852, which virtually established the poli- 
 tical independence of that region. 
 
 The death of both Pretorius and Potgieter in 1853 prepared* 
 the way for a period of internal peace under Pretorius's eldest son, 
 Marthinus Wessels Pretorius, first president of the " Dutch African 
 
! •' 
 
 Ifjl 
 I • r 
 
 ill 
 
 28 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 Republic," whose title was afterwards altered, 1858, to that of the 
 " South African Republic." But a fatal cleuicnt of weakness lay 
 in the persistent refusal of the Boers to treat the natives on a foot- 
 ing of equality, or even with common j usticc. The murder of Her- 
 mann Potgieter and family, 1854, avenged by Pretorius at Maka- 
 pan's Cave, was followed, 1S56, by the " Apprentice Law," estab- 
 lishing a system of disguised slavery, which was further strength- 
 ened by the sanction, 185S, of the G/v/u/ ivct, or " Fundamental 
 Law," declaring that the " people will admit of no equality of per- 
 sons of color with the white inhabitants either in State or Church." 
 
 Owing to this policy opposition was constantly shown both to 
 the English traders, disposed to deal fairly with all, and to the 
 missionaries, preachers of universal equality, as illustrated by the 
 plunder of the explorer Livingstone's house by the expedition sent 
 against the native chief Secheli in 1852. 
 
 Orange Free State, an independent republic adjoining the 
 Cape Colony, South Africa, is bounded on the north by the Yaal 
 river, south by the Orange river, east by the Caledon river and 
 Drakenberg mountains, and west by a line dividing it from Kim- 
 beriey and the diamond fields of Griqualand West. The area is 
 70,000 square miles, and the population is nearly equally divided 
 between the Dutch and native races. 
 
 PHYSICAL FEATURES OP ORANGE FREE STATE. 
 
 The country, which has an average elevation of 4500 feet 
 above the sea, consists of a series of extensive undulating plains, 
 bounded or diversified by detached rocky hills. These plains slope 
 from the central watershed northward and southward, respectively, 
 to the Vaal and Grange rivers, and are intersected at various inter- 
 vals by the Wilge, Rhenoster, Valsch, Vet, Modder and Riet rivers, 
 emptying their waters into the Vaal river, and by the Caledon, 
 which joins the Orange river. The southern and eastern districts 
 are covered with luxuriant grasses, affording excellent pasturage 
 •for stock. In the western districts the grasses are gradually being 
 supplanted by a dwarf bush vegetalion. The river-banks are 
 fringed with willow, mimosa, and other indigenous trees, and 
 
 i' 
 
 'i^ 
 
^ 
 
 80 THE TRANSVAAI. AND ORANGK FREK STATE. 
 
 shrubs and trees of larger growth are found on the eastern moun- 
 tain ranges; but generally the country is woodless, and, to remedy 
 this, the Government offers premiums for the encouragement of 
 
 tree-planting. 
 
 The geological characteristics are similar to those of the inland 
 districts of Cape Colony. The south-western portion is an exten- 
 sion of the Karroo or lake formation of South Africa, consisting 
 of sandstone and shales intersected by intrusive igneous rocks. In 
 this formation occurs the diamond mine of Jagersfontein, near the 
 village of Fauresmith, which has been worked for years. The 
 north-eastern part, again, consists of sandstones, containing hori- 
 zontal coal-seams. The coal outcrops in the Kronstad and Heilbron 
 districts are being utilized. In the Drift deposits along some river 
 beds, such as the Sand, Caledon and Vaal rivers, there are accumu- 
 lations of pebbles, consisting of agate, jasper, chalcedony, carne- 
 Han, white quartz, garnets and occasionally diamonds. 
 
 The climate is salubrious, and specially remarkable for its 
 dryness. Thousands of wild game formerly occupied the plains 
 of the state, but their numbers and variety have greatly diminished, 
 and some have been entirely exterminated. 
 
 SOURCES OF IMMENSE WEALTH. 
 
 The resources of the state are agricultural, pastoral and min- 
 eral. The principal occupations of the inhabitants are the breed- 
 ing of cattle, horses, goats, merino sheep and ostriches. Agriculture 
 is attended to on a larger or smaller scale according to the capabil- 
 ities of the various farms, and vineyards and orchards are planted 
 on many properties. The staple articles of export, however, are 
 wool, skins, ostrich feathers and diamonds, all of which are shipped 
 from the seaports of the Cape Colony and Natal. 
 
 Bloemfontein, the capital and seat of government, is situated 
 about the centre of the state. It is an agreeable town, and has a 
 handsome range of public offices, where the Volksraad, or assembly 
 of the people, meets, a high court (consisting of a chief-justice and 
 two judges), a municipal burgher council, banks, newspapers, 
 hotels, clubs, a college, schools, and several churches, including 
 
 iasjt • mm . i !■' i ■ m_.-.. ii j. 
 
EI.EPHANT PROTECTING HER YOUNG FROM HUNTERS' SPEARS. 
 
 ... , ■..-..- - 91 
 
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 32 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGK FREK vSTATE. 
 
 the Dutch Reformed church, the Anglican church, with a resident 
 bishop, and Wesleyan, Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches. 
 At the commencement of the nineteenth century, the country 
 was inhabited by sections of aboriginal tribes— Bushmen, Koran- 
 nas, and Bechuanas ; and soon afterwards a number of Griquas 
 from the north-west of the Cape Colony came iu among them. A 
 chronic state of warfare prevailed between these races. In 1824, 
 nomad farmers from the Colony, seeking pastures for their flocks, 
 crossed the Orange river, and settled in the territory. These were 
 followed in 1835-36 by large bodies of Dutch Boer emigrants, who 
 left the Colony in order to be beyond British control. 
 
 NO PEACE WITHOUT GOOD GOVERNMENT. 
 
 They formed a rude government for themselves, and, in 
 attempting to exercise authority, came into collision wdth the Gri- 
 quas, who claimed protection from the Colony, with which they 
 were allied by treaty. The British governor. Sir P. Maitland, 
 intervened in 1845, assisting the Griquas with troops, and defeat- 
 ing the Boers at Zwart Koppies ; and, to prevent further collisions, 
 a resident was appointed. In 1848, Governor Sir H. Smith visited 
 the territory, and came to the conclusion that peace could not be 
 maintained among the mixed elements forming the population 
 without the establishment of a regular government. 
 
 He, therefore, issued a proclamation, afterwards confirmed by 
 the Crown, annexing the territory to the empire, under the name of 
 the Orange River British Sovereignty. Thereupon some of the 
 Boers, under their leader Pretorius, took up arms, and expelled the 
 British magistrates; but a military force was brought against them 
 by Sir H. Smith in person, and, after a short, but sharp, encounter 
 at Boomplaats, the Boers were defeated, and the Crown's authoritj'^ 
 re-established and maintained from that time until 1853. 
 
 But disturbances again occurred, arising from long-standing 
 disputes between the native tribes ; and, in order to chastise the 
 most powerful of them — the Basutos — for certain acts of outrage, 
 Governor Cathcart in 1852 moved a large military expedition 
 against their chief, Moshesh, and the battle of the Berea was 
 
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 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGK FRKK STATE. 
 
 33 
 
 fought, after which the chief, on behalf of the tribe, gave in his 
 submission. After this expedition the British Government resolved 
 to withdraw from the territory. 
 
 Sir George Clerk was deputed as a special commissioner to 
 c.irry out the abandonment of the country ; and, notwitlistanding 
 the protests of many inhabitants, he formally handed it over to a 
 bjdy of Boer delegates, in terms of a convention entered into on 
 th: 23d of February, 1854. They were released from their alle- 
 j^iance, and permitted to constitute an independent republican com- 
 lu unity of their own, under the title of the "Orange River Free 
 State." Since that time the government has been in the hands of 
 a president, assisted by an executive council, with a volksraad or 
 congress elected by the people, exercising all legislative functions. 
 
 The state is financially in a flourishing condition. In case of 
 necessity all able-bodied citizens are liable to be called upon for its 
 defense. Commerce exports wool, diamonds, hides, ostrich-feathers 
 and live animals. Education stands at a fairly high level amongst 
 the whites ; the prevailing religion is the Dutch Reformed. 
 
 Pastoral pursuits predominate, and the Orange Free State is a 
 nation of farmers, yet gradually the mineral resources of the coun- 
 try are being developed, and commerce has. already assumed con- 
 siderable importance. ' ' 
 
 8 ■ 
 
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 wiu 
 
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 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Boers and Kaffirs. '^ 
 
 fe I HE territory of the Transvaal and Orange Free State was once 
 4L exclusively occupied by the faiiions Kaffirs, and, indeed, this 
 tribe is now freely intermingled witii the white or foreign 
 inhabitants of those republics. The saute may be said of Natal 
 and Cape Colony, which arc liritish possessicms, although with the 
 constant advance northward of civilization the native savages grow 
 less in number as compared with the' white settlers and are no 
 longer the controlling power. Here is witnessed a repetition of 
 that subjection of the native race which is seen in our own country 
 with respect to the Indians. 
 
 The Kaffirs form one tribe of the great Bechuana family. 
 Their national character is bold, warlike and independent. From 
 these qualities^ as well as from the cast of their countenance, some 
 have conjectured that they are of Arabian origin. The men arc 
 extremely tall and well-proportioned, many being six feet and nu)re 
 in height; the women are naturally good-tempered, animated and 
 cheerful, with teeth beautifully white and regular, and without the 
 thick lips or flat noses of most of the natives of Africa ; but they 
 form a strong contrast to the men in the lowuess of their stature, 
 their figures being short and sturdy. 
 
 Their name of Kaffir, or unbeliever, was originally given to 
 the inhabitants of the southeastern coast of Africa by the Moors, 
 and, being adopted by the Portuguese, it became the corinion ap- 
 pellation of all the tribes occupying that region. The following 
 iketch was from the life : 
 
 " Lo ! where he crouches by the kloof's* dark side, 
 
 Eyeing the farmer's lowing herds afar ; . . 
 
 ;' Impatient, watching till the evening star 
 
 I,ead forth the twilight dim, that he may glide ' ' 
 
 84 
 
 *In these lines "kloof" means gully, a dark ravine. 
 
THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 35 
 
 Like panther to the prey. With freehorn pride 
 
 He scorns the herdsninn — nor regards the scar 
 Of recent wound — but burnishes for war 
 . His assagai and targe of buffalo-hide. ■ 
 
 ' He is a robber ? ' — True; it is a .strife 
 
 Between the black-skituied bandit and the white. , ,.* 
 
 'A savage?' — Yes; though loth to aim at life, - 
 
 Evil for evil fierce he doth requite. . '^' 
 
 ' . 'A heathen?' — Teach him, then, thy better creed, 
 
 Christian, if thou deserv'st that name indeed ! " 
 
 The manner of life of these people is, in general, extremely 
 simple. Their diet mostly consists of milk, which is kept in leath- 
 ern bottles until it is sufficiently thick and acidulous. They eat 
 also boiled corn, which is usually served up in small baskets, from 
 which each one helps himself with his hands. Tliey sometimes 
 make of their corn a kind of pottage ; at other times they form it 
 into thick cakes, which are baked on the hearth. They lay up 
 provisions for winter use, either in pits or subterranean granaries. 
 An occasional feast of animal food, with the articles now mentioned, 
 are sufficient for the support of this hardy race. 
 
 MODE OP DRESS AMONG THE KAFFIRS. 
 
 The native apparel of the Kaffirs consists wholly of the skins 
 of beasts, so prepared as to render them perfectly soft and pliable. 
 Sometimes they are long enough to reach to the feet, hang loosely 
 from the shoulders in the manner of a cloak, and are, in general, 
 the only covering adopted by the men. To protect themselv^ from 
 the parching effect of the sun's rays, they anoint themselves from 
 head to foot with some unctuous substance. The same materials 
 are used by the women, but their dress is of a different shape. The 
 Iress of the white settlers is becoming more and more common 
 9mong the natives. 
 
 The chief wealth of the Kaffir consists in his herds of cattle. 
 Nothing aflfects him more than an injury done to his horned crea- 
 tures, whose increase and prosperity appear to occupy the chief 
 place in his thoughts, and to be the ruling motive of his actions. 
 The more laborious occupations of tillage, of felling wood, and of 
 
 ,M 
 
86 
 
 THK BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 ' 1 
 
 \f 
 
 VI . 
 
 ? I 
 
 building dwellings, care performed by the women, whose life, after 
 marriage, is indeed one of bondage. 
 
 The bartering practiced at a fair is worthy of notice. The 
 Kaffir having articles tc dispose of, sits down amidst his comrades, 
 waiting the approach of a colonial dealer, who produces his beads 
 and other species of traffic. Neither party understands the other's 
 language, yet it seldom happens that an interpreter is present. 
 
 Should the beads or other commodities offisred not be con- 
 
 EXPLORER DINING WITH A KAFFIR CHIEF. 
 
 sidered by the Kaffir sufficient for the transfer of his own produce, 
 a shake of the head adequately denotes his dissatisfaction. More 
 beads, perhaps, are then added on the one side, dissent being still 
 manifested on the other, until, as the dealer is not disposed to 
 make any further advance, the affair terminates, without agree- 
 ment, to the vexation of the bead merchant, whose time and patience 
 have been so unprofitably exhausted ; but to the utter indifference 
 of the Kaffir, whose imperturbable coolness is an additional source 
 of chagrin to the unsuccessful bidder. 
 
THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 37 
 
 I, after 
 
 The 
 
 |rades, 
 
 beads 
 
 klier's 
 
 It. 
 
 con- 
 
 A second and a third dealer often display their ornamental 
 treasures ^dtli similar failure, and it not infrequently happens that 
 the tenacious Kaffir departs without disposing of his commodity, 
 which he brings to the next fair, and perhaps exchanges ultimately 
 for articles of less number and value than had previously been 
 offered. . . --- 
 
 When a bargain of any magnitude is concluded, the chief is 
 generally at hand to substantiate his claim, considering himself 
 entitled to a certain portion of the profits as his tribute, in con- 
 sequence of his territory having been made the scene of traffic. 
 His retainers are therefore dispersed throughout the fair, to watch 
 the various negotiations, and summon their chief at the close of 
 any considerable bargain, no fraction of the payment being touched 
 by the salesman before his arrival. The chief is sometimes extor- 
 tionate. 
 
 A traveler having expressed to an interpreter his surprise 
 that on one occasion a Kaffir should have submitted, without 
 remonstrance, to the greedy demands of the chief Gaika, he shook 
 his head significantly, and, showing his mutilated hand, replied, 
 " I once ventured to remonstrate with him myself, when he flew 
 into a rage, and would have thrust his assagai through my body, 
 had I not parried the javelin with my hand, and luckily escaped 
 with the loss of my thumb. 1 am not taking any risks.'' 
 
 SAMPLE OF SOUTH AFRICAN JUSTICE. 
 
 A different story is told of the chief Macouio. An English- 
 man, being dissatisfied with the conduct of a slave he had brought 
 into Kaffraria from the Cape Colony, after some altercation and 
 a few strokes from his whip of rhinoceros hide, carried him before 
 Macomo, the chief of a tribe near the river Keissi. Here the 
 master and slave filed cross bills against each other. The slave 
 produced witnesses to prove that his master had abused and struck 
 him without cause; and the master accused the slave of laziness, 
 insolence, and disobedience, and demanded that he should be 
 punished by a severe flogging. 
 
 Macomo, having heard both parties, informed them that in 
 
 I. fvfj^ 
 
 a^'^i 
 
' i 
 
 ? ! 1 
 
 38 
 
 THE BOKRS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 KafFraria there are no slaves, and that he must therefore consider 
 them merely as two men who had made a bargain with each other. 
 " Now, it appears," said he to the Englishman, " that you have 
 struck this man, and otherwise ill-treated him ; but you can show no 
 proof that he had inj ured you by offering you violence. I therefore 
 declare your bargain at an end. He is free to go where he pleases, 
 and you shall pay him an ox for the wrong you have done him." 
 
 The decision highly incensed the Englishman, who refused to 
 submit. " He deserA-ed punishment, not . -ward," said he, " for his 
 insolence." " You iiave not proved that,' ' said Macomo ; " but had 
 it been so, you should have brought him to me. Why do I sit 
 here, if need be, from sunrise to sunset ? It is to decide between 
 man and man in cases where their anger blinds them, and hinders 
 their judgment. If men use their hands in secret, instead of their 
 tongucF before the judge or the old men, whose life would be worth 
 a liusk of corn ? There would be no safety then for any one." 
 
 "DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ELEPHANT AND A DEER." 
 
 The traveler replied that he would not argue the matter with 
 Alacomo, '' as he was ignorant of the usages of civilized life, and 
 did not understand the rights of property. I will complain of your 
 conduct," he added, "to Major Somerset, the commander of the 
 frontier, who will soon show you the difference between an elephant 
 and a deer." To this taunt Macomo calmly replied, "I know that 
 Somerset is stronger than I am. He is an elephant, but neither I 
 nor ni}^ father has been called a deer. You say that your people 
 are wiser than ours. You do not show it in appealing from reason 
 to force. When you return to the colony, the magistrate will decide 
 between you ; here it can go no further. Give him the ox," he 
 added ; " it will be better for you." The ox was given. 
 
 The tribes of South Africa, like the Indians of North America, 
 the natives of Ceylon, and many other widely separated people, 
 have their rain-makers, who pretend to command the clouds by 
 means of certain magic charms of which they have the secret. 
 
 These impostors have most power in countries which are sub- 
 ject to frequent droughts, and where the people depend for subsist- 
 
THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 89 
 
 eiice on corn or cattle. Such is the case with the Kaffirs, among 
 whom the belief prevails that rain can be withheld or granted at 
 the will of their rain-doctor. 
 
 They therefore seek the aid of one of them with much cere- 
 mony. The chief and his attendant warriors proceed in state to 
 his dwelling with presents of cattle ; and after signifying their re- 
 quest, they institute a feast, which often lasts many days, during 
 which the impostor pretends that he is using his magic charms. 
 
 One of the devices is to collect a few leaves of each kind of 
 tree from a neighboring forest, to be simmered in large pots over a 
 fire, and then to kill a sheep by pricking it in the heart with a long 
 needle, while the series of superstitious ceremonies is passed through. 
 As the simmering goes on and steam arises, it is supposed to ascend 
 and render the clouds propitious, so that the needed showers de- 
 scend. Meanwhile the dance is joined "n by all the tribe; it is 
 continued throughout the day, and when midnight comes it still 
 goes on ; it may be accompanied with songt-, in which the praises of 
 the rain-maker are shouted in a long-continued chorus. 
 
 STRANGE METHODS OF THE RAIN-MAKERL. 
 
 This act, however, is often premature ; for the rain-maker fails ; 
 the young corn often withering for want of the genial and refresh- 
 ing showers. Other expedients are then tried. Thus, a large 
 circle is formed of young men ; they encompass the side of a moun- 
 tain which the antelopes love to haunt, and, gradually contracting 
 their range, they commonly succeed in taking captive several of 
 these little animals. Their voices are supposed to attract rain. 
 The cunning practitioner, trusting not to any natural sounds, urges 
 thf m round the kraal, and calls forth .their screams by pinchings 
 and other tortures. Should all his efforts prove abortive, he seeks 
 safety, like other impostors, in flight, when, on the continuance of 
 drought, the aid of some other of his tribe is eagerly coveted. 
 
 When visitors arrive wanting aid, he often amuses them by 
 pretending to work his witcheries, and they are, at length, dis- 
 missed with a variety of instructions, on the due observance of 
 which the expected boon is made to depend. These instructions 
 
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 are generally of the most trivial nature : they are not to look back 
 on their journey home ; or th^;; are not to speak ; or they are to 
 compel every one they meet to return home with them ; and so on. 
 If rain occurs, the credit, of course, is assumed by, and conceded 
 to the rainmaker ; if disappointment ensues, they blame themselves 
 for not having adequately carried out the instructions they received. 
 The idle ceremony is again repeated ; the poor people have 
 again to make presents, to feast, and to receive instructions ; thus 
 much time is consumed, during which the season of drought fre- 
 quently Tiasses away. One of the most intelligent of the Kaffirs 
 once visited a missionary, Mr. Shaw, and said he was determined 
 to have the question set at rest, whether or not the rainmaker could 
 produce rain. " We will have our rainmaker summoned to meet 
 you in an open plain, where all the Kaffirs of the surrounding 
 kraals shall be present to judge between you and him." 
 
 EASY EXCUSES FOR FAILURE. 
 
 This was agreed to, and at the appointed time and place thou- 
 sands of Kaffirs from the neighboring country appeared in their 
 war-dresses, Mr. Shaw being confronted with a celebrated rain- 
 maker, declared openly that God alone gave rain ; and offered to 
 present the rainmaker with a team of oxen if he should succeed in 
 causing any to descend within a certain specified time. This was 
 agreed to; the rainmaker commenced his ceremonies, which are 
 said to have been well calculated to impose on an ignorant and 
 superstitious people. The time having expired without any signs 
 of rain, the chief who had convened the meeting inquired of the 
 rainmaker why he had so long imposed upon them ? The rain- 
 maker evaded the question, and complained that he had not been 
 paid well enough for the rain, and he appealed to all present to say 
 whether rain had not always been forthcoming on proper remuner- 
 ation. 
 
 Mr. Shaw now pointed out some half-famished cattle belonging 
 to the rainmaker which were to be seen on an adjacent hill starving 
 for want of pasturage ; thus clearly proving that had he possessed 
 the skill to which he pretended, it was not likely he would have 
 
THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 neglected his own interests. To this the rainmaker adroitly replied, 
 addressing the people : " I never found any difficulty in making 
 rain till he came among us " (pointing to Mr. Shaw) ; " but now, 
 no sooner do I collect the clouds, and the rain is about to fall in 
 copious showers on the dry and parched soil, than there immediately 
 begins a sound of ting^ //«^, ting (alluding to the chapel bell), 
 " which puts the clouds to flight, and prevents the rain from de- 
 scending on your land." Mr. Shaw could not decide as to the effect 
 of this ingenious plea on the majority of the Kaffirs ; but he had 
 the satisfaction of knowing that the intelligent native who consulted 
 him on the subject never made any more presents for rain. 
 
 FRIGHTFUL WAR-DANOE. 
 
 Steedman describes an occasion when Gaika, the Kaffir chief, 
 accompanied by his wives, and a large retinue of attendant warriors, 
 had been permitted to enter Fort Wiltshire, on the Keiskamma 
 River, and were exhibiting to its inmates the peculiar and terrif ; 
 war-dance of his tribe. 
 
 " This," he says, " was a performance, indeed, far more adapted 
 to astonish than to please, exciting alarm rather than admiration, 
 jnd displaying in rapid succession the habits and ferocious passions 
 of a savage community. Let the reader picture to himself a hun- 
 dred or more unclad Africans, besmeared and disfigured with copious 
 defilements of red clay, and assuming with frantic gestures all the 
 characteristic vehemence of a furious engagement. The dance 
 commenced with a slow movement to a sort of humming noise from 
 the women in the rear, the men stamping and beating time with 
 their feet, until the gradual excitement occasioned a simultaneous 
 spring with corresponding shouts, when the action proceeded to an 
 unnatural frenzy, and was calculated to produce ■ ti the mind of a 
 litranger the most appalling sensations. 
 
 " The dusky glare of the fire blazing in ^ront of these formid- 
 able warriors, f^uring their wild and unearthly e^^olutions, gave an 
 additional degree of awful effect to this extraordinary scene ; and 
 all that I had ever read in poetry or romance of the Court of Pan- 
 demonium, or the Hall of Eblis, fell infinitely short to my iniagi- 
 
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 nation, compared with the realities before me. It was indeed a 
 most seasonable relief amidst the bewildering fancies of the 
 moment, to hear the gratifying sound of 'All's well ' from the sen- 
 tries on the outposts of the fort, which imparted to the mind a feel- 
 ing of security and composure that, as may well be conceived, was 
 truly welcome." 
 
 A traveler, wishing to survey the scenery in the vicinity of 
 
 HERD OF SPRINGBOKS IN VlTLh FWGHT. 
 
 the White river, started one morning before sunrise, and set out on 
 horseback on an exploratory ramble, accompanied by a Hottentot 
 guide on foot, equipped with his gun and hunting gear. The sun 
 liac- not yet risen over the bushy hills as they proceeded down the 
 valley, and every tree and flower wa. br.'ght and sparkling with 
 dew, diftusmg a grateful feeling of freshness in this thirsty land 
 where ram is precarious and often long denied. _ ' 
 
 The rich fragrance of the wild African jessamine, clustering 
 
THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 43 
 
 ed a 
 
 the 
 
 sen- 
 
 feel- 
 
 was 
 
 with its white flowers around the rocks and aged trees, agreeably 
 attracted attention, and recalled the thoughts of the traveler to far 
 distant scenes, where he had seen the same beautiful shrub, or a 
 species nearly resembling it, naturalized in the rigorous clime of 
 Britain. Blue-bells, too, almost precisely similar to those of the Scot- 
 tish braes, were growing among the tangled brushwood through 
 which they wound their way ; and a small bird now and then chirped 
 a few wild notes, which so much resembled the preluding quiver of 
 the wood-lark, as to be almost startling. But the song died away 
 in a feeble trill, and all again was silent, save the cooing of turtle- 
 doves, which, even in the autumn of South Africa, is continually 
 to be heard at early morn, in a woodland country, and which pro- 
 duces a soothing, though somewhat monotonous, effect. 
 
 VAST FOREST OP EVERGREENS. 
 
 After proceeding a mile or two down the river, they struck 
 into a path on the left hand, which led into the bosom of a jungle, 
 behind the woody heights which bound the White river on the 
 south. The path on which they now entered led them along a sort 
 of valley, or rather avenue, through the forests of evergreens and 
 brushwood, which covered the undulating country as iar as the eye 
 could reach. This avenue consisted of a succession of grassy 
 savannahs, often of large extent, opening into each other through 
 the jungle, and affording a wide range of excellent pasturage for 
 the herds of the settlement. 
 
 It had, however, the disadvantage of being destitute of water, 
 excepting after heavy rains ; and another serious drawback was the 
 extfeme hazard to which the cattle pastured in it, as well as their 
 keepers, were exposed during the disturbances with the Kaffirs, in 
 consequence of the extent of jungle that surrounds it. Of this 
 danger sufficient demonstration was exhibited to the traveler by 
 his guide pointing out, as they passed alonjy, the apot where, a few 
 years before, nine of his comrades were slaughtered, and of which 
 he gave the following account. 
 
 During the irruption of the Kaffir clans, after the invasion 
 and devastation of their country by the Colonial Government in 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 44 
 
 THE nOKRS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 1819, the nioiintains and forests of the Zureberg were occupied by 
 iiumerous marauding bands of these barbarians, who poured them- 
 selves into the colony in a state of great exasperation, resolved 
 eitlier to recapture the cattle of which they had been plundered, or 
 to indemnify themselves by carrying off those of the colonists. They 
 had already several times menaced the Moravian villageof Enon with 
 nightly attacks ; and as it was well known that parties of them were 
 lurking in the vicinity, the cattle of the community were constantly 
 guarded by ten or twelve of the most courageous and sturdy Hot- 
 tentots armed with guns. 
 
 The Kaffirs had no other arms than " kirries " and "assagais," 
 that is, clubs and javelins ; and they knew from experience that 
 these herdsmen were unerring marksmen, and that their own 
 weapons and mode of warfare were but ill-fitted to compete with 
 the firelock. They had determined, however, at all hazards, to 
 possess themselves of the fine herd of cattle belonging to the set- 
 tlement, and in their attempt they proved successful. 
 
 A HORRIBLE MASSACRE. 
 
 The Hottentots had one day driven the cattle up this avenue 
 into one of the open spots, or woodland prairies, already described, 
 and observing no fresh traces of the enemy, seated themselves in 
 a group, about a hundred paces from the side of the jungle, and 
 began to smoke their pipes, each with his loaded gun lying down 
 beside him on the grass. 
 
 The Kaffirs, who were eagerly watching all their motions 
 from the neighboring heights, judged that this was a favorable 
 opportunity to attack them. Creeping through the thickets, with 
 the stealthy pace of the panther, they advanced cautiously to the 
 skirts of the copse-wood nearest to the herdsmen ; and then 
 crouching in silence till they observed them eagerly engaged in 
 conversation, and with their faces turned in a different direction, 
 they burst out upon them suddenly, with their frightful war-whoop. 
 Pouring in a shower of javelins as they rushed forward, they almost 
 instantly closed, club in hand, with the few not already transfixed 
 by their missiles. 
 
THE BOERvS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
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 So sudden and unexpected was the onset, that only two of the - 
 ten Hottentots had time to fire. Two of the assailants fell; but 
 their loss was bloodily avenged by the slaughter of nine of the 
 herdsmen, one of their number escaping by flying to the jungle, 
 with two javelins sticking in his body ; and the cattle of the settle- 
 ment, to the amount of upwards of a thousand head, became a prey 
 to the enemy. 
 
 The men thus slain were among the best and most industrious 
 of the little community, and all of them left wives and families to 
 deplore :heir untimely fate. The event overwhelmed the settle- 
 ment with lamentation and dismay ; and as the cattle were the 
 chief support of the inhabitants, and as an attack on the village 
 was nightly anticipated, the Moravian institution was soon after- 
 wards abandoned, and its inmates took refuge in the district town 
 of Uitenhage, where they were received with miich sympathy, and 
 treated with great kindness both by the inliabitiiiits and the gov- 
 ernment functionaries. From this place of refuge they subse- 
 quently returned to further carry on their work. 
 
 FAMOUS "SLAUGHTER TREE." 
 
 As a rude wagon track approaches a glen, the path is closed 
 in on either side for a considerable distance by the tall jungle, so 
 luxuriant in its growth that one would suppose even a wolf or a 
 leopard would scarcely be able to find a way through it. The path 
 itself, originally tracked out by the elephants, appears to have been 
 widened by the axe just sufficiently to allow a single wagon to pass 
 along, and it now formed the only access on this side to the upper 
 part of the glen. This pass is called the " Slagtboom ;" and it is 
 said to have acquired its name from the following occurrence : 
 
 Many years before the Kaffirs were dispossessed of this part 
 of the country, and finally driven over the Great Fish River, the 
 chief Congo and his clan occupied the White River valley and the 
 fastnesses of the adjacent mountains in great force. During one 
 of the struggles that ensued, in consequence of Congo's attempt 
 to maintain himself in possession of this district, a party of seventy 
 or eighty Boers were sent to occupy this glen, while other troops 
 
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 THK BOERvS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 environed the Kaffir camp from tlie oi)p(>site side. The Boers rode 
 in without opposition tlirouKh this pass; but, finding the enemy 
 stronger than they expected, they became aUirmed, and attempted 
 to retreat by the same road. 
 
 The Kaffirs, liowever, who on this occasion showed themselves 
 to be not destitute of military skill, had in the meantime blocked 
 
 ifif* 
 
 SCENE IN A SOUTH AFRICAN VILLAGE. 
 
 up the narrow path by stretching a large tree across it near the 
 centre, and fastening it with thongs and wattles at either end;' 
 and then stationing themselves in. strong bands among the copse- 
 wood, they attacked the Boers on all sides, as soon as they had 
 fairly entered the defile, with showers of javelins, and slew a great 
 number of them before they were able to force a passage through. 
 From this bloody catastrophe the .^pot obtained the name of 
 ** Slagtboom " or " Slaughter Tree." 
 
THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 47 
 
 111 1811 a great effort was made by the colonial government 
 10 expel the Kaffirs from this quarter of the country, which they 
 chiiiued as their own, having occupied it, in fact, for the greater 
 part of a century, and having, as they alleged, and it is believed 
 truly, twice purchased it — first from the Hottentots, and afterwards 
 from the Boers. Their claim of possession, however, whether just 
 or otherwise, the colonial goverumeut had determined not to re% 
 coi^nize, and orders were suddonl}^ issued to " invite '' them to 
 cA'acuate this territor}', and, if they refused immediate compliance, 
 to drive them by fire and sword across the Great Fish River. 
 
 CRUEL TREATMENT OP THE KAFFIRS. 
 
 At the time when the colonial troops assembled to carry this 
 order into execution it was in the summer, when the corn and 
 vegetables of the Kaffirs were not fully ripe ; and the hardship of' 
 tlieir being obliged to abandon their crops, and, consequent!}', to 
 suffer a twelve months' scarcity, during which many must perish 
 of absolute famine, was urgently pleaded to obtain a short respite. 
 Their remonstrances, however, were not listened to ; the peremptory 
 mandate was given to remove instantly. 
 
 During these transactions, while the Kaffirs were highly ex- 
 asperated by what they considered cruel and oppressive treatment, 
 and were beginning to assume a very hostile attitude, the chief 
 magistrate of the district, old Landdrost Stockenstrom, sought a 
 conference with some of the principal chiefs, with the benevolent 
 purpose of endeavoring to persuade them to evacuate the country 
 peacefully, in order to avoid the devastation and bloodshed that 
 must otherwise ensue. Mr. Stockenstrom was much respected by 
 the Kaffirs, on account of the justice and humanity he had dis- 
 played when disputes had occurred between them and the colonists ; 
 and, trusting to their characteristic good faith, he had repeatedly 
 ventui ed among them with a very slender escort. 
 
 It was reported that on the present occasion, for an intervicAV 
 was not declined, a message was secretly sent him by one of the 
 chiefs warning him not. to trust his safety at that time among 
 them. This warning, however, as well as the earnest dissuasions 
 
 
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 THE BOKRS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
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 of some of his own people, Stockeiistroiii, though a cautious as well 
 as a brave man, disregarded, and met the Kaffirs in the forest of 
 the Zureberg with only about a dozen or fifteen attendants. 
 
 Whether the chiefs who acceded to this meeting were accessory 
 to any premeditated plan of treachery does not appear to have been 
 clearly ascertained, but certain it is that Stockenstrom and hi 
 party were suddenly attacked in one of the dangerous defiles of the 
 forest, near the spot appointed for the conference, and most of 
 them massacred. One of the few who escaped saved his life by 
 flying into the forest and creeping through the thickets " like a 
 jackal," as he expressed it, until he reached a place of safety. 
 
 MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD. 
 
 This perfidious slaughter appears, on satisfactory evidence, 
 to have been perpetrated by a band of the Ammadankee tribe, a 
 l)r()ken clan, who entertained an inveterate, deadly animosity to- 
 wards the colonists, of the origin of which the following account is 
 given : About the year 1770, the Boers of Bruintjes-hoogte invited 
 the Ammadankee clan of Kaffirs, of whom Jalumba was then chief, 
 to meet them on the western bank of the Great Fish River, for 
 the purpose of holding a consultation on some public matters. The 
 Ammadankee attended the meeting, where a peaceable conference 
 was held, and they were entertained with brandy and tobacco. 
 
 After which the Boers said they had brought a costly present 
 for their good friends, the Kaffirs ; and, having placed some rush 
 mats on the ground, they spread upon them a profusion of beads, 
 and invited their visitors to make a scramble and display their 
 activity in picking them up on a signal being given. The Boers then 
 retired a little distance to where their guns were lying loaded with 
 two or three bullets each. The promised signal being given by the 
 Veld-cornet Botman, the Kaffirs, dreading no guile, rushed upon 
 the beads, overturning one another in their eagerness to seize a 
 share of these tempting trinkets. At this instant the Boers, seiz- 
 ing their firearms, poured in a volley on their unsuspecting visitors 
 with so destructive an aim that very few, it is said, escaped ih^ 
 massacre. 
 
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 FIELD MARSHAL LORD ROBERTS 
 
 COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE BRITISH FORCES IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 SUCCESSOR TO GENERAL DULLER 
 
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 CHIEF OF STAFF TO FIELD MARSHALL ROBERTS IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 
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 THIS BALLOON CONTAINS 11.000 CUBIC KEET OF QA8 AND LIFTS 700 POUNDS 
 
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BRITISH ARMORED TRAIN ATTACKED BY BOERS 
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THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
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 The residue, having lost their chiefs and their principal men, 
 became a " broken clan," abandoned the banks of the Fish River, 
 and sought refuge in the Zurebeig with their chief Congo and 
 their countrymen of the tribe of Tinde; and it was some of the 
 descendants of this unfortunate family, who, remembering that day 
 of treachery and murder, now seized the opportunity of revenging 
 the wrongs of their race on the colonists. A son of their old op- 
 pressor, Botman, was among the slain. 
 
 When the Cape Colony, by the events of war, passed finally 
 into British hands, it was occupied by a Dutch population, be- 
 yond the limits of whose somewhat circumscribed settlements 
 resided various tribes of native origin, thinly scattered and curiously 
 mixed. The Bushman was probably the earliest tenant of the soil ; 
 but he had receded before the Hottentot, and the Hottentot before 
 the Kaffir ; until the actual occupation of the country had come to 
 be determined by a species of conquest. Then the frontier of the 
 colony was defined towards the northeast by the course of the 
 Orange River, beyond which the jurisdiction of the British Gov- 
 ernment was not presumed to extend. 
 
 SETTLEMENT OP A NEW COUNTRY. 
 
 Although the European settlers were but thinly planted on the 
 territory, yet the irresistible exigencies of pastoral life induced a 
 few of the colonists as early as 1825 ^^ struggle across the Orange 
 River in quest of fresh fields and more productive pastures ; but it 
 was not till eleven years later that the emigration in this direc- 
 tion assumed any serious proportions. Then, however, occurred an 
 exodus which, in relation to the numbers of the colonial population, 
 was really considerable, and in its character and consequences more 
 important still. 
 
 The Dutch farmers, or Boers, had become actively hostile to 
 British rule. Without speculating on the cause of this enmity, it 
 will be enough to say that a large body of them crossed the frontier, 
 and fought their way through dangers and difficulties, until they 
 reached Natal, where they proceeded to establish a Batavian Re- 
 public. Such an event naturally demanded the attention of the 
 4 
 
 '"1 
 
 I 
 
60 
 
 THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 i ,11 
 
 ■ ! 
 
 British Government, for the Boers were British subjects, and their 
 migration had been accompanied by alarming disturbances on the 
 
 colonial border. 
 
 It was at that time, as it always has been*, the professed policy 
 of England to put limits on her territorial progress, to avoid, if pos- 
 sible, the extension of her dominion, and to preclude the risks of 
 war and its results by cultivating the good will and amity of the 
 chiefs beyond the frontier. But her precautions in this respect 
 were utterly nullified by the proceedings of the Boers, who, assum- 
 ing, as was in fact the case, that the tribes claiming a general 
 ownership in the soil had little better title than themselves, showed 
 small scruple or consideration in selecting their new settlements^ 
 and the result appeared accordingly in confusion, discord, blood- 
 shed, and peril. 
 
 To extirpate these elements of danger the British followed the 
 Boers to Natal, asserted their sovereignty in that province, and left 
 Natal to become a British settlement, dependent on the Crown 
 Colony of the Cape. Upon this, the Boers, animated by an invin- 
 cible fanaticism, wheeled off to the west, crossed the Drakenburg 
 range of mountains, and established themselves in the spacious 
 district to the north of the British possessions between the Orange 
 and Vaal rivers, and there set up a permanent home. 
 
 SUPREMACY OP BRITISH AUTHORITY. • 
 
 In this region they maintained their institutions for some 
 time, though always ander the same conditions of conflict and 
 with similar liabilities on the part of the colonial government. 
 At length, in the year 1848, when Sir Harry Smith was Governor 
 ,of the Cape, another step was taken. In the exercise of his admin- 
 istration he discovered a disposition on the part not only of the 
 native chiefs, but, as it appeared, on that of the Boers also, to place 
 themselves immediately and actually under British sovereignty. 
 
 At that time the Boers seem to have acquired the ascendancy, 
 and to have alarmed the chiefs for the safet}'- of their possessions, 
 though the contest was still stubbornly maintained on both sides ; 
 but the upshot of the negotiations was that the supremacy of the 
 
pheir 
 the 
 
 )licy 
 Ipos- 
 :s of 
 the 
 fpect 
 JUin- 
 leral 
 iwed 
 mts 
 ood- 
 
 THE BOERS AND KAFFIRS. 
 
 51 
 
 British Government was definitely and directly proclaimed. These 
 measures were but half agreeable to the authorities at home, who 
 were impressed with a laudable horror of extending obligations 
 which had already been found to carry with them so heavy a charge. 
 However, as it was represented that England's supremacy would 
 be sincerely welcomed by both parties, and that its exercise would 
 cost nothing, the position was accepted, and the settlements of the 
 Boers became attached to the Cape Colony as the Orange River 
 Sovereignty. ' - 
 
 Six months sufficed to show that the misgivings of the Home 
 Government were well founded, for in August, 1848, Sir Harry 
 Smith was suddenly called upon to quell something like an insur- 
 rection in the new sovereignty. In this he succeeded, but when, 
 some two years later, a fresh Kaffir war broke out, it became pres- 
 ently evident that the Orange River Sovereignty would aggravate 
 England's troubles. The chiefs quarreled with each other, and all 
 quarreled with the Boers, while both sides, instead of deferring to 
 British authority, found their sole ground of agreement in plotting 
 against the protectorship they had invited. 
 
 Into the events of the Kaffir war, commenced by Sir Harry 
 Smith, and concluded by General Cathcart, we do not enter ; but 
 one of the consequences of the contest was, that after a demonstra- 
 tion of power the British retired from the Orange River Sovereignty, 
 evacuated the country, and left the Boers to establish there a" Free 
 State," adjacent to which, and beyond the river Vaal, there was 
 also erected a " Trans- Vaal Republic." 
 
 ^'*: 
 
 ,»« 
 
 1:'1 
 
 i ■ 
 
■s 
 
 ■^i 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 White Settlers and the Zulus. 
 
 (? The history of the Boers in South Africa is largely connected 
 el with that of savage tribes, among whom the most powerful 
 are the Kaffirs and Zulus. Strictly speaking, the Kaffirs 
 include the Zulus, the latter being a subdivision of the former. 
 They are a branch of the great Bantu division of the human 
 family, among whose sections the aggregate tribes or clans now 
 generally known as the Zulus are conspicuous for their physical and 
 intellectual development. 
 
 By nature the men are brave, and are given to field sports, 
 and, where opportunity offers, to border forays and intertribal 
 strife. A noticeable feature in their nature is that when a fight is 
 really ended, bitterly and bravely as it usually is fought, no pas- 
 sions appear to remain, nor are feelings of revenge harbored 
 against each other. The Zulu government is that of a pure demo- 
 cracy, the chiefs being elected, and holding office during the plea- 
 sure of the people. 
 
 This pleasure is given expression to through parents to 
 subheads of districts, through them to the heads of larger dis- 
 tricts, and through them in turn to the chief direct. Legisla- 
 tion occurs in the same way, through an expression of feeling 
 from the body of the people to the chief through the heads of the 
 districts. A very complete, though unwritten, code of law, civil 
 and criminal, exists, and is well known to every adult Zulu. 
 Polygamy is practiced throughout the country, and has been since 
 time immemorial. The marriage-tie, however, with the tenth oi 
 twentieth wife is as sacred as where there is only one. As a race 
 the Zulus are conspicuous for their freedom from drunkenness and 
 c.-ime. The pursuits of the people are pastoral. 
 
 Zululand is a territory of South Africa, lying to the north of 
 the colony of Natal, with a coast line of about 130 miles. It is 
 
 62 
 
WHITE SETTLKKS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 led 
 [ill 
 [rs 
 ir. 
 
 occupied chiefly by Zulu tribes ; but since its conquest by England 
 in 1879 a Boer republic, known as the New Republic, has been 
 carved out of it, which extends into the centre of the country from 
 the Transvaal on its northwest, and comprises an area equal t^ 
 nearly one-half of the remaining portion of Zululand. 
 
 This portion is composed of a strip of country adjacent to 
 Natal, lying to the south of the Umhlatuzi river, and the district 
 extending along the coast to the north of that river for a distance 
 inland varying from fifty to seventy miles. The former piece of 
 country has been known since 1882 as the Zulu Reserve. It is 
 bounded on the southwest by the Tugela, Buffalo and Blood rivers, 
 the last named being one of the borders of the Transvaal Republic. 
 
 PICTURESQUE AND DIVERSIFIED SCENERY. 
 
 Zululand presents very varied physical features: undulating 
 country covered with mimosa "bush," in some parts very densely, 
 alternates with wild and fantastically broken scenery, and thickly- 
 wooded precipices and ravines, and these again with grass-clad hills. 
 Two considerable forests exist in the country — one, the Ingome 
 Forest, lying in northern Zululand, just within the territory ceded 
 to the Boers, the other upon the Natal border. The wholesale de- 
 struction of woods for domestic purposes, which has robbed that 
 colony of much of its beauty, and is believed to have seriously 
 affected its rainfall, has not proceeded very far in Zululand. 
 
 The mineral resources of the country have yet to be investi- 
 gated, but gold has been found in the Reserve. The rivers, like 
 those in Natal, are rapid streams of small volume, running over 
 rocky beds ; the Tugela river is the most considerable. The cli- 
 mate differs but little from that of Natal. The country is very 
 healthy for the most part ; but horse sickness prevails in the val. 
 leys in the hot season, and the swampy neighborhood of San Lucia 
 Bay, a lagoon lying at the mouth of the Umfolosi river, is unin- 
 habitable. 
 
 Like the Natal natives, the Zulus cultivate the ground very 
 superficially, planting maize, gourds of several kinds, and a grain 
 from which a light beer is prepared. Cattle, the sole wealth of the 
 
 ■s-li 
 
M 
 
 WHITK SICTTI.KRS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 l! 
 
 people, were at one time very numerous in the country, and also 
 goats. A few of the chiefs use horses. 
 
 Long after big game had become scarce in Natal, Zululand 
 offered excellent opportunities to the sportsman. It still has ante- 
 lopes of various kinds, including a few koodoo, and at the mouths 
 of the more northern rivers, hippopotamuses ; but the buffalo and 
 rhinoceros are not met with fartlier south than the densely-wooded 
 hills near the Umfolosi river. The lion is not seen south of the 
 Lebombo ^.lountains in the north of Zululand, but the leopard and 
 smaller carnivores are plentiful enough in the country. Its natural 
 history is similar to that of Natal ; but indications are not wanting 
 in its launa and flora of its closer proximity to the tropics. 
 
 A FIERCE ENEMY IN WAR. 
 
 Since the establishment of the Zulu military ascendancy early 
 in the nineteenth century varous Zulu hordes have successively 
 invaded and overrun a great part of southeast Africa, as far as and 
 even beyond the Lake Nyassa district. Such is the terror inspired 
 by these fierce warriors that many of the conquered tribes have 
 adopted the very name of their conquerors or oppressors. Hence 
 the impression that the true Zulus are far more numerous north of 
 the Limpopo than has ever been the case. In most places they 
 have already become extinct or absorbed in the surrounding popu- 
 lations. But they still hold their ground as the ruling element in 
 the region between the Limpopo and the lower Zambesi, which 
 from them takes the name of Matabeleland, and which, like Zulu- 
 land itself, in 1888, became a British protectorate. 
 
 The Zulus possess an elaborate system of laws regulating the 
 inheritance of personal property (which consists chiefly of cattle y, 
 the complexity arising from the practice of polygamy and the ex- 
 change of cattle made upon marriage. The giving of cattle in the 
 latter case is generally referred to as a barter and sale of the bride, 
 from which indeed it is not easily distinguishable. But it is regarded 
 in a diflferent light by the natives themselves. 
 
 The kraal, or village, is under the immediate rule of its head- 
 man, who is a patriarch responsible for the good behavior of all its 
 
ilso 
 
 md 
 
 Itll.S 
 llKi 
 
 ltd 
 
 iml 
 iral 
 
 m 
 
if 
 
 i» 
 
 
 I' ■ ■ I, 
 
 M 
 
 #!! 
 
 I 
 
 ^|rt 
 
 i ■' 
 
 \ a 
 
 •! r If ! 
 
 
 0e WHITI' Sl'TTMCRS AND THK ZULUS. 
 
 inemlKTS. Over tlic liciulman, wliosc authority may extend to more 
 than one kraal, is the tribal chief. The exercise by some of the prin- 
 cipal chiefs, during the reign of Pande and his son, of the power of life 
 and death could not always be controlled by the central authority. 
 Several of the Zulu customs resemble tho.se of the Jews, such 
 as the Feast of the First I'Vuits, held upon the ripening of the maize, 
 when the whole nation gathers at the king's kraal, and the custom 
 of raising up seed to a decea.sed brother. The employment of 
 "witch doctors" for "smelling out" crimiials or " abatagati " 
 (usually translated " wizards," but meaning evildoers of any kind, 
 such as poisoner:;) is still common in Zululand, as in neighboring 
 countries, although it was discouraged by Cetewayo, who estab- 
 lished " kraals of refuge " for the reception of persons rescued by 
 him from condemnation as " abatagati." 
 
 FIGHTING STRENGTH OF THE TRIBE. 
 
 No means exist for estimating the present population of Zulu- 
 land. The country was at the time of the war in 1879 regarded as 
 less densely inhabited than the colony of Natal. The Zulu army 
 was estimated to contain twenty-three regiments, of 40,400 men in 
 all, and, although the enrolment was voluntary, it may be assumed 
 that it comprised nearly all the able-bodied men of the nation. In 
 addition to the heavy mortality sustained by the Zulus in the war 
 many lives have been lost in subsequent conflicts in which they 
 have engaged amongst themselves. 
 
 The earliest records of contact between Europeans and the Zulu 
 race is probably the account of the wreck of the " Doddington " in 
 1756. The survivors met with hospitable treatmert at the hands of 
 the natives of Natal, and afterwards proceeded up the coast to St* 
 Lucia Bay, where they landed. They described the natives as " very 
 proud and haughty, and not so accommodating as those lately left." 
 They differ from the other natives in the superior neatness of their 
 method of preparing their food, and were more cleanly in their 
 persons, bathing every morning, apparently as an act of devotion. 
 Their chief pride seemed to be to keep their hair in order. It is 
 added that they watched strictly over their women. 
 
WHITU SiaTUKRS AND Till-: 7AILUS. 
 
 17 
 
 ill 1780 tlie Zulu tribe inhabited the valley of the White Uiu- 
 loiosi river under the chieftainship of Seiizaugakona. At that time 
 liic Zulus numbered some few thousands only, being subject to the 
 paramount chief Dingiswayo, who ruled over the Tetwa tribe, which 
 inhabited the country to the northeast of the Tugela. Dingiswayo 
 is represented as having been very much in advance of other chiefs 
 in those parts in enlightment and intelligence. He opened up a 
 trade with the Portuguese, bartering ivory and oxen for beads and 
 brass. He was also very warlike, and introduced a strict military 
 organization among his people, by means of which he obtained the 
 ascendancy over neighboring tribes, including that of the Zulus. 
 
 A SOUTH APRIOAN NAPOLEON. 
 
 Upon the death of Senzangakona at tTie beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century he was succeeded by a son named Tshaka, who had 
 served as an officer in the army of Dingiswayo, whose favor he won 
 through his force of character and talents. Dingiswayo having 
 been killed in battle, the Tetwa tribe sought the protection of 
 Tshaka, who lost no time in further developing the new military 
 organization, and very soon became master of nearly the whole of 
 southeastern Africa from the Limpopo to Cape Colony, including 
 the settlement of Natal, Basutoland, a large part of the Orange 
 Free State, and the Transvaal Republic. The terror of the Zulu 
 arms was, moreover, carried far into the interior through the revolt 
 of a Zulu chief, Moselekatse, who conquered a vast territory towards 
 the northwest. 
 
 Tshaka's strict discipline and mode of attack, in which the 
 long missile weapon of the- other tribes was replaced by a short 
 stabbing assegai, was such that nothing in the mode of warfare of 
 those opposed to him could withstand him. He overran the district 
 of Natal with his armies in 1820 ; but crowds of the northern tribes 
 driven before his onslaught passed through the country about 1812. 
 
 In 1825 ^^ English naval officer. Lieutenant Farewell, visited 
 Tshaka with the object of obtaining leave to establish a settlement 
 in what is now the district of Natal. He found the king at his 
 capital " surrounded by a large number of chiefs, and about 8,cxx> 
 
 V,1" 
 
 ,.. i'l 
 
 ■^ 
 
 "^^.^H^t . 
 

 ■I IS' 
 
 '^] 
 
 m 
 
 V 
 
 68 WHITE SKTTLEKS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 or 9,000 armed men, observing a state and ceremony in our intro- 
 duction that we little expected." The king showed his visitor 
 much friendliness, making him a grant of land in that neighbor- 
 hood. Lieutenant Farewell took formal possession of the territory 
 he had received, which he described as nearly depopulated and not 
 containing more than 300 or 400 inhabitants, on August 27, 1825. 
 The Zulu monarch, being anxious to open a political connec- 
 tion with the Cape and English Governments, entrusted in 1828 
 one of his principal chiefs, Sotobi, and a companion to the care of 
 Lieutenant King, to be conducted on an embassage to Cape Town, 
 Sotobi being commissioned to proceed to the king of England. 
 From causes which are not now certainly known these people were 
 not allowed to proceed beyond Port Elizabeth, and were soon sent 
 back to Zululand. On September 23, 1828, Tshaka was murdered 
 by his brother, IMhlangana, and a few days afterwards Mhlangana 
 was killed by another brother, Dingane. 
 
 AMBITIOUS TO FOUND A GREAT KINGDOM. 
 
 Tshaka's reign had involved an immense sacrifice of human 
 life, but he had set before himself the aim of establishing a great 
 kingdom, and, having succeeded in that, his home rule had been 
 relieved by acts of generosity and statesmanship. 
 
 What is recorded of Dingane's reign shows him in the light of 
 a bloodthirsty and cruel monster without a redeeming feature. The 
 attempts made by the emigrant Dutch Boers under Piet Retief to 
 establish friendly relations with him, and obtain a cession of the 
 district of Natal, ended in the massacre of the whole party of 
 seventy of their leading men at the king's kraal February, 1838, 
 and of all members of their families left behind in Natal who 
 could not be collected into fortified camps. Two unsuccessful 
 attempts were made to avenge the deaths of the emigrant Boers. A 
 Dutch command under Pieter Uys invaded the Zulu country, but 
 was compelled to retreat, leaving their leader behind them, while a 
 considerable force, composed of English settlers, Boers and natives, 
 entered Zululand at the mouth of the Tugela, and was completely 
 annihilated, after inflicting very great loss on the Zulus. 
 
 Adet 
 and comp 
 ship. A-f^ 
 settlers aj 
 severe en; 
 the banks 
 the victor; 
 Paiide, in 
 successfu 
 Dingane 
 and was 
 land by t 
 much co\ 
 Dur 
 curred tc 
 Natal G( 
 Pande's 
 for the s 
 the bani 
 and mai 
 
 Th 
 until tl 
 nation 
 Pande 
 Zululai 
 owing 
 father. 
 
 preside 
 was a< 
 one, tl 
 to evo 
 he wo 
 some 
 
 k« ?! '. 
 
 f il : 
 
 •^f.- 
 
WHITE SET1%ERS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 59 
 
 A detachment of the Zuhi army on this occasion entered Natal 
 and compelled the settlers at the port to take refuge on board a 
 ship. After a further attack by Dingane the emigrant Boers and 
 settlers again invaded Zululand in December, 1838, and after a 
 severe engagement defeated the Zulu army with great slaughter, on 
 the banks of the Blood river, which owes its name to the results of 
 the victory. In 1840 the Boers agreed to support Dingane's brother, 
 Pande, in rebellion against him. The movement was completely 
 successful, several of Dingane's regiments going over to Pande. 
 Dingane passed into Swaziland in advance of his retreating forces, 
 and was there murdered, while Pande was crowned king of Zulu- 
 land by the Boers, who received in exchange for their services the 
 much coveted district of Natal. 
 
 During the next sixteen years of Pande's reign nothing oc- 
 curred to disturb the peaceful relations between the Zulus and the 
 Natal Government. In 1856 a civil war broke out between two of 
 Pande's sons, Cetewayo and Umbulazi, who were rival claimants 
 for the succession. A bloody battle was fought between them on 
 the banks of the Tugela in December, 1856, in which Umbulazi 
 and many of his followers were slain. 
 
 CORONATION OF A NEW KING. 
 
 The Zulu country continued, however, excited and disturbed, 
 until the Government of Natal in iS6r obtained the formal nomi- 
 nation of a successor to Pande ; and Cetewayo was appointed. 
 Pande died in October, 1872, but practically the government of 
 Zululand had been in Cetewayo's hands since the victory of 1856, 
 owing both to political circumstances and the failing health of his 
 father. 
 
 In 1873 the Zulu nation appealed to the Natal Government to 
 preside over the installation of Cetewayo as king ; and this request 
 was acceded to. The rule of Pande was in earlier j'^ears a severe 
 one, the executions ordered by him being so numerous in 1859 ^^ 
 to evoke remonstrances from Cetewayo, who warned the king that 
 he would drive all the people over into Natal. In 1856 and for 
 some years afterwards, a considerable exodus of refugees did take 
 
 
 l"^ '^:f*i 
 
 ^d^.Ji\^: 
 
i 
 
 i 
 
 t'l 'in 
 
 I 
 
 ii 
 
 % 
 
 i 
 
 M ' il 
 
 GO 
 
 WHlTJv SETTLERS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 place into the colony, but by 1S71 the tide appeared to be turning 
 
 the other way. 
 
 The encroaclinients of the Transvaal Boers upon the borders 
 of Zululand having fo'- many years exposed the British Govern- 
 ment to urgent appeals on the part of the Zulus for its interven- 
 tion, a second attempt was made by the Government of Natal, and 
 this time with success, to induce the Boers to submit the boundary 
 disputes between them and their neighbors to arbitration. A commis- 
 sion was appointed, composed of three British officers, who in June, 
 I S78, pronounced a decision substantially in favor of the Zulus. 
 But the high commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere, had determined upon 
 measures for re-modeling the Zulu nation with a view to the con- 
 federation of the South African colonies and states. 
 
 ANGRY FEUDS AND TERRIBLE BATTLES. 
 
 The invasion of Zululand took place in January, 1879, and 
 the war was ended by the capture of the king at the end of August. 
 Cetewayo having been conveyed to Cape Town, the Zulu country 
 was portioned out among eleven Zulu chiefs, a white adventurer, 
 and a Basuto chief who had done good service in the war. This 
 Arrangement was productive of much bloodshed and disturbance, 
 and in 1882 the British Government determined to restore Cete- 
 wayo again to power. In the meantime, however, the deepest blood 
 feuds had been engendered between the chiefs Zibebu and Hamu on 
 the one side and the neighboring tribes who supported the ex-king 
 and his family on the other. 
 
 These people suffered severely at the hands of the two chiefs, 
 who were assisted by a band of white free-booters. Zibebu, having 
 created a formidable force of well-armed and trained warriors, was 
 left in independence on the borders of Cetewayo's territory, while 
 the latter was restrained by the conditions of his restoration from 
 any military enterprise or defensive measures. A collision very 
 soon took place ; but in the conflicts that followed Zibebu's forces 
 were victorious, and on July 22, 1883, led by a troop of mounted 
 whites, he made a sudden descent upon Cetewayo's kraal at Ulundi, 
 which he destroyed, massacring the inmates of both sexes. 
 
WHITK SETTI^ERS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 61 
 
 borders 
 ^oveni- 
 terven- 
 il, and 
 mdary 
 
 )11131lis- 
 
 June, 
 |2ii]i.is. 
 
 upon 
 ^e cou- 
 
 9> and 
 "gust, 
 untry 
 tnrer, 
 This 
 bance, 
 Ccte- 
 blood 
 tnu on 
 ■-king 
 
 hiefs, 
 
 iving 
 
 , was 
 
 ivhile 
 
 from 
 
 veiy 
 
 )rces 
 
 nted 
 
 ndi. 
 
 The king escaped, though wounded, into the Reserve, which 
 had been placed under British rule ; there he died in 1884, He left 
 a son, Dinnzulu, who sought the assistance of some of the Trans- 
 vaal Boers against Zibebu, whom he defeated and drove into the 
 Reserve. These Boers, not a large number, claimed as a stipulated 
 reward for their services the cession of the greater part, and the 
 more valuable part, of central Zululand. The Government of 
 Natal attempted to mediate on behalf of the Zulus and accepted on 
 their behalf, in spite of their protests, a line which roughly divides 
 central Zululand into two equal portions. Of these the north- 
 western has been created into the independent Boer state already 
 mentioned. The rest of central Zululand is administered, with 
 the Reserve, as a British protectorate and dependency. 
 
 WHAT IP THE ZULUS RISE? 
 
 When the war of 1899 broke out a careful observer of events 
 in South Africa said : " Should the Zulus seize the opportunity 
 offered by the Transvaal war to strike for freedom, England would 
 have her hands full. Should the bold Basutos join arms with their 
 fierce cousins. South Africa would become hot soil for the British 
 foot for many long months to come. Both of these uprisings are 
 threatened ; both are greatly feared. The Zulu situation in par- 
 ticular is watched with anxious eye. England for a while was over- 
 matched in the last Zulu war, and victory was bought in the end 
 with rivers of English blood. Scarcely any greater misfortune 
 could come just now than an uprising such as this." 
 
 The Zulu is undoubtedly the best native fighter of South 
 Africa. He is physically a splendid savage — fierce, powerful and 
 enduring. Add to this the memory of a magnificent past, the tra- 
 ditions and courage of a race unwhipped except by white men, and 
 by them only at fearful odds, and you have a worthy foeman. The 
 Zulus yielded to the sway of England through force indeed, but the 
 fight they made then was one to keep alive the hope of a better 
 ending for renewed struggle. 
 
 The secret of the Zulu power lies, first in organization, and, 
 second, in the tradition of victory. Organization under the great 
 
 ^ \% 
 
 k:li 
 
, ■ 
 
 02 WHITE vSETTLERS AND THE ZULUS. ^ 
 
 chieftain Tshaka at the beginning of the nineteenth century gave 
 them their first superiority over other savage tribes, and an unend- 
 ing series of victories for half a century or more produced a race of 
 rare courage and warlike prowess. The story of it describes the 
 
 Zulu of to-day. 
 
 What is no\v known as Znluland— a wild country, bounded on 
 the north by the Transvaal, on the south and west by Natal, and 
 on the east by the sea— was then divided among several savage 
 tribes, of which the Zulus were one of the weakest. As we have 
 seen, the chief of a neighboring tribe, the Umtetwas, plotted the 
 murder of his two sons, one of whom, however, escaped, and in his 
 wanderings fell in with the British, the organization of whose forces 
 he noted with shrewd understanding. After his father's death he 
 returned to his tribe, was made chief, and proceeded to organize his 
 warriors into brigades, regiments and companies, British fashion, 
 and had remarkable success in warfare. 
 
 A CHIEFTAIN OF GREAT ABILITY. 
 
 One of his lieutenants was a youth of fierce and restless energy. 
 He was the son of a conquered chieftain and his name was Tshaka. 
 He studied the organization of the Umtetwa army zealously, and 
 saw in it wonderful things not accomplished by his wise but mild 
 chieftain. He made up his mind that some day his own chance 
 would come. 
 
 Winning consideration, Tshaka was finally, as a reward, 
 appointed chief of the weai: tribe of Zulus. He organized them 
 perfectly, and when the chief of the Umtetwas was killed in battle 
 Tshaka announced the independence of the Zulus and upheld it 
 by force. 
 
 This done Tshaka started in to make the Zulu power supreme. 
 He attacked his weaker neighbors first, and with every victory ab- 
 sorbed the young warriors into his own army and destroyed the 
 old men, women and children. In this way his own army grew 
 marvellously, and his conquered neighbors lost recuperative power 
 and eventually identity. 
 
 He divided his young warriors into regiments, distinguishing 
 
WHITE SETTLERS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 63 
 
 gave 
 
 tiend- 
 ice of 
 the 
 
 ed on 
 and 
 ivage 
 have 
 the 
 
 each regiment by different colored shields, and established with re- 
 wards a competitive spirit among regiments. He traiited them to 
 advance and attack in solid formation, something new in South 
 African savage warfare, and he developed the close quarters' attack 
 with the short stabbing assegai or spear, so generally used among 
 South African tribes. 
 
 Then he established an inviolate law that any soldier return- 
 ing from battle without assegai or shield, or with a wound in the 
 back, should be executed as a coward. By another law young 
 soldiers were forbidden wives until after long service, unless mean- 
 time they earned them by distinguished bravery in the field. 
 
 Absolute discipline was inculcated. An expedition never knew 
 its destination and purpose until far from home. In attacking the 
 first onslaught was always in solid formation, supported on either 
 side by wings of skirmishers. Flank movements were a regular 
 manoeuvre, and as effective in savage as in civilized warfare. 
 
 ZULUS EVERYWHERE VICTORIOUS 
 
 It can easily be seen how the .Zulus, under such a system, 
 swept all before them. The undisciplined savages of the plains 
 and forests went down like grain before the reaper. And every 
 new tribe subjugated was ruthlessly amalgamated into the vic- 
 torious nation. The Zulus swept the coast, subjugated Natal and 
 pushed their fierce, bloody sway far inland. The terror of tbeir 
 name passed far north and far south. 
 
 Nor was there limit to their ravages until the Dutcb settled 
 in Natal. Then began a series of fierce fights in which the white 
 man and the rifle finally triumphed and the Zulu power was broken, 
 or at least reducer to the point of non-interference with the move- 
 ments of the Dutch and the English, who soon after swarmed over 
 the land. But while taught to respect the white man, the Zulu 
 nursed his traditions, his pride and his ferocity. It was a disgrace 
 in his eyes to labor except in the prosecution of war. Under Cete-, 
 wayo, the great chief whose power England broke in a war in 
 which she met several terrible reverses and lost hosts of splendid 
 men, the Zulu was at heart the Zuhi of the great Tshaka's days. 
 
 :. i;, t' ■;^ 
 
 f:m 
 
 -^*^j;Hi 
 
64 
 
 WHITE SETTLKRvS AND THE ZULUS. 
 
 And this is the people who now threaten to avail of England's 
 troubles to regain their freedom. They are the same in spirit and 
 are rich in resentment. For years they have nursed their wrongs. 
 What they have lost in savage fierceness by a generation of peace- 
 ful subjection, is more than matched by their gains in knowledge. 
 They still retain their terrible stabbing assegai, but they have 
 added the rifle, and are splendid marksmen. They dream of re- 
 storing the splendors of their past, and if they rise can be counted 
 a terrible foe. 
 
 The only occupation is the raising of cattle. There are 8,900 
 square miles in the district and the government is a British protec- 
 torate. The Basutos, while by no means the peers in war of the 
 Zulus, occupy a strong position. Basutoland is bounded by Cape 
 Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal. They have discouraged 
 the white man, and there are only 600 Europeans in their entire 
 territory. The country is a splendid grain producer, and the 
 Basutos are thrifty and rich. There are wild mountain districts 
 to serve in time of need. 
 
 They were once a warlike power of some consequence, and in 
 1879 they stood off England in a war over disarmament to a com- 
 promise by which the Cape Government has since paid them 
 $90,000 a year toward the cost of government. They are in large 
 measure self-governing — of course, under British dictation — and 
 enjoy a considerable measure of civilization. About fifty thousand 
 out of a population of two hundred and twenty thousand have 
 been converted to Christianity. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Manners and Customs of the Boers. 
 
 (5 I HE traveler Burchell met with much hospitality from opulent 
 g I Dutch farmers in South Africa, but even among those of the 
 lowest class, there was ever a readiness to open the door to 
 the hungry and benighted stranger. In the family of a farmer of 
 the middle class, whose dwelling did not indicate much of either 
 affluence or comfort, but whose members appeared contented and 
 happy, he spent a short time. The following particulars are taken 
 from his observations. 
 
 The situation of the house was bleak and exposed, and there 
 was not much display of art or culture around. It was situated on 
 a wide flat, bounded by rocky mountains. One large room, having 
 a mild floor, and a single glazed window, whose broken panes 
 betokened the scarcity of glass, formed the principal part of the 
 house. At one end were the bed-Tooms, and at the other a very 
 deep and wide fire-place^ exactly resembling that of an English 
 form-house. 
 
 As the Boers often find it better economy to consume the sheep 
 in their own families, and convert the fat into soap, to be sold at 
 their annual visit to Cape Town, than to sell the animals at a low 
 price, a large cauldron of boiling soap stood over this fire. A door 
 in the b?ck wall of the apartment opened into the kitchen. At the 
 time oi the traveler's visit, a small window near the fire-place was 
 kept constantly closed with a wooden shutter, to exclude the cold 
 wind, as it had neither sash nor glass. 
 
 Near the glazed window stood a small table, and on it a little 
 
 old-fashioned coffee-urn, an article in constant use. On each side 
 
 of the table were two homely-looking chairs, for the use of the 
 
 master and mistress. A. few chairs and benches, with a large din- 
 
 ing-table, were duly ranged round the room. A large Bible and a 
 
 few books lay on a shelf. 
 
 5 85 
 
 '* ^.!i.;i;- ^i"^ 
 
 i'^^;S 
 
 
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 :{ ,.'i 
 
 li i III 
 
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 ifll 
 
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 jf 
 
 
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 66 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 The three daughters of the farmer were under the iustruction 
 of an itinerant tutor, who had been, for several months, an inmate 
 of the family. He could make himself understood in English and 
 French, and appeared fully able to complete the education of such 
 a family as was gathered round him. He was a native of Holland, 
 and had passed the last twenty- nine years of his life in Cape 
 Colony. Teachers of this class are scattered everywhere through- 
 out the South African Republics. Their abilities, in many 
 iustauccs, are too humble to allow of their getting a living in their 
 native land by the same occupation. They generally traverse a 
 great portion of the colonies ; for their usual stay at each house is 
 only from six to twelve months, and in this time they must engage 
 to " finish '' their pupils in what the village school-master called 
 "the three ;.y— reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic.'' 
 
 READY MARKET FOR CATTLE. 
 
 The head of this family employed his farm only in rearing 
 cattle, for the purchase of which he was visited by a " slagterls 
 kuegt" — a butcher's man. This person was commissioned by his 
 euiploycr in Cape Town, to travel into the grazing district, and 
 buy up the number of sheep or oxen he might require, paying, 
 however, not in money, but in small notes of hand, previously 
 signed by his employer, and the validity of which was certified at 
 the fiscal's ofiice. Such notes were considered as good as cash, into 
 which they were converted by the grazier on taking them to town^ 
 or they were sometimes negotiated in payment with his neighbors. 
 
 The inland traffic connected with Cape Town was long carried 
 on with much risk and difficulty, on account of its remote position 
 at the extreme corner of the country, and of the miserable state of 
 the roads by which it was approached. The barrenness and defi- 
 ciency of pasturage in the tract of land lying around the town ex- 
 posed the Boer's or Dutch farmers, trading there to serious incon 
 venience. 
 
 Those residing at a distance of five or six hundred miles, 
 generally made but one journey there in the course of a year. 
 On such occasions, the vehicles which conveyed them had much 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 67 
 
 the appearance of a traveling menagerie ; for, in addition to the 
 principal members of the family, there were poultry, goats, sheep, 
 dogs, monkeys, and other animals. A musket or two, with ammu- 
 nition, were taken, not only to afford means of protection, but also 
 to procure game for subsistence by the way. 
 
 The wagon bearing this motley group, drawn by a team of 
 eight, ten, or even sixteen oxen, with the immoderately long whip 
 of the driver, and the naked figure of a little negro leading the 
 foremost pair, presented to a stranger in the country a novel and 
 iuuusing spectacle. The driving seat was considered an honorable 
 post ; but the office of leading the oxen was looked on as degrading 
 to any but a native. 
 
 Between the capital and the cultivated districts lie the exten- 
 sive plains, commonly called the Cape Downs, which were and are 
 traversed by numberless roads and wheel-tracks in every direction. 
 The soil is composed of loose white sand on a substratum of clay, 
 supporting only a few stunted shrubs and rushes. A few solitary 
 huts are scattered here and there. 
 
 V*sH 
 
 OX TEAMS FROM UP COUNTRY. 
 
 From the general barrenness of the country, the travelers 
 often stop but a single day at Cape Town. After having come the 
 distance of perhaps twenty days' journey, they cross the barren 
 heath already described, and frequently " outspan," as they call it, 
 or unyoke, at Salt River, to be ready to enter the town at day- 
 break the next morning. Thus they are often able to sell their 
 produce, and to make the purchases they require during the day, 
 and immediately set out on their return home. 
 
 Another Boer rejoiced in a more extensive domain. The 
 visitor descended from the ridge of a mountain, by a steep and 
 stony path, tracked out by the hartbeests, elands, and other large 
 game, and followed the rugged course of a solitary brook, or rather 
 torrent, for the greater part of its bed was now dry, until, after a 
 rde of about three hours, he reached the farm of Elands'-drift, in 
 the valley of the Tarka, and the residence of Winsel Koetzer. 
 
 On riding up to the place, consisting of three or four thatched 
 
 
,4 i iH 
 
 U « MANNICRS AND CUSTOMS OV TIIK BOKRS. 
 
 liouscs and a few reed-cabins, inli:i1)ited by the native servants, he 
 was encountered by a host of some twenty or thirty dogs, which 
 had been lying about in tlie shade of the huts, and now started up 
 around him, open-moutlied, with a prodigious barking and clamor, 
 as is generally the case at every farm-house on the approach of 
 strangers. In daylight these growling guardians usually confine 
 themselves to a more noisy demonstration ; but at night it is often 
 a matter of no small peril to approach a farm-house, for many of 
 these animals are both fierce and powerful, and will not hesitate to 
 attack a stranger, if in their eyes, he has the ill-luck to appear in 
 any way suspicious, or is contemplating mischief. 
 
 A MOTHER AND BASHFUL GIRLS. 
 
 The noise of the dogs brought out Arend Koetzer, one of the 
 farmer's sons, from the i)rincipal dwelling-house, a fine, frank 
 young fellow. Seeing the visitor thus beset, he came instantly to 
 his help against the canine rabble, whom he discomfited with great 
 vigor, by hurling at them a few of the half-gnawed bones and bul- 
 locks' horns which were lying in scores about the place. An in- 
 troduction now took place to the young Boer's mother and sisters 
 — a quiet looking matron, and two bashful girls, who appeared 
 from one of the outhouses. " Wil Mynheer aff-zadel ? " (" Will 
 the gentleman unsaddle?") was the first inquiry. The visitor 
 readily agreed, intending, indeed, though it was still early in the 
 afternoon, to spend the night at this farm. 
 
 On entering the house, he found that the old Boer had not yet 
 risen from his afternoon nap, or siesta, a habit which is generally 
 prevalent throughout the colony. He was not long, however, in 
 making his appearance ; and, after shaking hands with a sort of 
 gruif heartiness, he took down a bottle of brandy from a shelf, and 
 urged his visitor to drink a " zoopje " (dram) with him, declaring 
 it was good "brandiwyn," distilled by himself from his own 
 peaches. The spirit, which was colorless, had something of the 
 flavor of bad whisky, but the visitor preferring a cnp of " thee- 
 water," it was in the meantime prepared and poured out for him by 
 the respectable and active-looking dame. 
 
 I ; s 
 
 il'i? 
 
MANNERS AND CUvSTOMS OF THR BOKRS. 
 
 69 
 
 This " tea-water " (properly enough so termed), was made by a 
 decoction, rather than an infusion, of the Chinese leaf, and which, 
 being diluted with a certain proportion of boiling water, without 
 any admixture of milk and sugar, was offered to every visitor who 
 might chance to arrive during the heat of the day. A small tin 
 box with sugar-candy is sometimes handed around with the " tea- 
 water," froiii which each person takes a little bit to keep in his 
 mouth, and thus to sweeten, in frugal fashion, the bitter beverage 
 as he swallows it. 
 
 During this refreshment, the visitor carried on a tolerable fluent 
 conversation, in broken Dutch, with his host and his *' huis-vrouw," 
 and he gratified them not a little by communicating the most recent 
 information he possessed of the state of European politics, respect- 
 ing which old Koetzer was very inquisitive. 
 
 A BARN OF A HOUSE. 
 
 The domicile of this family would not, probably, have sug- 
 gested any ideas of peculiar comfort to an American. It was a 
 house somewhat of the size and appearance of an old-fashioned 
 Scotch barn. The walls were thick, and substantially built of 
 strong adhesive clay; a material which, being well prepared or 
 '* tempered," in the manner of mortar for brick making, and raised 
 in successive layers, soon acquires, in a dry climate, a great degree 
 of hardness, and is considered scarcely inferior in durability to 
 brick. 
 
 These walls, which were about eight or nine feet high, and 
 tolerably smooth and straight, had been plastered over within and 
 without with a composition of sand and cow-dung, and this being 
 well white-washed with a sort of pipe-clay, or with wood-ashes 
 diluted with milk, the whole had a very clean and light appearance. 
 
 The roof was neatly thatched with a species of hard rushes, 
 which are considered much more durable and less apt to catch fire 
 than straw. There was no ceiling under this roof; but the rafters, 
 over- head were hung with a motley assemblage of several sorts of 
 implements and provisions, such as hunting apparatus, " bill- 
 tongue " (that is, dried flesh of various kinds of game), " sjamboks " 
 
 m 
 
 ''i^^M . 
 

 in 
 
 »» 
 
 MANNKRS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 (large whips of rhiiioc-ros and hippopotamus hidt) leopard and 
 lion skins, ostrich eggs and feathers, strings ol ..uions, rolls of 
 tobacco, bamboo for whip handles, calabashes, and a variety of 
 similar articles. A large pile of fine home-made soap graced the 
 top of a j)artition wall. 
 
 The house was divided into three apartments; the one in which 
 they were now seated (called the " voor-huis") opened immediately 
 from the open air, and is the apartment in which the family always 
 sit, eat, and receive visitors. A private room or "slaap-kamer " is 
 formed at either end of this hall, by partitions of the same height 
 and construction as the outer walls running across, and having 
 doors opening out of the sitting-room. 
 
 A PECULIAR FLOOR. 
 
 The floor, which, though made only of clay, appeared uncom- 
 jnonly smooth and hard, was formed of ant-heaps, which, being 
 pounded into dust, and then watered and well stamped, assume a 
 consistency of great hardness and tenacity. The floor was care- 
 fully washed over every morning, in order to keep it cool and free 
 from vermin — especially fleas, which are apt to become an intolei-- 
 able pest in this country. 
 
 This house was lighted by four square windows in front, one 
 in each of the bed-rooms, and two in the " voor-kamer," and by the 
 door, which appeared only to be shut during the night. The door 
 consisted merely of some reeds, rudely fastened on a wicker frame, 
 and fixed to the door-posts by thongs of bullock's hide. The win- 
 dows also were without glass, and were closed in the night, each 
 with the imtanned skin of the quagga, or wild ass. 
 
 The furniture amounted to little more than a dozen of chairs 
 and stools, bottoms formed of thongs, and a couple of tables, one 
 large and roughly constructed of common plank from the " geel- 
 hout " tree, the other small, and more highly finished of ornamental 
 wood. At the smaller table was the station of the old dame, who ^ 
 had before her a brass tea-urn and the other apparatus^ whence she 
 dispensed the beverage already mentioned. Opposite her sat the 
 " baas " (as the Hottentot attendants called their master), with the 
 
MANNlvRS AND CUSTOMS OK TIIK HOICRS. 
 
 fl 
 
 flask of brandiwyn at his elbow, and his long clumsy Dutch tobucco- 
 pipc in his mouth. 
 
 At the further end of the apartment, a couple of wooden pails 
 bound with bright polished hoops of brass, were suspended fniu 
 crooked antelope's horns built into the wall ; these pails were filled 
 with spring-water, and had bowls of calabash affixed to them, in 
 order that whoever was athirst might drink with facility. Sour 
 milk, however, is the favorite beverage in this country; and when 
 that is to be had, no one drinks water. In another corner stood a 
 huge churn, into which the milk is poured every night and morn- 
 ing until it is filled, when it is churned by two negro women. 
 
 In the same end of the hall, part of the carcass of a sheep was 
 suspended from a beam ; two sheep, and sometimes more, being 
 slaughtered for daily consumption ; the native herdsmen and their 
 families, as well as the farmer's own household, being chiefly fed 
 on mutton, at least during summer, when beef could not be salted. 
 The carcasses were hung up in this place, it appeared, chiefly to 
 prevent waste, by being constantly under the eye of the mistress, 
 who, in this country, instead of the ancient Saxon title of " giver 
 of bread " (" levedy," whence our English tiirm of lady), might be 
 appropriately called the " giver of mutton." 
 
 ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD. 
 
 Mutton, and not bread, is here the staff of life ; and they think 
 it no more odd to have a sheep hanging in thp '' voor-huis," than a 
 farmer's wife in America would to have a ham in the smoke-house. 
 At this very period a pound of wheaten bread in this quarter of 
 the colony was six times the value of a pound of animal food. 
 
 In regard to dress, there was nothing very peculiar to remark. 
 That of the females, though in some respects more slovenly, resem- 
 bled a good deal the costume of the lower classes in Europe. The 
 men wore long loose trowsers of sheep or goat-skin, tanned by the 
 servants, and made in the family; a check shirt, a jacket of coarse 
 frieze or cotton, according to the weather, and a broad-brimmed 
 white hat completed the dress. Shoes and stockings appeared not 
 to be essential to either sex, and were seldom worn. 
 
 
 
 ..")«? -iii 
 
 ^) 
 
 Iv'C 
 
 '^M 
 
; 
 
 h i i 
 
 i 
 
 m\ 
 
 72 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 Sandals, however, of a certain kind, called " country shoes," 
 are in common use, the fashion of which appears originally to have 
 been borrowed from the Hottentots. They are made of raw bul- 
 lock's hide, with an upper leather of dressed sheep or goat-skin, 
 much in the same way as the old brogues of the Scottish high- 
 landers. They do not last long, but they are light and easy in dry 
 weather : every man can make his own sandals, and the leather 
 costs little or nothing. 
 
 The visitor, having previously heard that the industrious 
 da^ue, the Juffrouw Koetzer, sometimes manufactured leather 
 dresses for sale, bespoke a traveling jacket of dressed spring- 
 buck skin, the latter to be faced with leopard-fur, the price of 
 which, altogether, was about five dollars. He also purchased the 
 skin of a leopard, which one of the young Koetzers had lately 
 shot, for about a pound of gunpowder. , 
 
 AN INQUISITIVE HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 Old Koetzer and his family, like the old Dutch colonists gen- 
 erally, were extremely inquisitive, asking a great variety of ques- 
 tions, some of them on very trifling matters. Americans are apt 
 to feel annoyed at this practice, but without any sufficient cause. 
 Though it betokens a lack of refinement, it is not at all allied to 
 rudeness or impertinence ; it is simply the result of untutored 
 curiosity in the manners of people living in a wild and thinly 
 inhabited country, to whom the sight of a stranger is a rare 
 event, and by whom news of any description is welcomed with 
 avidity. Instead, therefore, of haughtily or sullenly repelling their 
 advances to mutual confidence, the visitor answers all their ques- 
 tions with good humor, including those that respected his own 
 age, the number, names, and ages of his family and relations, the 
 object and extent of his present journey, and such like. 
 
 In return, he plied them with similar interrogations, to all of 
 which they not only replied with the utmost openness, but seemed 
 highly delighted with his frankness. In this manner he soon 
 learned that his host had eight or ten brothers, all stout frontier 
 graziers like himself, aud all with numerous families. His own 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 73 
 
 |oes. 
 
 family consisted of six sons and as many daughters, several of 
 whom were married, and settled in the neighborhood. Two of his 
 sons, with their wives and families, were now living at this place 
 in cottages adjoining the house. 
 
 The old dame stated that she was herself by birth a Jourdan^ 
 and was descended from one of the French Huguenot families 
 who settled in the colony after the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes. Her father, she said, could speak French ; but she her- 
 self knew no language but Dutch. Her manner and address, 
 however, retained something of French urbanity and politeness, 
 which the Belgian bluntness of her husband rendered the more 
 obvious. 
 
 Having exhausted the usual topics of country chat, the visitor 
 suggested a walk round the premises, and sallied forth, accom- 
 panied by the Boer and his son Arend. They first went to the 
 orchard, which was of considerable extent, and contained a variety 
 of fruit trees, all in a thriving state. The peach-trees, which were 
 now in blossom, were the most numerous ; but there were also 
 abundance of apricot, almond, walnut, apple, pear and plum trees, 
 and whole hedges of figs and pomegranates. 
 
 GROVES OF LEMON AND ORANGE TREES. 
 
 The outward fence, when there was any, consisted of a hedge 
 of quinces. There was also a fine grove of lemon and a few 
 orange trees. The latter required to be sheltered during the 
 winter, until they had attained considerable size, the frost being 
 apt to blight them in this upland valley. All the other fruits 
 were raised with ease : peach trees would bear fruit the third year 
 after the seeds had been put in the ground. From the want of 
 care and skill, however, in grafting, few of the fruits in this part 
 of the colony were of superior sorts, or of delicate flavor. The 
 peaches especially, were but indiflferent ; but as they were chiefly 
 grown for making brandiwyn, or to be used in a dry state, excel- 
 lence of flavor was but little regarded. 
 
 Two mulberry trees, which were planted in front of the house, 
 were large and flourishing, and produced an abundance of fruit. 
 
 M-ii 
 
 '^,jM 
 
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 iV' 
 
 74 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 This was not the wild or white mulberry raised in Europe for feed- 
 ing silk worms ; but the latter sort thrives also very well in diflfer- 
 
 ent parts of the country. 
 
 The garden, if it deserved the name', was very deficient in 
 neatness, but contained a variety of useful vegetables : a large plot 
 of beet root, some beds of very fine cabbages, and plenty of mint, 
 sage, and garlic, catching the eye. Onions were raised in great 
 abundance, and of a quality equal to those of Spain. Pumpkins 
 and melons were cultivated in considerable quantities. The sweet 
 potato is raised here ; but the common ones, though growing well, 
 appeared not to be in nnich request in this part of the colony. 
 Until the arrival of English settlers, indeed, the value of this use- 
 ful root was not generally appreciated by the inhabitants, and the 
 quality of the few they raised was very inferior. 
 
 VINEYARDS OF LUSCIOUS GRAPES. 
 
 Since that period, however, the cultivation of potatoes has 
 greatly extended itself in the eastern districts, and their quality 
 has been so much improved by the seed brought out by the settlers, 
 that they now are scarcely, if at all, inferior to our own; and the 
 prejudices with which the native population, particularly the 
 Hottentots, regarded them, rapidly declined. Adjoining to the 
 garden and orchard was a small, but well-kept vineyard, from which 
 a large produce of very fine grapes was obtained, which, as well as 
 the peaches, are chiefly distilled into brandy for home consumption. 
 
 The whole of the orchard, vineyard, and garden ground^ 
 together with about twenty acres of corn land adjoining, was irri- 
 gated by the waters of a small mountain rill, collected and led 
 down in front of the house by an artificial canal. Without irriga- 
 tion little can be done in this part of the colony ; and though the 
 river Tarka passes only a short distance from the back of the 
 orchard, the channel is here too deep to admit of its water being 
 led out wpon the banks. 
 
 The limited extent, therefore, of from twenty to thirty acres 
 was the whole that could be cultivated on this farm, comprising at 
 least 6,000 acres, exclusive of the waste and inappropriated tracts 
 
 ;:S 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THK BOERS. 
 
 75 
 
 adjv .ning. But this is quite sufficient for the wants of a large 
 family ; the real wealth of the farm, so far as respects marketable 
 commodities, lies in the stocks of herds which are raised on its 
 extensive pastures. This old Winsel himself hinted to his visitor 
 — as, shutting up a gap in the garden hedge with a branch of 
 thorny mimosa, they issued out towards the " kraals " or cattle-folds 
 —the Boer exclaiming in a tone of jocund gratulation, while he 
 pointed to a distant cloud of dust moving up the valley — " Maar 
 daar koomt myn vee ! " (But there come my cattle.) 
 
 LARGE FLOCKS AND HERDS. 
 
 The appearance of the Boer folding his herds and flocks is 
 
 patriarchal and picturesque, and may well recall the words of the 
 
 ancient poet : 
 
 " On came the comely sheep, 
 From feed returning to their pens and folds, 
 And those the kine in multitudes succeed ; 
 One on the other rising to the eye, 
 As watery clouds which in the heavens are seen, 
 Driven by the south or Thracian Boreas ; 
 And numberless along the sky they glide ; 
 Nor cease ; so many doth the powerful blast 
 Speed forward ; and so many, fleece on fleece, 
 Successive rise reflecting varied light. «• " 
 
 So still the herds of kine successive drive 
 A long extended line ; and filled the plain 
 And all the pathways with the coming troop." 
 
 As the Boer and his visitor were now conversing, the clouds of 
 dust which had been observed approaching from three different 
 quarters came nearer, and it was manifest that they were raised by 
 two numerous flocks of sheep and one large herd of cattle. 
 
 First came the wethers, which are reared for the market, and 
 are often driven even down to Cape Town, seven hundred miles 
 distant. These being placed in their proper fold, the flock of ewes, 
 ewe goats, and lambs, was next driven in, and carefully penned in 
 another; those having young ones of tender age being kept 
 separate. And finally, the cattle herd came rushing on pell-mell, 
 and spontaneously assumed their station upon the summit of their 
 
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 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
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 • ^ i 
 
 4P 
 
 guarded mound ; the milch cows only being separated, in order to 
 be tied up to stakes within a small enclosure nearer the houses, 
 where they are milked by the hottentot herdsmen, after their 
 calves, whkh are kept at home, had been permitted to suck for a 
 
 certain period. 
 
 Not one of these cows, it was said, would allow herself to be 
 milked until her calf was first put to her ; if the calf dies, of course 
 there is an end to her milk for that season. This appears to be the 
 effect of habit, and might be remedied by proper management. 
 About thirty cows were milked ; but the quantity obtained from 
 them was very small, not so much as would be got from six or eight 
 American cows. 
 
 The Boer and his wife, with all their sons, daughters, daugh- 
 ters-in-law, and grandchildren, v.'ho were about the place, were 
 assiduously occupied, while the herds and flocks were folding, in 
 examining them as they passed in, and in walking through among 
 them afterwards, to see that all was right. The people thus em- 
 ployed declared that though they do not very frequently count 
 them, yet they know at once whether anj'^ individual ox is missing, 
 or if any accident has happened among the flocks, by which any 
 are lost, from beasts of prey or otherwise. 
 
 FLOCKS OWNED BY WHOLE FAMILY. 
 
 This faculty, though the result, doubtless, of peculiar habits 
 of attention, is certainly very remarkable ; for the herd of cattle at 
 this place amounted altogether to nearly 700 head, and the sheep 
 and goats (which were mingled together) to iipwards of 5,000. This 
 is considered a very respectable, but by no means extraordinary, 
 stock for a Tarka grazier. 
 
 Every individual of an African Boer's family, including even 
 the child at the breast, has an interest in the welfare of the flocks 
 and herds. It is their custom, as soon as a child is born, to set 
 apart for it a certain number of the young live stock, which in- 
 crease as the child grows up ; and which, having a particular mark 
 regularly affixed to them, form, when the owner arrives at adult 
 age, a stock sufficient to be considered a respectable dowry for a 
 
 prosperoi 
 
 he may 1 
 
 spectabh 
 
 On 
 
 the grea 
 
 or twent 
 
 Wfi 
 
 prise 
 ontl 
 of s< 
 fold< 
 
 lee, 
 sim 
 and 
 
 \ 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 77 
 
 prosperous farmer's daughter, or to enable a youug man, tliougli 
 lie may not possess a single dollar of cash, to begin the world re- 
 spectably as a " Vee Boer.'' 
 
 On approaching the cattle kraals, the visitor was struck by 
 the great height of the principal fold, which was elevated fifteen 
 or twenty feet above the level of the adjoining plain, and his sur- 
 
 NATIVE OF SOUTH AFRICA. CAPTURED BY A FEROCIOUS I^EOPARD. 
 
 prise was certainly not diminished when he found that the mound, 
 on the top of which the kraal was constructed, consisted of a mass 
 of solid manure, acccumulated by the cattle of the farm being 
 folded for a succession of years on the same spot. 
 
 The sheep-folds, though not quite so elevated, and under the 
 lee, as it were, of the bullocks' kraal, were also fixed on the top of 
 similar accumulations. The similar folds (for those of the sheep 
 and goats consisted of three divisions) were all fenced in with 
 
 
 ii 1^ ,;r 
 
 
.»! 
 
 1 
 
 I : II 
 
 1111 
 
 If 
 
 M 
 
 
 IS 
 ii 
 
 1 >i 
 
 n 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 branches of the thorny mimosa, which formed a sort of rampart 
 around the margin of the mounds, and were carefully placed with 
 their prickly sides outwards, on purpose to render the enclosures 
 more secure from the nocturnal assaults of the hyenas, tigers, and 
 
 jpckals. 
 
 Against all these ravenous animals, the oxen are, indeed, able 
 to defend themselves; but the hyenas, tigers, and leopards are 
 very destructive to calves, sheep, and goats, when they can break 
 in upon them, which they will sometimes do in spite of the watch- 
 dogs kept for their protection; the cunning jackal is not less de- 
 structive to the lambs and kids. 
 
 FRIGHTENING OFF LOCUSTS. . ' . 
 
 Some travelers, appro iching the residence of a farmer, had 
 their atteniion attracted to a novel sight. Several people were 
 waving white flags in some cultivated ground near the house. On 
 drawing nearer they discovered that this was a method adopted by 
 the farmer and his family to expel an army of locusts that had 
 just alighted on their corn. They had been employed since sun- 
 rise, and it was now towards afternoon, and they described the in- 
 sects as being so numerous, that it would take an hour's ride on 
 horseback to reach the extremity of the ground that they covered. 
 
 No idea can be formed of such countless multitudes, except by 
 those who have actually witnessed them. Their appearance when 
 alighting somewhat resembles a dense crimson cloud, resting on 
 the land, and when they rise up to proceed onward, the air is liter- 
 ally darkened beneath. Every green herb — every blade of grass 
 is destroyed in their course, and in their track there remain nothing- 
 but barrenness and desolation. Still they are turned to some use. 
 Hottentots have been observed feeding fowls with locusts out of a 
 large sack, and it was surprising to see with what voracity they 
 were devoured. Bushmen are particularly partial to locusts, which 
 contribute largely to their subsistence. 
 
 A Boer, of the name of De Clercq, one day riding over his 
 farm, had alighted in a difficult pass, and was leading his horse 
 through the long grass, when a lion suddenly rose up before him, 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 79 
 
 at a few yards' distance. He had in his hand only a light fowling 
 piece, loaded with sings ; and hoping that the lion wonkl give waj', 
 lie, acco'r'ing to the plan always recommended in such emergencies, 
 stood still and confronted him ; bnt the lion, on the contrary, ad- 
 vancing and crouching to spring, he fonnd himself under the neces- 
 sity of firing ; he took a hurried aim at the forehead, but the slugs 
 lodged in the breast, and did not prove instantly mortal. 
 
 The furious animal sprang forward and seized De Clercq on 
 either side with his claws, but at the same time bit his arm almost 
 in two, as he mechanically thrust it forward to save his face. In 
 this position he held him for a few seconds, till his strength failing 
 from loss of blood, the lion tumbled over, dragging the Boer with 
 him in a dying embrace. De Clercq, however, escaped without any 
 serious injury, and before long entirely recovered. 
 
 SEIZED BY A BIG LION. 
 
 Gert, a Boer of the Cradock district, was out hunting with a 
 neighbor. Coming to a fountain, surrounded, as is common, with 
 with tall reeds and rushes, Gert handed his gun to his comrade, 
 and alighted to search for water. But he no sooner approached the 
 fountain, than an enormous lion started up close at his side and 
 seized him by his left arm. 
 
 The Boer, though taken by surprise, stood stock still, without 
 struggling, aware that the least attempt at escape would ensure his 
 instant destruction. The lion also remained motionless, holding 
 fast the Boer's arm in his fangs, but without biting it severely — 
 shutting his eyes at the same time as if he could not withstand the 
 countenance of the victim. As they stood in this position Gert, 
 maintaining his presence of mind, began to beckon his comrade to 
 advance and shoot the lion in the forehead. This might have been 
 easily effected, as the lion still closed his eyes, and Gert's body 
 concealed from his view any object advancing in front of him. 
 
 But the fellow proved a wretch, for instead of complying with 
 Gert's directions or making any attempt to save him, he cautiously 
 retreated to the top of a neighboring rock. As the lion continued 
 quiet Gert continued to beckon for aid ; and lion hunters say that 
 
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 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 if he had persevered a little longer, the lion would have relaxed his 
 hold and left him uninjured. But Gert, indignant at his comrade's 
 pusillanimity, and losing patience with the lion, drew his knife, 
 which he wore sheathed at his side, and with the utmost force of 
 his right arm, plunged it into the lion's breast. 
 
 The thrust was a deadly one, for Gert was a bold and powerful 
 man ; but it did not prove effectual in time to save his own life— 
 for the enraged lion, held at arm's length by the utmost efforts of 
 Gert's strength and desperation, so dreadfully lacerated the breast 
 and arms of the unfortunate man with his claws, that his bare 
 bones were laid open. The lion fell at last from loss of blood, and 
 Gert fell along with him. 
 
 His rascally co'upaniou who had witnessed this fearful struggle 
 from the rock, had now sufficient courage to advauce, and bore 
 poor Gert to the nearest house- -where such aid as the neighbors 
 could give was afforded, but utterly in vain. Gert expired the third 
 day after this most courageous but frightful struggle, of lockjaw. 
 
 A SETTLER'S THRDLiLING ADVENTURE. 
 
 Kupt; one of the settlers, proceeding with several companions 
 on a journey into the country, to obtain some young oxen for the 
 Dutch East India Company, met with the following adventures. 
 On the arrival of the wagons, which were obliged to take a circuit 
 tons route, they pitched their tent a musket-shot from the kraal, 
 and after making the usual arrangements, went to rest. They 
 were, however, soon disturbed ; for about midnight, the cattle and 
 horses, which were standing between the wagons, began to start 
 and run, and one of the drivers to shout, on which every one, with 
 his gun in his hand, ran out of the tent. 
 
 About thirty paces off there stood a lion, which, on seeing 
 them, walked very deliberately about thirty paces further, behind 
 a small thorn-bush, carrying something with him, which Kupt 
 supposed to be a young ox. The south-east wind blew strong, the 
 sky was clear, and the moon shone very bright, so that they could 
 see clearly ; and firing more than sixty shots at that bush, which 
 they stoutly pierced, they could not perceive any movement. 
 
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MANNI'RvS AND CUvSTOMS 0\< Till': HOURS. 
 
 81 
 
 After the cuttle had been quieted again, and they had k)oked 
 carefully around, they missed Sniit, the sentry, from before the tent. 
 They called as loudly as possible, but in vain; nobody answered, 
 and it was then ciincluded that the lion had carried him off. Three 
 or four men then advanced very cautiously to the bush, which 
 stood right opposite the door of the tent, to see if they could dis- 
 cover anything of the man, but returned greatly alarmed, for the 
 lion, who was there still, rose up, and began to roar; they saw too, 
 the musket of the sentry, which was cocked, and also, his cap and 
 slioes. 
 
 As the bush was sixty paces from the tent and only thirty 
 
 from the wagon, and they were able to point at it as a target, they 
 
 fired into it about a hundred shots without perceiving anything of 
 
 the lion, from which they concluded that he was killed, or had nm 
 
 awaj'. This induced Stamansz to go and see if he were there or 
 
 not, taking with him a firebrand. But no sooner did he approach 
 
 tlic bush, than the lion roared terribly and leaped at him ; on which 
 
 lie threw the firebrand at his assailant, and the others having fired 
 
 rd)out ten shots, he retired directly to his former place behind the 
 
 bush. 
 
 FIRING INTO A BURNING BUSH. 
 
 The firebrand had fallen into the midst of the bush, and, 
 favored by the strong south-east wind, it began to burn with a great 
 flame, so that they could see very clearly into and through it. 
 They continued firing into'it ; and as the night passed away and 
 the day began to break, every one was anxious to aim at the lion, 
 as he could not go from thence without exposing himself entirely 
 to their fire. Seven men, posted on the furthest wagons, watched 
 him that they might fire, if he should come out. 
 
 At last, before it became quite light, he walked up the hill , 
 
 with poor Smit in his mouth, when about forty shots were fired at 
 
 him, but, although some were very near,- he escaped unhurt. 
 
 Every time a ball approached him, he turned round towards the 
 
 tent, and roared at his enemies ; and Knpt was of the opinion that 
 
 if he had been hit, he would have rushed on the people and the 
 
 tent. 
 6 
 
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fi'i 
 
 MANNi:uS AND CUSTOMS OK THE BOERS. 
 
 
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 " 
 
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 On the arrival of broad daylight, they saw by the blood, and a 
 piece of the clothes of the man, that the lion had carried away his 
 victim. They also found behind the bush the place where the 
 lion had kept him, and it appeared exceedingly strange that no 
 ball should have struck the lion, as several of them were beaten 
 flat. As it was hoped he might have been wounded and not far 
 off, the pcoi)lc asked Kupt to be allowed to go in search of Smit's 
 corpse, in order to bury it, supposing that by the fire that had been 
 constantly kept up, the lion would not have had time to devour 
 much of it. 
 
 Kupt gave permission to some, on condition that they should 
 take a good party of armed Hottentots with them, and made them 
 promise that they would keep a good lookout, and avoid all un- 
 necessary danger. Seven of the party, assisted by forty-three armed 
 Hottentots, followed the track, and found the liou about half a 
 league further on, lying behind a little bush. 
 
 A TERRIBLE ENCOUNTER. 
 
 On the shout of the Hottentots, he sprang up and ran away, 
 on which they all followed in pursuit. At length, the lion turned 
 round and rushed, roaring terribly amongst the crowd. The peo- 
 ple, fatigued and out of breath with running, fired, but missed him, 
 on which he made directly towards them. Two of the people were 
 now attacked by the lion, when the captain, or chief man of the 
 kraal, threw himself between them and the lion, and that so closely 
 that the claws of the lion were struck into his sheep-skin garment. 
 
 Instantly the lion hunter doffed his mantle and stabbed the 
 lion with his spear ; and the other Hottentots striking into the lion 
 their spears, Kupt says '' he looked like a porcupine." Still lie did 
 not leave off roaring and leaping ; but bit off some of the spears, 
 until Stamansz fired a ball into his eye, which made him turn over 
 and the others shot him dead. This was a very large lion, and had 
 but a short time before devoured a Hottentot whom he had carried 
 off from the kraal. 
 
 On another occasion, the grass was exceedingly tall, and the 
 country abounded in spring-bucks. A Hottentot thought he per- 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF TlIIv BOKRwS. 
 
 arj 
 
 » < >' 
 
 o 
 
 ceived one amidst the grass, and crept closely up to it in order t 
 make sure of his shot, when, on rising to discharge his piece, he 
 found himself close on a large, male lion, which instantly set up a 
 loud roar. 
 
 His own tale, however, was not a little amusing. " I saw," 
 said he, " a spring-buck, which I made sure of having in the pot 
 to-night ; but when I got close to it, I found it to be the Governor. 
 I was just going to fire, when he asked me in a loud tone, * What 
 are you going to do?' ' Oh,' said I, ' I beg your pardon, I did not 
 know it was your honor, or I should not have presumed to draw so 
 near you ; I hope your honor will rot consider it an insult, and I 
 shall instantly retire.' So I scampered away a great deal quicker 
 than I went to him, and made the best of the situation." 
 
 A NARROW ESCAPE. 
 
 Diederik Mnller and his brother Christian were accustomed to 
 hunt in company, and between them killed a large number of lions. 
 They did not achieve this, however, without many hair-breadth 
 escapes, and have more than once saved each other's lives. On one 
 occasion, a lion sprang suddenly on Diederik, from behind a stone 
 wall — bore man and horse to the ground, and was proceeding to finish 
 his career, when Christian galloped up and shot the savage brute 
 through the heart. In this encounter Diederik was so roughly 
 handled that he lost his hearing in one ear — the lion having dug 
 his claws deeply into it. 
 
 When the nightly depredations of a tiger have roused the 
 farmers, the following is the course pursued : The animal is tracked 
 to its lair in the thick underwood, and, when found, attacked by 
 large dogs. If possible, it flies ; but, when unable to escape, makes 
 a desperate defence, raising itself above the assailants by leaping 
 on a bush, and from thence striking them down with its paws as 
 they rush in, and from its great strength and activity, frequently 
 destroying them. But the tiger seems to know its master foe, and 
 should a man approach within the range of its tremendous spring, 
 it at once leaves the dogs and darts upon him, and the struggle is 
 then for life. 
 
 M 
 
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 '^.JSI.^ 
 
84 
 
 MANNIiRS AND CUSTOMvS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 ■■V- '■ 
 
 l?f 
 
 i i 
 
 A native, going out early one morning, to look after cattle, 
 heard his dogs baying at a distance in the jungle, and, on coming 
 up to ascertain the cause, was met by a tiger's spring. The tiger 
 clung, and, seizing him by the nape of his neck, tore the skin off, 
 until the scalp hung over his eyes , but, even in this state of tor- 
 ture the native drew his wood-knife from his belt and stabbed him 
 to tlie heart. In general, the man stands at a distance, waiting his 
 opportunity till he can fire without injuring the dogs, 
 
 FIERCE COMBAT WITH A TIGER. 
 
 Mr. Shaw, the missionary, says: "News was brought one. 
 eveuing, that a horse had been laid hold of by a tiger and partly 
 devoured. The chief gave orders that the hunters should be on the 
 spot at sunrise the next morning. I engaged to accompany them, 
 and took my dog and gun, the Namaquas had their clubs, and all 
 the dogs which they were able to procure. A little terrier having 
 obtained the scent, ran forward till it -:ame to the cavern where the 
 tiger had taken up his abode. It stood at the entrance and barked, 
 not kuowing the kind of game it had been pursuing. The tiger 
 rose, and fixing its eyes on the terrier, it scampered away at its 
 utmost speed. 
 
 " The tiger now stood on the surface of a large sloping rock, 
 and, on seeing the other dogs, he looked angrily at them, and 
 began to grumble, as though he would challenge them to an attack. 
 My own dog and two others instantly accepted the challenge, and 
 a furious contest ensued. It was impossible for me to make use of 
 my gun ; but at this crisis, a native, on seeing that the dogs were 
 faithful to each other, ran and seized the tiger's tail, which he held 
 with all his might. The tiger roared, the dogs became more 
 furious, the men with their clubs approached and beat him on the 
 head ; and thus assailed, he soon groaned his last." 
 
 A resident in the colony, named Bournan, was suddenly 
 'attacked by a tiger, who stuck its claws into his head, aiming at 
 his throat, that he might suck out the blood of the victim. Bour- 
 nan, an athletic and powerful man, wrestling earnestly with his 
 foe, succeeded in throwing the tiger on the ground, where, for a 
 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMvS OF THE BOERS. 
 
 86 
 
 time, he held it down. He soon found, however, that the animal 
 was too strong for him, but when about to give himself up as lost, 
 recollected that he had a knife in his pocket. Instantly taking it 
 out, he pressed with all his might the tiger to the ground, and 
 succeeded in cutting its throat. Bournan was covered with wounds 
 from which the blood during the fearful struggle copiously flowed; 
 but though his life was preserved, it was long before his previous 
 strength was restored. 
 
 The testimony of old Teysho to a traveler entirely corresponded 
 with what he had heard on the same subject from the Boers and 
 Hottentots. The lion, he said, very seldom attacks man if unpro- 
 voked ; but he will frequently approach within a few paces and 
 survey him steadily ; and sometimes he will attempt to get behind 
 him as if he could not stand his look, but was yet desirous of 
 springing upon him unawares. If a person in such circumstances 
 attempts either to fight or fly he incurs the most imminent peril ; 
 but if he has sufficient presence of mind coolly to confront him, 
 the animal will, in almost every instance, retire. 
 
 The power of the human eye is felt by other animals. A 
 British officer in India, having chanced to ramble into a jungle 
 adjoining the encampment, suddenly encountered a royal tiger. 
 The rencounter appeared equally unexpected on both sides, and 
 both parties made a dead halt — earnestly gazing on each other. 
 The officer had no firearms, and was aware that a sword would be 
 no effective defence in a struggle for life with such an antagonist. 
 
 But he had heard that even the Bengal tiger might be some- 
 times checked by looking him firmly in the face. He did so. In 
 a few minutes the tiger, which appeared preparing to make his 
 fatal spring, grew disturbed — slunk aside — and attempted to creep 
 round upon him behind. The officer turned constantly on the tiger 
 — which still continued to shrink from his glance ; — but darting 
 into the thicket and again issuing forth at a different quarter, it 
 persevered for about an hour in this attempt to catch him by sur- 
 prise ; till at last it fairly yielded the contest and left the officer to 
 pursue his walk. The direction he now took, it may easily be 
 believed, was straight to the tents, at double-quick time. 
 
 '■■:H 
 
 ^i'irl. 
 
' v" ' ■ *'i 
 
 •f i 
 
 ifilM' 
 
 si ■ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Great Powers Dividing Africa. 
 
 (5 FhB scramble for Africa among the great nations might well 
 * I be called a modern movement. It was not, indeed, until 
 1884 that Europe turned anything like covetous eyes toward 
 the Dark Continent. Up to that time the controlling powers in 
 Africa were England and France, and even these two great colo- 
 nizers pursued their annexations in a most leisurely fashion. Por- 
 tugal, it is true, possessed some 800,000 square miles in East and 
 West Africa, but her corrupt and feeble administrative policy in all 
 colonial affairs made her practically a dead letter. 
 
 A year previously, too, the German flag had been raised by a 
 German private trader on the coast of Namaqualand, in South-west 
 Africa. It was a small and apparently unpretentious incident at 
 first sight, but it was the thin edge of the wedge. It was the begin- 
 ning of the scramble. 
 
 To go back to the beginning, Africa, when the Roman empire 
 fell into decay, suffered a corresponding relapse. Her fringe of 
 seashore civilization melted away like snow, and the Roman was fol- 
 lowed by the Islamic occupation, which, by the twelfth century, had 
 firmly established itself in the very heart of Northern Africa. 
 Then came the maritime rise of Portugal, and the first visits of her 
 adventurous seamen to the shores of the mysterious Dark Conti- 
 nent. At the end of the eighteenth century, Turkey had invaded 
 the north, the Dutch had landed quietly at the Cape, the French 
 claimed Senegal, and the English owned Gambia and the Guinea 
 coast. 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century, however, Europe found her- 
 self so busy at home, that Africa was for the time being forgotten, 
 and only isolated explorers carried on operations within her 
 borders. Up to 1857, when the heroic Livingstone first appeared 
 on the scene, African exploration had been mainly confined to the 
 
 86 
 
THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 87 
 
 Niger basin. But when Livingstone had once opened the way, 
 Baker, Stanley, Speke, Grant and Burton were not slow to follow. 
 
 Between 1879 and 1883, Stanley had founded what eventually 
 became the Congo Free State, and in so doing awakened the inter- 
 est and the latent animosity of both France and Portugal. Europe 
 woke up with a start, and from that day it was destined that Africa 
 should know no longer what was meant by the ord peace. 
 
 In 1884-5, t^^^ Berlin congress came together, and practically 
 laid down what mighc be called the rules of the game. And a 
 merry game it was — that of slicing up a continent. The spheres 
 of England, France and Germany were nonchalantly decided upon, 
 and the whole continent was roughly blocked out. It was all come 
 by so easily, it was so tremendous in extent, and its possession 
 was so intoxicatingly novel that the different powers said among 
 themselves, with a great deal of magnanimity, that there was 
 plenty of elbow room, and no need for crowding, and so it was not 
 hard to arrive at an understanding. But later, when the actual 
 partition of the continent took place, and the various spheres were 
 delimited and looked into, dissatisfaction began to manifest itself. 
 
 IMMENSE BRITISH POSSESSIONS. 
 
 There was some reason for dissatisfaction. A glance at the 
 ■nap of Africa will show this. British South Africa, in the first 
 place, extends from the Cape to Lake Tanganyika, a distance of 
 1,800 miles. In fact, the whole south coast is British, and with 
 Africa, it must be remembered, the farther you get away from the 
 equator the more valuable the possession. This immense British 
 sphere is bordered on the west by German Southwest Africa, Por- 
 tuguese Guinea and the Congo Free State, while the two Boer 
 republics are shut into the British spheres as enclosures, and will, 
 it now seems apparent, be finally absorbed by the greater power, 
 against whom they have seen fit to take up the sword. The only 
 disputed boundary in this part of Africa is that between the pos- 
 sessions of Great Britain and Portugal. 
 
 All this immense South African British area, covering about 
 1,000,000 square miles of territory, is iu varying degrees of incor- 
 
 i^Aiiil* 
 
 jjii < 
 
38 
 
 THE GREAT POWF-KS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 . ! 
 
 a % 
 
 poration and assimilation by that ever-expanding empire whose 
 center is London. What is not nominally under the protectorate 
 of the British government is practically under the wing of the 
 ' British 'South Africa company, that wonderful business concern 
 which was first organized by two hard-headed old Scotsmen, who 
 saw that an African company might exploit the Dark Continent as 
 the East India company had done with Asia, and as the Hudson 
 Bay Company had done in America. The territories of this 
 African company extend up into the very heart of the continent 
 to-day, and their frontier posts are steadily percolating deeper and 
 deeper into the interior. 
 
 Roughly estimated, the British Empire in Africa embraces 
 2,300,000 square miles, a region equal in extent to all that portion 
 of the United States east of the Rockies. This includes the white 
 man's country of South Africa, with its high table-lands, its 
 diamonds and its gold ; British Central Africa, or Rhodesia ; British 
 East Africa, stretching from the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria, 
 and having within its borders Uganda, " the pearl of Africa," dis- 
 covered by Henry M. Stanley, and now fast developing into a pros- 
 perous and modern community, with merchant and war ships aiding 
 its commerce on the lake and railroads connecting it with the ocean 
 and the interior, all of which promises a bright future. 
 
 MAKES WAR AND PEACE. 
 
 On the west coast is the Niger Territory, holding the mouth 
 of the great water-way of Western Africa, under the control of the 
 British Royal Niger Company, having such absolute sway that it 
 makes war and peace, concludes treaties with the natives and 
 exercises all the attributes of sovereignty under the protecting care 
 of Great Britain. Then there are the minor colonies, the Gold 
 Coast, Sierra Leone, scarcely worth speaking of, as they are relics 
 ] of past greatness during the slave trade days. 
 
 It is in East Africa, however, from the Cape up to the Medi- 
 terranean, that one sees the present imperial sway of the Briton, 
 as well as the potential importance of this new empire. It extends 
 practically in an unbroken sweep from the northernmost to the 
 
THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. $9 
 
 southernmost points of the continent. Egypt continues to be 
 nominally independent, although under the protection of the British 
 flag, with British officials directing Egyptian finances and British 
 officers leading Egyptian armies. 
 
 Essentially, therefore, Egypt is to be regarded as a British 
 sphere of influence, destined to regain her lost colonies. The area 
 of Egypt and the Soudan was not included in the 2,300,000 square 
 miles given as the British Empire in Africa, and if these depend- 
 encies are added the total is brought up to almost 3,000,000 square 
 miles, equal to the area of the United States, not including Alaska. 
 
 VAST AFRICAN EMPIRE. 
 
 A glance at the British possessions in Africa shows how strong 
 the impulse of British statesmen has been to knit together this 
 African empire into one homogeneous whole instead of detached 
 parts. Each part is reaching out to its neighbors. This has been 
 going on until the chance of a " Cairo to the Cape " route, entirely 
 under British control, is no longer a dream. Already the railroad 
 is up to Buluwayo, more than thirteen hundred miles from the 
 Cape, while from the north Kitchener has pushed the railroad even 
 further. 
 
 The Nile and the lakes give added means of transportation. 
 At present there is a gap of less than three hundred miles In the 
 connection of British Central Africa and British East Africa, and 
 with this gap filled the rule of the British Empire will in fact 
 reach from Cairo to the Cape. It will be from Germany or from 
 the Congo Free State that this gap will be made up, either by 
 cession or lease. 
 
 Considering the steady development of this new empire in 
 Africa and the manifold benefits springing from it, it would seem 
 to be a part of this general plan that the Transvaal and the Orange 
 Free State should be absorbed by the larger power. But it may be 
 that these small communities will show a Spartan fortitude and 
 courage which will resist this hitherto irresistible tide of empire. 
 Such a result would be of doubtful value to the world at large, for 
 thus far with empire have come development and progress. 
 
M ■ 
 
 90 
 
 THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 IP J: 
 
 l-K 
 
 The limits of British Hast Africa were arranged by agreement 
 with Germany and Italy, the two contiguous powers. But it is 
 here that France steps in. France has shown a Gallic impetuosity 
 in her annexations. Of England she has always been jealous in 
 Africa, and thereby hangs a tale. 
 
 The territory claimed by France in the Dark Continant covers 
 something like 3,000,000 square miles, or perhaps a little more. 
 By the Anglo-French arrangement of 1890 England very magnani- 
 mously ceded to her European rival all the Sahara desert. Now, the 
 Sahara desert, as Lord Salisbury rather wittily termed it,is "very light 
 so^'l ." The extreme " lightness " of this soil did not dawn on the French 
 mind until after the agreement had been drawn up and settled. 
 Then France ^aw she had been gold-bricked. Algeria and Tunis, 
 of course, she held by right of conquest, but on the northwest she 
 found herself shut off from the coast by Morocco, and also those 
 Spanish possessions known as Rio d'Oro. Deserts under such 
 circumstances are not such desirable possessions, so France realized 
 that, while she was apparently the largest land-owner in all Africa, 
 she was actually possessor of the biggest territorial white elephant 
 ever palmed off on an unsuspecting power. - . - 
 
 FRANCE PUSHING HER CLAIMS. 
 
 It was to make amends for this error that France, "misinter- 
 preting the Berlin agreement, slipped in and occupied Busa, and 
 also dispatched Major Marchand and his expedition to pick up any 
 territorial waifs that might be left lying about beyond Fashoda. 
 The one aim of France has been to have direct access to the lower 
 Niger. In this matter Great Britain seems to have cleverly check- 
 mated her rival and appears to have made up her mind on no 
 account to yield any part of the west bank of the lower Niger to 
 France, notwithstanding the latter's claim, though a disputed one, 
 to certain spots in that vicinity by right of previous occupation. 
 
 France, however, has seized on her share elsewhere. She has 
 Madagascar. It cost her dear, and she is still paying for it, but 
 she has it. From a little to the north of Cape;, Blanco round to 
 the British Gold Coast Colony she possesses a long line of coast, 
 
THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA, 
 
 91 
 
 jeement 
 lit it is 
 
 ^tuosity 
 |lous in 
 
 covers 
 more, 
 lagnani- 
 ow, the 
 Iry light 
 French 
 settled. 
 Tunis, 
 est she 
 those 
 such 
 ■ealized 
 Africa, 
 [ephant 
 
 sinter- 
 ia, and 
 ipauy 
 shoda. 
 lower 
 ^heck- 
 m no 
 rer to 
 I one, 
 n. 
 
 e has 
 :, but 
 id to 
 oast, 
 
 though the same is somewhat interrupted by such foreign patches 
 as British Gambia, Liberia, Portuguese Guinea and Sierra Leone. 
 Tlie whole of tkv. upper Niger above Say is French, and nearly all 
 the country that nestles in the great bend of that river is claimed 
 by her. 
 
 The most threatening bone of contention in this quarter is a 
 patch of land behind the British Gold Coast and German Togoland, 
 made up chiefly of the kingdom of Mossi. Over it flutter both 
 the tricolor and the union jack, though one must give way. Behind 
 Ashanti Great Britain also claims certain territory, and is doing her 
 best to strengthen that claim by as effective an occupation as possible. 
 
 SHARP PRACTICE AGAINST THE NATIVES. 
 
 Belgium occupies a goodly strip of the basin of the Congo. 
 By a convention with Great Britain in 1894 a slice of the west 
 Albert Nyanza shore and a portion of the upper Nile was leased to 
 the Belgians. Since that time, however, pressure from France has 
 cut down the original Belgian claim. It might not be out of place 
 here to add that the rule of both France and Belgium has shown 
 none of that liberality and general idea of fair play toward the 
 native which is associated with English domination. 
 
 In 1895, when France seemed to be menacing the country of 
 the Kalifa, it was declared in the British parliament that any 
 attempt on the part of France to establish herself "on the Nile 
 would be regarded as " an unfriendly act." The French Soudan is 
 defined as that country included in the basins of the Niger and the 
 Senegal west of Togoland, together with that embraced in the 
 northern bend of the river. Like the Niger region, this territory 
 is densely populated and capable of great commercial development. 
 But France, as has already been said, is not satisfied. She declares 
 that the agreements reached between England, Germany and Italy 
 relative to the delimitations of the Egyptian Soudan are not bind- 
 ing upon her, and declines to accept what Great Britain has pointed 
 out as the limit of the French claim on the Soudan's western border. 
 
 This eagerness on the part of France to find a footing on the 
 upper Nile is intimately associated with the presence and the activi- 
 
 ill , , ■'l^'l 
 
 ■■ I 
 
 '"'4li 
 
 
92 
 
 THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 fi 
 
 ties of the English in that district. As all the world knows, this 
 Anglican activity is bitterly resented by France, who realizes that 
 while Egypt is nominally nnder the suzerainty of Turkey, it is 
 really an English dependency. And since the defeat of the kalifa 
 at Omdurman once more gave England control of the lost Egyptian 
 Soudan, France's uneasiness has been in no way allayed. It is for 
 this reason that England, in her war with the South African Repub- 
 lic, finds no sympathizers on the European continent. " She has 
 lived by the sword," say the continental powers, " so let her suffer 
 by the sword." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the French explorers and statesmen 
 seem to have chosen Western Africa as their field of influence, as 
 Britain has chosen Eastern Africa. The total French possessions, 
 free from controversy and dispute with other Powers, now reach 
 the enormous total area of more than 3,000,000 square miles. This 
 includes the flourishing colony of Algeria, on the north, which, 
 like Cape Colony at the other extremity of the continent, is na- 
 turally adapted as a home for the white man. South of this is that 
 vast sweep of country once known as the Desert of Sahara. 
 
 RICHES IN THE DESERT. 
 
 But France has found unknown wealth in these sands. Al- 
 ready a railroad has crossed Algeria and is pushing into this 
 former desert for the purpose of opening up the whole western sec- 
 tion and bringing forth its latent riches. South of the desert 
 France controls the headwaters of the Niger, with its fertile val- 
 leys. Further south is the French Congo, with the Congo River 
 and its valley along the southern border. - 
 
 It was from these western possessions that Marchand pushed 
 forward to Fashoda, while another French expedition, starting 
 from Obok, on the east coast, sought to join hands with him, thus 
 demonstrating to the world that England's dream of a British 
 Africa, inseparable from Cairo to the Cape, was not to be realized. 
 But while these plans were not fully carried out, France has de- 
 veloped her possessions in other directions, until she rightly makes 
 claim of holding first place in the extent of possessions in Africa. 
 
THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 93 
 
 Germany, who may be said to have begun the scramble for 
 Africa, has come off with far less territory than her rivals. It 
 imist be remembered, however, that although she began with a 
 rush, that rush started as late as 1883. Previous to that time she 
 had nothing ; now she has undisputed possession of almost 1,000,000 
 square miles. She began her acquisitions in south-west Africa, 
 where, by arrangement with England, she came into possession of 
 Damaraland and Namaqualand. But it is doubtful if this half 
 desert country can ever be of any practical value. In fact, it would 
 never have been allowed to slip through John Bull's hands were 
 it otherwise. 
 
 Germany's greatest African possession, however, lies in the 
 eastern part of the continent, with British East Africa on its north 
 and Portuguese East Africa on its south. This territory of the 
 Germans includes the southern half of the Victoria Nyanza and a 
 portion of the shore of Lake Tanganyika, with about 400 miles of 
 coast line. Although several efforts have been made to open up 
 this country, Germany does not seem to have the remarkable suc- 
 cess of the British in her colonizing attempts. The vast bulk of 
 the country is little more than an unknown desert. While Ger- 
 many still clings stubbornly to an indefinite claim to territory 
 lying north of Ashanti, it is extremely doubtful that her African 
 possessions will ever materially increase. 
 
 GERMAN EMPIRE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Germany, coming late, took the least desirable desert country, 
 and even the scant possibilities of this have been further weighed 
 down by officialism and militarism, which are the main character- 
 istics of German colonizing, as against the local civil administra- 
 tions which the British and PVench put into force. In West Africa 
 Germany has also set her foot — in the Kameruns, not far from 
 the Niger country, and at Togoland, running from the Gulf of 
 Guinea back to a rich interior. W''^h Germany's industrial awak- 
 ening and her need for new markets this German Empire in Africa 
 is viewed at Berlin as a seat of future greatness. 
 
 At the beginning of the scramble for Africa, Portugal put 
 
 >i'( 
 
 - t^'iy,! 
 
 rrn rf > ,1*. 
 
 'M,s 
 
 M 
 
 '*v. ..J,M 
 
94 
 
 THK GRKAT POWERS DIVIDING AlfRICA. 
 
 I I 
 
 forth tremendous claims for a colonial empire stretching across the 
 continent from Angola to Mozambique. England soon stepped 
 forward and shattered that dream, and to-day the actual jurisdiction 
 of the Portuguese seldom extends beyond a fringe of coast terri- 
 tory. One of her richest possessions, Delagoa Bay, has passed 
 into the hands of the English by purchase, and on the Guinea 
 coast all that remains of her old possessions is a small strip of 
 14,000 square miles south of the Gambia. 
 
 Italy has had much the same luck as Portugal. For many a 
 year she had cast a covetous eye toward Tripoli. France spoiled 
 that scheme by curtly telling her to keep hands off, or there would 
 be trouble. So it was not until 1882 that she took any step toward 
 getting a slice of the continental pie that was going around. 
 Twelve years previously an Italian trading house had obtained the 
 cession of a little spot of land on Assab bay, and here Italy saw 
 the chance for forcing in the usual thin edge of the usual wedge. 
 In a little less than six years she had reached Cape Kasar and had 
 prepared to absorb Abyssinia. It was a sad mistake. She at- 
 tempted more than she could perform, and, after a series of humil- 
 iating disasters, was forced back to her little strip along the Red 
 Sea. She still adheres to a vague claim on Somaliland, but it is 
 doubtful if she will ever be able to establish this claim. 
 
 THE NEGRO AND AMERICAN INDIAN. 
 
 During all these struggles life has gone darkly with the Afri- 
 can. While his eventual fate may be, as scholars and statesmen 
 believe, that of the red Indian in America, it will be a much greater 
 length of time before he will pass away from the continent which 
 the more virile white has wrung and is still wringing from him. 
 But it is only a matter of time, and a very short time, when every 
 mile of Africa will be opened up and every obscure tribe intro'^uced 
 to the railway engine and the advanced ideas and the whisky bottle 
 of the European civilizer. 
 
 When once Cecil Rhodes' dream of a " Cape to Cairo" rail- 
 way is realized and the heart of the Dark Continent is pierced by 
 a lin of steel rails, the greatest work in the transformation of 
 
THE GREAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 95 
 
 Africa will have been accomplished. Christiaiiizatioii, once the 
 wotchword of every power that intruded so sanctimoniously into 
 the jungle of the black, seems to have been quite forgotten in the 
 mad rush for land. 
 
 Just how industrious the different great nations have been in 
 this respect may be gleaned from the following table, in which is 
 given an approximate estimate of the area claimed by the different 
 'powers. France, it will be seen, comes first ; but if the Egyptian 
 Soudan and the other claimed territories of Great Britain be consid- 
 ered as absolutely belonging to that empire, France would be 
 •second in the list of African landlords : 
 
 Hquare niilc!:. 
 
 France ........ 3,300,000 
 
 Great Britain .«.,.. 2,300,000 
 
 Germany 925,000 
 
 Congo Free State .... 900,000 
 
 Portngal 75o.wo 
 
 Italy (including Somali- 
 land) 420,000 
 
 Spain 214,000 
 
 Boer Republics 168,000 
 
 Square miles. 
 
 Abyssinia 195,000 
 
 Morocco 220,000 
 
 Liberia 14,600 
 
 Turkey(Egypt and Tripoli) 800,000 
 
 Mahdi's Territories .... 650,000 
 
 Wadai 150,000 
 
 Unannexed Sahara .... 800,000 
 
 lyakes 68,000 
 
 Total Africa 11,874,600 
 
 TABLE OP DISTANCES. 
 Such figures may serve to demonstrate the magnitude of the 
 Dark Continent. To Americans who are in the habit of thinking 
 of South Africa as an out-of-the-way corner of the world the fol- 
 lowing railway distances will be interesting, if not surprising : 
 
 Cape Town to— Miles. 
 
 Kimberley 647 
 
 Vryburg 774 
 
 Mafeking 870 
 
 Bulawayo 1,360 
 
 Salisbury 1,553 
 
 Bloemfontein 730 
 
 Johannesburg 1,014 
 
 Pretoria 1,040 
 
 Port Elizabeth to— 
 
 Rose mead Junction 243 
 
 Nerval's Pont 329 
 
 Bloemfontein 450 
 
 Viljoen's Drift 628 
 
 Johannesburg 714 
 
 Pretoria 740 
 
 Durban to — Bliles. 
 
 Pietermaritzburg 70 
 
 Lady .smith 189 
 
 Harrismith 245 
 
 Newcastle 268 
 
 Laingsnek 300 
 
 Charlestown 304 
 
 Volksrust 323 
 
 Standerton 330 
 
 Heidelburg 440 
 
 Johannesburg 483 
 
 Pretoria 511 
 
 Delagoa Bay to— ' * ■ 
 
 Kometi Paart . 58 
 
 Pretoria 3T0 
 
 Johannesburg 336 
 
 rMC 
 
 . J,. l'= 
 
 :^'f.K 'M 
 
 '«N4^;!|ih» 
 
THE GRKAT POWIiRS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 ;*■• 
 
 (!> 
 
 m: 
 
 rv 
 
 All of this goes to show that time brings its changes. In tlii- 
 eighteenth centnry the world was bnsy stealing Africans from 
 Africa. In the nineteenth centnry the world is busy stealing 
 Africa from Africans. 
 
 The United vStates has thus far given no attention to territory 
 in Africa, and has permitted the other powers to apportion Africa 
 among themselves as best suited them. Liberia has at times 
 reached out to this coi ntry for help, and an American protectorate 
 has been proposed. H it Liberia is little more than a dot on Africa, 
 having an area of only i2,o(X) square miles. Moreover, it is not 
 a white man's country, for Sierra Leone, alongside, is known as the 
 white man's grave. As a charity, protection might be given to 
 Liberia, but for practical considerations it would be a travesty for 
 the United States to look to that spot as the seat of future Ameri- 
 can effort in Africa. 
 
 PROPORTION OP WHITES AND NATIVES. 
 
 The territory claimed by each of the great powers in Africa 
 affords no estimate of the foreign or native population. For 
 example, the British and Dutch in South Africa, both combined, 
 are everywhere outnumbered by the native element, cliiefiy Kaffirs 
 and Hottentots, but for the purpose of comparison the savage races 
 may be ignored. 
 
 Taking the various political divisions in detail, in Cape Colony 
 the western, that is, the older settled part, is predominantly Dutch. 
 The British form the majority only in the soutt-east, from Algoa 
 Bay eastwards, the diamond mining country about Kimberley, the 
 copper-producing part of Little Namaqua Land, and in Cape 
 Town itself. The south-eastern pro-British portion of the colony 
 is much more progressive and growing in population than the older 
 western portion. The former derives a great deal of trade from 
 the rapidly developing countries lying to the north ; the latter has 
 only deserts on its northern side, and is, therefore, almost entirely 
 dependent on its trade. 
 
 Taking Cape Colony as a whole, the British and Dutch sec- 
 tions are probably in about the ratio of seven to ten. In Natal 
 
THE GRKAT POWERS DIVIDING AFRICA. 
 
 1)7 
 
 111 Ilk! 
 
 IS from 
 
 teal 
 
 iiitr 
 
 -rntorv 
 Africa 
 times 
 pctorate 
 Africa, 
 is not 
 as the 
 ivcii to 
 -"Sty for 
 Anicri- 
 
 Africa 
 1. For 
 iibined, 
 Kaffirs 
 'e races 
 
 Colony 
 Dutch. 
 Algoa 
 -y, the 
 Cape 
 "olony 
 2 older 
 : from 
 2r has 
 tirely 
 
 b sec- 
 Natal 
 
 about five-sixths of the 50,000 whites are estimated to be British. 
 In the extreme northwest, however, there is a small Boer nuijority, 
 a survival of the Great Trek, or emigration of 1836. 
 
 The Orange River Free State and Transvaal republics are, 
 of course, pre-eminently Boer. The small, but relatively densely 
 peopled patch about Johannesburg is the glaring exception, from 
 the existence of which has sprung the whole vexed question 
 The as yet sparsely peopled Rhodesia and Bechuanalaiid are with 
 equal obviousness British, but their white population is too insig- 
 uificaut to play any great part in the solution of the difficulty. 
 
 A COUNTRY FOR THE ANGLO-SAXON. 
 
 Although the whole of South Africa is not under the rule of 
 Great Britain, the English or American emigrant is able to make 
 his home in any part of it, and the English language is commonly 
 used in every town or village, whether in Cape Colony or in Natal, 
 in the Dutch republics or in the Portuguese possessions. 
 
 It appears that the shape and construction of South Africa are 
 of particular, almost of providential, advantage to the Anglo-Saxon 
 of to-day. Had the harbors been more accessible, the roads into 
 the interior easier and more general, the land itself better watered 
 and more readily cultiva*;::»fi[, a country with so genial a climate 
 must, centuries ago, have passed into the hands of other nations, 
 which were at that time much further advanced than ourselves ; or, 
 failing this, must have been so thickly peopled by races native to 
 the soil as to leave no room for colonists from abroad. It needed 
 Anglo-Saxon enterprise to open up this wild country. 
 
 7 
 
 1> \, 
 
 i 
 
 1 1 
 
 ', H)i 
 
:r 
 
 .1 II 
 
 Mil 
 
 i 't 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Wonderful Country of Rhodesia. 
 
 IN 1897 the celebrated explorer, Henry M. Stanley, to whom 
 credit must be given for many of the most important discov- 
 eries ever made in Afiica, visited the southern part of the 
 continent and gathered most valuable information concerning the 
 Transvaal, Orange Free State and other localities that have become 
 well known in the war between the English and Boers. 
 
 Mr. Stanley first visited Rhodesia, a vast territory, under the 
 dominion of Great Britain, and lying north of the Transvaal. 
 Named after Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the most prominent English capi- 
 talist and government official in South Africa. This territory has 
 come prominently into view on account of its vast agricultural and 
 mineral wealth, and the splendid future believed by everybody to 
 av^iit it. We cannot do the reader a greater favor than to permit 
 Mr. Stanley to give, in his own language, his most interesting ac- 
 count of his latest visit to the southern part of the great continent 
 that will hereafter ever be associated with his name. Writing from 
 Bulawayo, the principal town in Rhodesia, he says : 
 
 The exploration and the development of Rhodesia have always 
 been regarded by me with sentimental interest. Every new advance 
 in this region has been hailed by me with infinite satisfaction, and 
 no man regretted more than myself the lapses of the founder and 
 Adniinibtrator in December, 1895, which threatened to involve the 
 whole of South Africa in trouble, and to arrest the progress which 
 had begun. It appeared for a moment as if Rhodes and Jameson 
 had relinquished golden substance for a shadow. 
 
 It is not in human capacity to realize from a far distance the 
 trutk of the rumors which came from here respecting the intrinsic 
 value of the land, and so I came here at a great inconvenience to 
 myself to verify by actual observation what had been repeatedly 
 stated. I have been rewarded for so doing by clear convictions, 
 
 98 
 
WONDERFUt COUNTRV OF RHODESIA. 
 
 99 
 
 which,. though they may be of no great value to others, are very 
 satisfactory to myself, and will forever remain fixed in my mind, 
 despite all contrary assertions. There was a little speech recently 
 delivered by Commandant Van Rensburg, which, perhaps, will be 
 thought by London editors of no importance, but it was most gratify- 
 ing to me, inasmuch as I had become possessed with the same ideas. 
 He said that it was generally supposed that without gold Rhodesia 
 could not exist, but he diflfered from that view, as, he was certain 
 in his own mind, it would remain an important country because 
 of its many agricultural products, its native wood, coal, cement, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 He had come to the conclusion that Rhodesia was as fit for 
 agriculture as any part of South Africa, though he had been rather 
 doubtful of it before he had seen the land with his own eyes. That 
 is precisely my view. It is natural that the large majority of vis- 
 itors who have come here to satisfy themselves about the existence 
 of gold in Rhodesia should pay but little attention to what may be 
 seen on the surface; but those who have done so now know that 
 Rhodesia has a great agricultural future before it. 
 
 GREAT RAILWAY ACHIEVEMENT. 
 
 Several hundreds of men, eminent in divers professions, have 
 come from England, America, the Cape, Orange Free State, Natal, 
 Basuto and Zulu Lands, the Transvaal, Bechuanaland and Northern 
 Rhodesia, to celebrate the railway achievement by which this young 
 colony has become connected with the oldest colony in South Africa. 
 In any other continent the opening of five hundred miles of new 
 railway would be fittingly celebrated by the usual banquet and the 
 after-dinner felicitations of those directly concerned with it ; but in 
 this instance there are six members of the Imperial Parliament, the 
 High Commissioner of the Cape, the Governor of Natal, scores of 
 members of the Colonial Legislatures, and scores of notabilities, 
 leaders of thought and action, bankers, merchants, and clergy from 
 every colony and state in the southern part of this continent. They 
 all felt it to be a great event. 
 
 Few events of the century surpass it in interest -and import- 
 
 ■* ', ■, 1 . 
 
 - "-ft 
 
 1 >'... ,) 
 
V' ; 
 
 
 100 
 
 WONDERFUI, COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 ance. It marks the conclusion of an audacious enterprise, wliich 
 at one time would have been deemed impossible, and later as most 
 unlikely. It furnishes a lesson to all colonizing nations. It 
 teaches methods of operation never practiced before. It suggests 
 large and grand possibilities, completely reforms and alters our 
 judgment with regard to Africa, effaces difficulties that impeded 
 right views, and infuses a belief that, once the political and capi- 
 talist public realizes what the occasion really signifies, this railway 
 is but the precursor of many more in this continent. In fact, we 
 have been publicly told that we are to expect others, and that the 
 railway to the Victoria P'^alls of the Zambesi is the next on the 
 programme, and will soon become a palpable fact. 
 
 RAPID ADVANCE EVERYWHERE. 
 
 The Rudd-Rhodes Concession was granted by Lo Bengula in 
 i888. The Charter to the South Africa Compn^y was given in 
 1889 ; possession of Mashonaland was taken by Jameson and his 
 pioneers on September 12, 1890; Bulawayo was entered in 1893, 
 and thus the Lo Bengula Concession grew to be Rhodesia. But 
 during this brief interval the advance has been so rapid that, 
 though at home people may vaguely believe in it, one has to see 
 the town of Bulawayo and to come in personal contact with its peo- 
 ple to fully comprehend what has been done, and to rightly under- 
 stand the situation. 
 
 With the clearer view gained by a personal visit the huge 
 map in the Stock Exchange, which shows the estates, farms, town- 
 ships, and mines of Rhodesia, becomes an encyclopaedia of informa- 
 tion — the plans of Bulawayo and Salisbury, and other towns which 
 have arisen in Rhodesia, valuable directories. If fresh from an 
 inspection and ^tudy of these you step out and look at the town of 
 Bulawayo, and glance at the country, you begin to share the local 
 knowledge of the inhabitants, see with their eyes, understand on 
 what they base their hopes, and grasp the real meaning of pushing 
 a railway 500 miles to reach a town of 3000 people. 
 
 So that, while at home men were arguing that the Rudd- 
 Rhodes Concession was valueless, and Rhodesia a fraud, the land 
 
 ^vas being 
 
 reefs, shafi 
 
 idea of th€ 
 
 — some sa; 
 
 assured fo 
 
 forts suite 
 
 into existc 
 
 Whil 
 
 of the loc 
 
 such as tl 
 
 tension of 
 
 induced n 
 
 see what 
 
 State lik( 
 
 limits, or 
 
 the heart 
 
 us be cor 
 
 Buh 
 
 miles of 
 
 made ov< 
 
 MossanK 
 
 days fro] 
 
 Coast, w 
 
 from the 
 
 350 mil( 
 
 southen 
 
 by Bula 
 
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 than th^ 
 
 Sonieth 
 
 The va! 
 
 granite, 
 
 lead an 
 
 which 1 
 
WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 101 
 
 was being bought with avidity, prospectors had discovered gold 
 reefs, shafts had been sunk, tunnels h?d been made to get a fair 
 idea of the value of the reefs, a nominal capital of many millions 
 —some saj' twenty millions, some say double that sum — had been 
 assured for operations, towns had been created with all the com- 
 forts suited to new colonists, and the embryo State was fairly started 
 into existence. 
 
 While being instructed in the hopes and ambitions of several 
 of the local people, my knowledge of how other young countries, 
 such as the States, Canada, Australia, had been afifected by the ex- 
 tension of the railway into parts as thinly inhabited as Rhodesia, 
 induced me to cast my glance far beyond Rhodesia, that I might 
 see what was likely to be its destiny, whether it was to be a Free 
 State like Orange, self-sufficient and complacent within its own 
 limits, or broadly ambitious like Illinois State, of which Chicago is 
 the heart. Assuming that the energy which has already astonished 
 us be continued, there are enormous possibilities in view. 
 
 A COMMERCIAL CENTRE. 
 
 Bulawayo is 1360 miles from Cape Town, but it is only 1300 
 miles of land travel from Cairo, for the rest of the distance may be 
 made over deep lakes and navigable rivers ; it is but 1300 miles to 
 Mossamedes, in Angola, which would bring the town within fifteen 
 days from London ; it is only 450 miles from Beira, on the East 
 Coast, which would give it another port of entry open to commerce 
 from the Suez Canal, India, Australia, and New Zealand ; it is but 
 350 miles from N'gami ; it must tap British Central Africa and the 
 southern parts of the Congo State. That is the position acquired 
 by Bulawayo by the railway from Cape Town. 
 
 Chicago, less than 60 years ago, had far less pretensions 
 than this town, and yet its population now runs into the millions. 
 Something of what Chicago has become Bulawayo may aspire to. 
 The vast coal fields to which the new railway is to run, the stone, 
 granite, sandstone, trachyte, the woods, minerals, gold, copper, 
 lead and iron, the enormous agricultural area, are valuable assets? 
 which must nourish it to an equal destiny. 
 
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 .*!*..i#ilHl V 
 
102 
 
 WONDERFUI. COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 i i 
 
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 lii 
 
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 Then the Victoria Falls, larger than Niagara, what mighty 
 electrical power lies stoied there! I merely mention these things 
 haphazard with the view of assisting my readers to understand 
 the significance of these festivities. Many men will think and 
 meditate on them, nnd new confidence, courage and energy will be 
 begotten ^o stimulate them to greater designs and larger effort. 
 
 But liow does the scene at Bulawayo affect the political world ? 
 It seems to me to have great importance for all South African and 
 British politicians for the way it affects Germany, Portugal, the 
 Cong* Free State and Cape Colony. It will cause people to revise 
 their opinions, and to clear their minds of all previous policies. 
 Any influence that Germany may have hoped to exercise on South 
 African politics has received a check by the insuperable barrier 
 that has been created by those slender lines of steel between its 
 South- West African Colony and the Dutch Republics. The Bech- 
 uana Crown Colony and Protectorate, through which they run, 
 must receive a percentage c( all immigrants to Rhodesia. 
 
 RIVALS OF THE GERMAN COLONY. 
 
 These last two are far in advance of the German Colony, and 
 each day must see them strengthened, so that they will become 
 formidable obstacles in the way of German aspirations. These 
 colonies, lying along the length of the western frontier of the 
 Transvaal State, are four times larger than the Transvaal, and 
 their grand stock-raising areas and agricultural plains having now 
 become easily accessible, cannot remain long unoccupied. I fancy, 
 therefore, that the ambition of Germany to rival England's claims 
 to the paramountcy will become wholly extinguished now, and that 
 her thinkers, like wise men, will prepare their minds for the new 
 problems which must be met in a not remote future. 
 
 The populating of Rhodesia by mixed races of whites of a 
 superior order to any near it must exercise the Portuguese, whose 
 territory lies between Rhodesia and the Indian Ocean. The iron 
 road leading to it cannot be closed The future of the country is 
 no longer doubtful. We have tested its climate ourselves ; we have 
 heard the general conviction that these lofty plains, 4500 feet above 
 
WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 103 
 
 the sea, suit the constitution of the white race ; we have seen a 
 huudred English children going from Bulawayo to a picnic to cele- 
 brate the arrival of the railway, and assuredly that would have 
 been impossible on a tropical day in any other tropical country I 
 know of. We have seen scores of infants on the streets, in the 
 suburbs, on the plains outside, in arms and in perambulators, and 
 they all looked thriving, pink and happy. 
 
 The market of Bulawayo each day shows us English vege- 
 tables fresh from the garden. We have seen specimens of the 
 cereals. Well, then, it appears to me certain that there will be a 
 masterful population in this country before long, which it would 
 be the height of unwisdom to vex overmuch with obsolete ordi- 
 nances and by-laws such as obtain in Portuguese Africa, and bur- 
 densome taxes and rates on the traffic that must arise as this 
 country grows in wealth and population. 
 
 POSSESSIONS OP PORTUGAL. 
 
 It may be hoped that intelligent Portuguese will do all in their 
 power to promote concord and good feeling with their neighbor, to 
 check refractory chiefs from doing anything to disturb the peace, 
 for nothing could make the people of Rhodesia more restless than 
 interruption to traffic, and a sense of insecurity. If they do that 
 the Portuguese territory must become enriched by the neighbor- 
 hood of Rhodesia. 
 
 The Congo State v/i]l doubtless recognize its profit by the 
 advent of the railway to Bulawayo and the extension of the line 
 towards its southern borders, and the arrangements of the govern- 
 ment will be such as to ensure respect for boundaries and to teach 
 the native tribes that transgression of such will be dangerous. 
 
 The British Government have a valuable object lesson for the 
 development of African colonics. For over two hundred years the 
 W est African colonies have been stagnating for lack of such means 
 of communication. They have been unable to utilize their re- 
 sources. Their natural pretensions to the hinterlands have been 
 greviously curtailed, and what ought to have been British is now 
 French. Nyasaland has also too long suffered from Imperial pa:- 
 
 
 
 
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 '.' M 
 
 104 
 
 WONDKRFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 simony. The function of government should comprise something 
 more than police duty or the collection of taxes. 
 
 The removal of causes injurious to health and life, and the 
 establishment of communication as required by circumstances of 
 climate, and needful to augment commerce, are just as urgent as 
 the prevention of lawlessness and the collection of imposts. The 
 cjlimate of Nyasaland has slain more valuable men than the assegais 
 of the Angoni. Against the latter the government sent their Sikhs; 
 against the former they have done nothing. Many of the sick 
 colonists might have been saved, if, when weakened by anaemia, a 
 little railway past the vShire Rapids had taken them quicklj through 
 the malarious land to a more healthful locality. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF RAPID TRANSIT. 
 
 If it be worth while to retain and arl minister Nyasaland, it is 
 surely worth while to supply the population with certain means to 
 send the fruits of their industry to the world's markets, and to 
 enable them to receive the necessaries, of existence without endan- 
 gering their lives in the eifort of riskinr; the loss of their goods. 
 Therefore, toa government that has shown such dread of constructing 
 an insignificant railway a hundred miles in length, the enterprise 
 of the Chartered Company in constructing one five hundred miles 
 long — and starting immediately upon an extension two hundred 
 and twenty miles — at the cost -^f one and three-quarter millions, 
 must be exceedingly stimulaLi. The antique and barbarous 
 method of porterage should be abolished in every British colony, 
 more especially in tropical colonies, where exposure to sun and 
 rain means death to white and black. 
 
 To the South African Republic it is vitally important to weigh 
 well in what manner the Bulawayo railway will aflfect her future, 
 The republic will soon be surrounded by a rampart of steel on 
 threi sides and alien land and ocean on the other. From Beira, 
 north of the republic, a railway will run west to Salisbury, and 
 thence south to Bulawayo and the Cape 
 
 With two ways of ingress from the sea a country like Rhode- 
 sia — with as good a climate as the Transvaal State, with resources 
 
WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 106 
 
 whicli tend to rapid prosperity, enjoying impartial and liberal laws, 
 just and pure administration, opening its arms widely to the whole 
 world without regard to race, blessed with ample domains and 
 suited to the needs of all classes — must necessarily prove more at- 
 tractive to all people in search of homes, than a country which 
 only favors Dutch burghers ; and Rhodesia therefore bids fair in 
 a few years to overtake the Republic in population, and even to 
 surpass it. The Boers do not avail themselves of the advantages 
 of their position to that fulness which would make it doubtful 
 whether Rhodesia or the Transvaal offered the most inducements 
 to intending settlers for making a permanent home. 
 
 TRYING TO MONOPOLIZE THE COUNTRY. 
 
 On the contrary, the common report is that the object of the 
 Boers is to restrict population and reserve the State for Boer 
 progeny. If true, the attempt to suppress population and growth 
 by restrictions, monopolies, and vexatious ordinances is simple 
 imbecility, as compared to the Chartered Company's policy of 
 stimulating commerce by giving free rein to enterprise, and keep- 
 ing the paths and gates to its territory freely open to all comers. 
 If there is an intelligent man in the Transvaal, it must be clear to 
 him that the Republic must soon lose the rank among South 
 African States to which she was entitled by her wonderful re- 
 sources and undoubted advantages ; and the only thing that can 
 save her from degradation, neglect, and financial difficulties, is the 
 absorption of that alien population which crowds her cities and 
 clamors for political rights. 
 
 Cape Colony, though much is due to it for its support of the 
 Bechuana railway, is not wholly free from the blame of inertness 
 in the past. One cannot look at the map of Africa and miss see- 
 ing that extraordinary territory labeled German close to Cape 
 Colony, without being reminded of the obtuseness shown by the 
 Cape democracy. But the Germans are a great nation, rich, com- 
 merce-loving, and enterprising, and the Cape j^cople need to be 
 warned, considering that they are largely mixed up with Dutch 
 Boers, who are slow to move and sadly behind the times. If the 
 
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 *4.*i.>li: 
 
106 
 
 WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 ! ; 
 
 I .'I 
 
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 M^ mi . 
 
 Germans chose to invest $20,000,000 in railways from tlie month 
 of the Swakop to the banks of the Orange, they would be formida- 
 ble competitors for the trade of Bechnanaland and the north of the 
 colony, and Swakop is three days nearer Europe than Table Bay. 
 
 The railways in America created cities and filled the wastes 
 with settlers, and every new settler was supposed to be worth 
 $1,000 to the nation ; and in this country there is a mile of railway , 
 to every twenty square miles of country. The Cape has but a mile 
 of railway to every 1 1 2 square miles. The railways should spread 
 out like a fan from Cape Town. The existing lines require straight- 
 ening greatly. 
 
 It is not good policy that the line to Natal should run through 
 alien States, nor is it conducive to the development of the Colony. 
 Some railways may not show large dividends, but they are indis- 
 pensable to development and communication: they give value to 
 acres which otherwise would be worthless, and indirectly contribute 
 to revenue in other ways than by dividends. Hence Cape Colony 
 may learn a good deal from this new railway. 
 
 APPEARANCE OP THE TOWN. 
 
 I think I have said enough to illustrate the position in which 
 Bulawayo has been placed by the arrival of the railway. At pres- 
 ent its broad avenues and streets give one an idea that it has made 
 too much of itself When the avenues are about 90 feet wide and 
 the streets 130 feet wide, naturally the corrugated iron one-storied 
 cottages and the one-storied brick buildings appear very diminu- 
 tive ; and the truth is that, were the streets of proportionate width 
 to the height of the buildings, the town would appear very small. 
 The plain upon which it stands gives an idea of infinity that ren- 
 ders poor one-storied Bulawayo very finite-looking indeed. 
 
 The town, however, has laid itself out for future greatness, and 
 the designers of it have been wise. Winnipeg, in Manitoba, which 1 
 Bulawayo reminds me of by the surrounding plain, was laid out on 
 just such a spacious plan; but ten years later six-storied buildings 
 usurped the place of the isolated iron hut and cottage, and the 
 streets were- seen to be no whit too wide. Ten years hence Bula- 
 
 wayo will 
 trams rur 
 be no sen; 
 
 On 
 and eleva 
 for. The 
 architect! 
 perhaps, 
 it is not 
 fashion, 
 years th( 
 
 s 
 
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 park. 
 
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 about £ 
 
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 them 
 
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WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 107 
 
 •wayo will aspire higher towards the sky, and when the electric 
 trams run in double lines, between rows of shade trees, there will 
 be no sense of disproportion between buildings and streets. 
 
 On the walls of the Stock Exchange I found hanging plans 
 and elevations of the brick and stone buildings already contracted 
 for. They are not to be very lofty, none over two stories, but 
 architecturally they are most attractive. These new buildings will, 
 perhaps, stand for about five years, for, according to my experience, 
 it is not until the tenth year that the double story becomes the 
 fashion. At the twentieth year begins the triple story ; at thirty 
 years the fourth stor}?^ begins to appear. 
 
 ORANGE TREES AND FLOWERS. 
 
 East of the town area devoted to commerce is a broad strip of 
 park. It occupies a gentle hollow in the plain, watered by a 
 crooked ditch, called spruit here, running through a rich, dark, and 
 very thirsty earth. It contains a few puddles here and there along 
 its course. Only a portion of the park is laid out as yet, and that 
 has been well and carefully done. Its plots contain a few hundreds 
 of grape vines, which look like currant bushes. There are also 
 about a hundred very young orange trees, a few flowers, shrubs, 
 etc. A stone column to the memory of Captain Lendy occupies 
 an eminence in it. 
 
 Thf^ whole park has a sombre appearance, owing to the dark 
 soil and ironstone freely sprinkling it. But as the bushes, shrubs, 
 and flowers have only been lately planted, and as around the forcing 
 houses there is a large number of young plants in tins and pots, 
 soon to be transplanted, a couple of years will make an immense 
 difference in the appearance of the place. 
 
 From various people I have learned that the average estimate 
 of the population of Bulawayo is 3000 whites, one-fifth of whom 
 are women and children. There are several hotels, but none of 
 them are fit for ladies, and scarcely for gentlemen. The noise aijd 
 clatter at these forbid sleep, except between midnight and 5 A. M. The 
 food is somewhat coarse, but plentiful ; the tea and coffee such as 
 one may obtain on a Cape liner — that is, too strong an infusion of 
 
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108 
 
 WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
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 one, and a watery decoction of the other. The cooks evidently are 
 common ship-cooks, as one may gather by the way they boil pota- 
 toes and cabbages. Tlie bread is good, the butter is tolerable, the 
 meat is like leather. The waiters, though civil and willing enough, 
 are awkward and new to their work. 
 
 There are seven churches- -the Wesleyan, Congregational, 
 Church of England, Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian and Roman 
 Catholic, and one Temperance Hall. There is, of course, a jail, a 
 fire brigade and police station. In the jail are several prisoners, 
 white and black. The crimes of the whites have been burglary, 
 theft and drunkenness. Among the blacks are fourteen prisoners 
 under sentence of death for various crimes. 
 
 POOR WATER SUPPLY. 
 
 The railway station is fairly adapted for its purpose, though 
 its construction was necessarily rapid. The settling reservoirs, fed 
 by pipes from the dams, are not far from it ; but I fear that they 
 will be of little use, as the soil is too porous. A coating of cement 
 would make them effective, but the general opinion is that cement 
 would be too costly. 
 
 The great defect of Bulawayo is the smallness of the water 
 supply and the badness of it. At present the inhabitants depend 
 on wells, and .water is easily obtainable at 30 and 40 feet, but the 
 water is of a hard and indifferent quality. Up on one stream, 
 about two and a half miles from the town, there have been con- 
 structed three dams of different lengths and varying heights. No. 
 I dam is the nearest to Bulawayo, and has a solid stone and cement 
 core starting from the bedrock 10 feet wide, and decreasing by set- 
 backs of 6 inches to a width of 2 feet at the top. No. 2 dam has 
 a puddled core of clay faced with stone, and No. 3 is of similar 
 construction. In April these dams were full and overflowing, but. 
 unfortunately, through bad construction and want of care, there 
 were several leaks, and it is now decided to demolish two of the 
 dams and rebuild them. Nos. 2 and 3 are quite fit to retain the 
 water catchment. The estimated s orage of water by the three 
 dams is calculated to be between 40 and 45 million gallons. A 
 
 fourth da 
 increase t 
 
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 but a fev 
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 so porouj 
 that the 
 the art o 
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 20,000, i 
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WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 109 
 
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 fourth dam, about to be erected, will, it is thought, considerably 
 increase the storage. 
 
 We have had four copious showers of rain since our arrival, 
 Init a few hours later the spruits, gullies and water-courses were 
 almost waterless, the streets showing scarcely a trace of the rain, 
 so porous and thirsty is the soil. Daily it becomes apparent to me 
 that the inhabitants of Bulawayo should lose no time in studying 
 the art of water conservation. In a country jnst within the tropics 
 an abundant supply of water is essential, and thirty gallons per 
 head per day would not be excessive. 
 
 Ten thousand inhabitants should be able to command 300,000 
 gallons daily, but Bulawayo within twenty years will have probably 
 20,000, and there is no river between here and Kliama's country 
 that could supply 600,000 gallons daily. Numbers of little water- 
 sheds may be drained into reservoirs, but if I were a citizen of 
 Bulawayo my anxiety would be mainly on the subject of water. 
 The water question is not at all an insoluble one, because, for the 
 matter of that, Bulawayo will have always the Zambesi tributaries 
 to fall back upon, especially the Guay River. 
 
 A FINE AVENUE. 
 
 At the north end of the town we came to a gate leading to an 
 avenue which ran perfectly straight for two miles and a half. The 
 carriage road, which it is intended to macadamize, is about 30 feet 
 wide, and running parallel with it on either side is an inclosure 50 
 feet wide, to be planted with shade trees. Thus the avenue em- 
 braces a width of about 130 feet. At the extremity of it is the 
 Government House, standing in grounds which four years before 
 were occupied by Lo Bengula's kraal. We were all curious to see 
 the place, and one of the first objects shown to us was the small tree 
 under which the Matabele king dispensed his bloody judgments. 
 
 Here is a description of the place from " Zambesia :" The 
 King's capital stands upon a ridge on the northern side of the 
 Bulawayo River, in a most commanding position, overlooking as it 
 does the entire country round. Every yard of the ground was 
 covered with manure, layer after layer ; the whole place was filthily 
 
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 WONDERFUI, COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 dirty. The King used to sit on a block of wood in the middle of 
 a great pole stockade, surrounded by sheep and goats. 
 
 The first sentence is most misleading, though not inaccurate. 
 The kraal stood upon the same level as the plain of New Bulawayo; 
 but the " Bulawayo River "—a dry watercourse most of the year — 
 has scoured out a broad hollow to a depth of about 20 feet in the 
 plain, and, as the kraal was seated on the brow above it, it enables 
 one to have a view of a circle of about fifteen miles in diameter, 
 within which are probably three or four of these long, broad swells 
 of plain land. 
 
 Government House is a long, low, white-washed house, 
 in Dutch Colonial style, with a pillared verandah outside. 
 It is the property of Mr. Rhodes, as well as the avenue just 
 mentioned. I am told he possesses about eighty square miles 
 altogether hereabouts, and by the way he is developing his estates, 
 it will some day be a beautiful as well as valuable property. 
 
 FOREMOST MAN IN SOUTH AFRICA 1 
 
 This reminds me that I have not once mentioned Rhodes, 
 though when describing Rhodesia one ought not to omit his name; 
 but the fact is he has preferred to remain in the country rather than 
 undergo the fatigue of the banquets and ceremonies. From Cape 
 Town here. many men have spoken of him to me, and always with 
 unqualified admiration. I know no man who occupies such a place 
 in men's thoughts. His absence has given rise to all kinds of con- 
 jectures as to the cause of it. Some say it is due to the fact that 
 the Cape elections are approaching, and lie did not wis*h to be forced 
 to a pronouncement of policy ; others that it is due to Dr. Jameson's 
 zealous care of his health, as he suifers from heart complaint; others 
 again say it is due to a wounded spirit, which too long grieving 
 might easily end in a Timonian moroseness. 
 
 Whatever the true cause may be, he has so planted himself in 
 the affections of the people that no eccentricity of his can detract 
 from his merits. When a man scatters ^1,000,000 a year on the 
 country out of which he made his wealth, it covers a multitude of 
 sins in the minds of the recipients of his gratuitous favors. 
 
 Weh 
 ment of tl 
 caused by 
 after our 
 chinery tl 
 drawn by 
 and those 
 hence we 
 have pro^ 
 
WONDERFUI. COUNTRY OF RHODESIA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 leof 
 
 " He does mad and fantastic execution • 
 
 Engaging and redeeming of himself, 
 With such a careless face and forceless care, . , 
 
 As if that luck, in very spite of cunning. 
 Bade him win all." - " 
 
 We have seen wliat Bulawayo is as it terminated the employ- 
 ment of the ox-wagon, and had just emerged out of the sore troubles 
 caused by war, famine and rinderpest. The next train that arrives 
 after our departure will be the beginning of a new era. The ma- 
 chinery that litters the road will be brought up, and the ox-wagons 
 drawn by fourteen oxen, and the wagons drawn by twelve mules, 
 and those drawn by twenty donkeys, will haul it to the mines, and 
 hence we may hope at the end of a year or so that Rhodesia will 
 have proved by its gold output its intrinsic value as a gold field. - 
 
 I .'. 
 
 fl-^l 
 
 •> 
 
 ^^ 
 
 i^;^4 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 l! 
 
 . Vast Stores of Natural Wealth. 
 
 |R. STANLEY furnishes the following graphic description 
 of Rhodesia and its timbers and mines : It is fitting to 
 ask, What is Rhodesia, about which so much has been 
 said and written? What are its prospects? I cannot help but 
 wish I were more qualified by local and technical knowledge to 
 describe the country ; but as I have been at some trouble in solicit- 
 ing the judgment of experienced men, conscientiously weighing 
 the merits of what was told me, and carefully considering what I 
 have personally seen, I can only hope the following summary may 
 have some value to those interested in Rhodesia. 
 
 I have been asked by my fellow-guests at Bulawayo how the 
 face of the country appeared as compared with the tropical regions 
 further north with which I am more familiar. With regard to the 
 superficial aspect of Rhodesia, I see but little difference between it 
 and East Central Africa, and the southern portion of the Congo 
 basin. Indeed, I am much struck with the uniformity of inner 
 Africa on the whole. Except in the neighborhood of the g^eai 
 lakes, which mark the results of volcanic action, where great sub- 
 sidences have occurred, and the great plains have been wrinkled 
 up or heaved into mountains of great height, the body of Inner 
 Africa away from the coasts is very much alike. 
 
 The main difference is due to latitude. From the Cape Penin- 
 sula to north of Salisbury, or the Victoria Falls, the whole country 
 is one continuous plain country. Between the tops of the highest 
 hills and the highest grassy ridge in t le Transvaal the difference 
 of altitude seems solely due to the action of the rain. T the Zam- 
 besi basin you have a great shallow basin, and directly you cross 
 the river and travel northward the ascent is being made to reach 
 the crest of the watershed between the Zambesi and the Congo, 
 which is but little higher than the highest ridge of Salisbury. 
 
 / 
 

 DUNCAN STUART 
 CAPTAIN B COMPANYi CANADIAN CONTINGENT FOR THE TRANSVAAL 
 
MAP SHOWING POSITION OF NATAL WITH RELATION TO 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE FREE STATE 
 
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 SUPPLYING THE BOERS IN THE TRANSVAAL WITH AMMUNITION 
 
)N 
 
 THE NATIVE POLICE OF NATAL 
 
 THEY ARE THE MOST INTERESTING CHARACTERS IN SOUTH AFRICA. THE WORK THEY HAVE 
 
 TO PERFORM IS TO KEEP THE NATIVES STRAIGHT AND THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED 
 
 TO ARREST THE WHITES. THEY TAKE MUCH PRIDE IN THEIR UNIFORMS 
 
 
 ^H ! 
 
 
Di ' 
 
 PRESIDENT KRUGER PREACHING AT PRETORIA 
 
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 Africa, ai 
 
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 how th 
 
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VAST STORES OF NATURAL WEALTH. 
 
 113 
 
 From thence a gradual descent is made to reach the central 
 depression of the Congo basin. Northward of the Congo water- 
 shed, you gain the average altitudes of the grassy ridges of South 
 Africa, and then begin a descent into the basin of the Tchad lake, 
 and from thence to the Mediterranean the same system of great 
 land waves rolling and subsiding continues. 
 
 Latitude — and I might say altitude — however, changes the 
 appearance of the land. Rarely on the tableland of Equatorial 
 Africa do we see the scrub and thorn trees of South Africa. The 
 vegetation there is more robust, the trees taller, the leafage thicker 
 and of a darker green ; the mere grasses of the tropics are taller 
 than the trees, growing on the plains of Cape Colony, Bechuana- 
 land and Rhodesia, though in the latter country there are oases 
 favorable to the growth of noble timber.- In nitrous belts — fortu- 
 nately of no great width — in Ugogo, Nyasaland, East Africa, we 
 should be reminded of the thorny productions of Bechuanaland, 
 and ten degrees north of the equator we should again see a recur' 
 rence of them, but this happens only in detached portions, 
 
 GROWING THRIFT AND LUXURIANCE. 
 
 It must have struck even the most unobservant of our guests 
 how the land improved as we traveled northward. How the 
 ungrateful looking Karroo of Cape Colony was presently followed 
 by expansive plains covered with dwarf shrubs ; how the plains 
 became more promising after we passed the Hart river ; how the 
 rolling grassy prairie-like country of Southern Bechuana was fol- 
 lowed by the acacias and mimosas of Northern Bechuana ; and how 
 as we neared Rhodesia these trees in a few hours of travel rose 
 from ten feet to twenty feet in height ; how the land became more 
 compact, and lost much of its loose porous texture, and conse- 
 cncntly the grasses were higher, and water might be found at a 
 / lesser depth. 
 I That improvement, I am told, continues as we go northward 
 
 I towards Salisbury, even though we may keep on a somewhat uni- 
 I form level, that is on the tableland separp.ting the river flowing 
 • * ^eastward, south to the Limpopo and nortji-west to the Zambesi. 
 
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 114 
 
 VAST STORES OF NATURAL WEALTH. 
 
 So rapid is the effect of a lower altitude, and consequent greater 
 heat and moisture, that about eighty miles from Bulawayo to the 
 north-west, a magnificent forest of teak has been found, from 
 whose grand timber we saw several specimens of furniture, such as 
 tables, desks and bureaus, a log of twenty feet length and a foot 
 square, besides a quantity of planks. 
 
 Now this Rhodesia consists of Matabeleland and Mashona- 
 land, and covers about a quarter of a million square miles. It is the 
 northern portion of the Great South African tableland, and its high- 
 est elevations run northeast and southwest, varying from 4000 to 
 nearly 6cxx> feet above the sea. This height declines on the east- 
 ern, southern, and northwestern sides, as it slopes along with the 
 rivers flowing from them. This high land, which is eminently 
 suitable for European families, is about 70,000 square miles in ex- 
 tent, of solid, unbroken agricultural country as compared with 
 Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Those who remember what coun- 
 tries of similar superficial area in Europe can contain in population 
 may be able to gauge what numbers of the white race may exist 
 in Rhodesia. Here is room for an empire. 
 
 MALARIOUS DISTRICTS MADE HEALTHY. 
 
 Outside the limit I have mentioned the resident must expect 
 to be afflicted with malarial fevers, and the lower one descends 
 towards the sea, the more frequent and severe will they become. 
 There is this comfort, however, that long before the upper plateau 
 is over-populated, population will have made a large portion of the 
 malarious districts healthy and inhabitable — at least, it has been so 
 found in every land that I have visited. 
 
 On the upper lands, the resident who has come by way of the 
 Cape and Bechuanaland need have no fear of malaria, I regard 
 my own oft tried system as a pretty sure indicator of the existence 
 of malaria, for a very few hours' residence in a country subjected 
 to this scourge would soon remind me of my predisposition to it ; 
 but during the whole of the time I have spent in Rhodesia I have 
 not felt the slightest symptom. I have seen white women driving 
 their babies in perambulators on the plain outside Bulawayo in a 
 
VAST STORES OF NATURAL WEAI^TH. 
 
 110 
 
 sun as hot as any in the Egyptian or Moroccan desert, and, though 
 I felt they were unwise, it was clear to me that in such a climate a 
 sufficient head protection was the only thing necessary to guard 
 against a sunstroke or the feverish feeling which naturally follows 
 a rash exposure to hegit. » 
 
 Rhodesia has been visited by us during what is generally said 
 to be its worst period. The rainy season begins in November and 
 ends in March. We arrived November 4th, and, though we have 
 been here only a week, we have had four showers and one all-night 
 downpour. The rainfall during the season amounts to as much as 
 45 inches. I fancy few men have had larger experience of the per- 
 nicious effects of cold rains alternating with hot suns than I, and 
 the composure of the Bulawayo population under what seems to 
 promise four months of such weather strikes my imagination, and 
 is to me a strong testimony of the healthfulness of the climate. 
 
 PINE MARKET GARDEN. 
 
 The park of Bulawayo, the grounds of Government House, 
 ana especially the advanced state of the charming gardens, afforded 
 to me valuable proofs that the soil responded very readily to civil- 
 ized treatment ; but the most conclusive proof to me of the capacity 
 of the soil was furnished by a large market garden laid out in a 
 depression just outside the town. From end to end the garden, 
 supplied with water by a wind-pump from a well, was a mass of 
 robust European vegetables, whence cabbages weighing 30 pounds 
 each, and tomatoes of extraordinary size, have been sent to market. 
 At the Palace Hotel the hundreds of guests made large demands 
 for vegetables, and there was no stint of them. 
 
 Further on towards old Gubulawayo we were attracted by na- 
 tive women hoeing in a field, and our attention was drawn to the 
 native fields, which showed by the old corn-stalks that the Mata- 
 bele must have found the black earth of the plains gracious to their 
 toils. Here and there in these villa gardens, market gardens, pub- 
 lic pleasances, and ornamental grounds, we found sufficient evi- 
 dences that, given water, the soil of Rhodesia was equal to supply- 
 ing anything that civilized man could possibly demand. 
 
 
 I 
 
 i- \' 
 
 
 UP* Hk 
 
 > I 
 
116 
 
 VAST STORES OF NATURAI. WEALTH. 
 
 The next thing to do was to find out something relating to 
 the precious metal, whose presence in Rhodesia was the immediate 
 cause of" the railway. I remember last session having heard in the 
 Smoking Room of the House of Commons the most disparaging 
 views regarding the prospects of Rhodesia ^nd the quality of the 
 reefs. The gold of Rhodesia was said to be " pocket " gold, and 
 that the ancients, whose presence long ago in this land is proved 
 by the multitude of old workings and disused shafts, were too clever 
 to have left any for us moderns. Not knowing how to controvert 
 such statements, I had left them unanswered, half believing that 
 they were true. 
 
 Sir James Sivewright, in his speech on the first festal night, 
 said that Bulawayo was built upon faith, and the majority of the 
 guests I discovered held the most doubtful views, and I must con- 
 fess little was needed to confirm the skepticism which had been 
 planted in me in England. But when I heard that there was an 
 exhibition of ores to be seen in the Hall of the Stock Exchange, I 
 felt that the Reception Committee had provided for us something 
 more valuable than banquets — something which should satisfy an 
 anxious mind and furnish much needed information. 
 
 SPECIMENS OP NATIVE ORES. 
 
 Within a well-lighted, decent-sized hall, on an ample shelf 
 ranged around it, a few of the mining companies of Rhodesia had 
 sent various specimens of the ores. Above these shelves hung 
 admirably-drawn maps to illustrate the reefs whence they were 
 taken. I had noticed, as I went in, other specimens of Rhode- 
 sian products ranged along the passages — bulky lumps of coal from 
 the Zambesian coal district, a coal that is said to g^ve only from 
 eight per cent, to twelve per cent, of ash ; fine red sandstone blocks, 
 a stone closely resembling that of which most of the houses on Fifth 
 avenue. New York, are built ; blocks of grey sandstone, to which 
 substance I had already been attracted, it being so much used for 
 lintels and doorways of Bulawayan houses ; and rough and polished 
 granite blocks, which reminded me of ihe famous Aberdeen stone, 
 besides several limestone briquettes. , •; 
 
VAST STORES OF NATURAI. WEAI.TH. 
 
 117 
 
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 The first exhibits of ores I happened to inspect were from the 
 Camperdown Reef, in which the virgin gold was conspicuous enough 
 to satisfy the most unbelieving. The next exhibit consisted of a 
 number of briquettes of cement manufactured in Bulawayo. The 
 third was a glass case which contained old gold beads, discovered 
 at Zimbabwe, and attracted a great deal of attention from the dusky 
 appearance of the metal which centuries had given it, the rude 
 workmanship, evidently African, and the puerility of the orna- 
 ments. Beyond this the Rhodesia Company had specimens from 
 the Criterion Reef, situated eight miles from Bulawayo. 
 
 GOLD IN DISGUISE. 
 
 The rock contained no visible gold, and the Curator who 
 guided me round had the assurance to say that the quartz where 
 gold was not visible was more appreciated than that which showed 
 nuggets. This made me think of the mountains of white quartz 
 I had seen on the Congo, and to wonder whether the Curator was 
 indulging in unseemly levity. However, perceiving some doubt in 
 my glance, he said it would be demonstrated shortly. Adjoining 
 the Criterion ores was a heap from the Nellie Reef in the Insiza 
 district, fifty miles from Bulawayo. The Curator said these were 
 " very rich," and taken from old workings ; but despite the Curator 
 and the old workings, I could not see a trace of gold in the rock, 
 even with a magnifier. Next to the Nellie exhibit was a pile of 
 rock from the Unit and Unicom Reef — in the Selukwe district, 
 eastern Rhodesia — ^but I saw no gold in any one of these rocks. 
 
 Just at this juncture the Curator told me that one of thege 
 apparently valueless rocks was about to be crushed and panned 
 for our instruction. We went out into a yard, where there was 
 quite a crowd of curious people assembled. The lump of rock 
 was put into a small iron mortar, and in a few minutes it was 
 pounded into a dusty-looking mass. It was then passed through 
 a fine sieve, and the large fragments were returned into the 
 mortar to be again pounded. 
 
 A sufficient quantity of the grayish dust having been obtained, 
 the mortar was emptied into a broad iron pan. The pan was 
 
 ■I- 
 
 
 ■ ''IS 
 
 ■m 
 
 ts 
 
.18 
 
 VAST STORES OF WATURAI. WEALTH. 
 
 iipped into a tub full of muddied water, a dexterous turn or 
 .wist of the wrist, and the coarser material was emptied into the 
 tub. Frequent drippings and twists reduced the quantity of mate- 
 rial in the pan, until at last there was barely a tablespoonful of 
 it left, and still I saw no glitter. Again the dipping and twist- 
 ing and rinsing were repeated, until at last there was only a tea- 
 5poonful of the dirt left ; but all around the bottom of the pan 
 was a thin thread of unmistakable gold dust. It was beyond 
 belief that such a barren-looking piece of quartz rock should 
 contain gold; but then these experts are wonderful fellows. I 
 pay them my most respectful homage. 
 
 Returning to the hall under the influence of this very need- 
 ful lesson, I resumed my examination of the exhibits. Beyond 
 the Unit and Unicom exhibit stood some planks of a teaky qual- 
 ity, beautifully -polished, and showing numbers of small dark knots, 
 and wavy patterns, which gave a walnutty appearance to the wood. 
 The next exhibit was from the Gwanda district by the Geelong 
 Gold Mining Company, taken from a ninety-feet level. In this 
 district the ancient workings are found deepest. The prehistoric 
 miners were accustomed to build charcoal fires on the quartz, and, 
 when the rock was sufficiently heated, threw water on it, which 
 soon disintegrated it, and enabled the picks and gads to be used. 
 
 QUARTZ CRUSHED TO DUST. 
 
 This reminded me how often I had done the same to huge 
 recks which blocked the way for my wagons on the Congo. The 
 broken quartz, being brought to the surface, was then handed to 
 natives, who crushed it to dust on blocks of granite with diorite 
 hammers, or ground it as the modern natives do mealies. The 
 dust was then panned in much the same way as is done by pros- 
 pectors of to-day. In one of the old shafts, over sixty feet deep,, 
 was found the dome of a human skull and some pieces of Human 
 bone. The relics lay side by side with the quartz exhibits. One 
 could moralize here if one had time. 
 
 The exhibit of the Ellen Reef of the United Matabele Claims 
 I>evelopment Company showed distinct gold. Just near it were 
 
VAST STORES OF NATURAL WEALTH. 
 
 119 
 
 ]ni or 
 |to the 
 mate- 
 iful of 
 twist- 
 a tea- 
 le pan 
 ^eyond 
 shoiikl 
 ^s. I 
 
 blocks of fine-looking coal from the Matabele Gold Reefs and 
 Estates Company. The coal-field is situated 120 miles north of 
 Bulawayo. The coal has been already tested, and is found to be 
 admirable for all uses. 
 
 The Nicholson Olympus Block, Gwanda district, showed speci- 
 mens which panned 1 20 ounces to the ton. The Mary reef speci- 
 mens assayed six ounces to the ton. Next to these was a clock 
 frame made out of trachyte in the form of a Greek temple. This 
 trachyte is grayish-white in color and easily workable, but hardens 
 by exposure. As there is plenty of this material it is probable 
 Bulawayo will make free use of it in future. Mansions and villas 
 of this stone would look extremely chaste and beautiful. 
 
 OLD MINES ABANDONED. 
 
 Then we came to the exhibits from the Tebekwe Mine, Selukwe 
 district, seventy miles from Bulawayo on the Salisbury Road. The 
 large map above was worth studying. It illustrated a reef about 
 1 100 yards in length, and eight oval-form excavations made by the 
 ancients, resembling the pits Kimberley diamond diggers formerly 
 made in the blue clay. The base lines of these excavations were 
 not much over 60 feet from the surface. On the appearance of 
 water in each shaft the ancients were unable to make their fire on 
 the exposed quartz reef, and consequently had to abandon it, and 
 they probably made another excavation along the reef until the 
 appearance of water compelled them to relinquish that also. 
 
 I next came to the Gaikwa and Chicago Reef, whose old work- 
 ings had a shaft 70 feet deep. Its present owners sunk this to 100 
 feet when they came to the abandoned reef. I think the assaj' 
 showed nearly twelve ounces to the ton. 
 
 Close to it were specimens from the Adventurers Reef in the 
 Insiza distnct, which assay i ounce to the ton. Beyond was the / 
 Willoughby's Consolidated Company, Limited, which had exhibits 
 from the favorite mines, called Bonsor, Dunraven and Queen's. 
 People who have no pecuniary interest in mines have told me that 
 the best mines in Rhodesia, and of which there is not the least 
 doubt, are the Globe and Phoenix, Bonsor, Dunraven, Tebekwe 
 
 
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 Mil 
 
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 VAST STORES OF NATURAI. WEAI.TH. 
 
 and Geelong, all of wliich are in the Selukwe district, excepting 
 the last, which is in Gwanda. 
 
 After this exhaustive inspection of the ores on exhibition, it 
 remained for us to see one of these Rhodesian mines in operation 
 to dispel the last remnant of doubt which eloquent skeptics had 
 inspired me with. We chose the Criterion Mine, which is by no 
 means the nearest to the town. It belongs to the Rhodesia Com- 
 pany, and is situated eight miles south from Bulawayo, and as Mr. 
 Hirschler, the engineer of the mine, was willing to take upon him- 
 self the trouble of being our guide, we flung ourselves gladly upon 
 his generosity. In one hour and a half we made the distance in a 
 spring cart drawn by four spirited little mules. 
 
 BIG HOLE WORTH LOOKING INTO. 
 
 We halted at the engineer's station on a commanding grassy 
 ridge, which neighbors that once occupied by Mosilikatse's old 
 kraal of Gubulawayo during the forties, fifties and sixties of this 
 century. A few spaces from the spot where we outspanned we 
 came to a series of " old workings " which ran along the crest of 
 the ridge for about 2000 feet. Where one of these old workings 
 was untouched by the engineer, it reminded me of just such a big 
 hole as might have been made to unearth a boulder, or to root out 
 a large tree. Oue of these hollows was chosen by the engineer to 
 sink his first shaft. After penetrating through fifty feet of debris, 
 he came upon the reef which the ancients had abandoned because 
 of flooding, and time, aided by rain, had filled up. He continued 
 for about 10 feet more, sampling every 3 feet as he went, to dis- 
 cover the grade of the ore. 
 
 Since then he has sunk eight other shafts. The mine consists 
 of 170 claims, but the development is concentrated on about twenty- 
 five claims, ten of which are in the centre of the property, and 
 fifteen towards the eastern boundary. In the centre two shafts are 
 being sunk to the 150 feet level, and are at present connected by a 
 drive 3CX) feet long. On this level the reef is throughout payable, 
 while a chute 100 feet long is of high-grade ore. Trenches on the 
 line of the reef indicate its occurrence towards the eastern portion 
 
 of the mi 
 
 deep hav€ 
 
 of the shi 
 
 ing decli 
 
 quartz at 
 
 was foun 
 
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 about foi 
 
 nuggets 
 
 at the d 
 
 places it 
 
 My 
 
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 after urj 
 
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 was no 
 
 but the 
 
 rate we 
 
 country 
 
 gold-pr< 
 
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 from w' 
 
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 Witwal 
 
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 from tl 
 
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VAST STORES OF NATURAL, WEAI^TH. 
 
 121 
 
 of the mine, where five shafts varying from loo feet to 150 feet 
 deep have been sunk. On examining the material at the mouths 
 of the shafts, those among us who knew of what they were speak- 
 ing declared that much of it was of high grade. High pyritic 
 quartz abounded, and this was rich in fine gold. Sulphide galena 
 was found in some of the quartz. 
 
 At the mouth of one shaft visible gold was very frequent, and 
 about forty of the visitors obtained specimens wherein miniature 
 nuggets were plainly visible. Where the reef was being worked 
 at the deepest shaft it showed a breadth of 24 inches ; in some 
 places it is only 18 inches wide ; at others it is 48 inches broad. 
 
 LAND RICH IN GOLD. 
 
 My readers need scarcely be told that the exhibits of ores are 
 only such as a few companies of Rhodesia were -induced to send 
 after urgent appeals from the public-spirited citizens of Bulawayo. 
 I saw none from Salisbury, Mazoe, or any part of Mashonaland, 
 and only a few mines in Matabeleland were represented. There 
 was no time for a proper exhibition. Many more were en route^ 
 but the distances are great and the ox-wagon is slow. At any 
 rate we have seen sufficient to prove that Rhodesia is an auriferous 
 country, though as yet no one knows what rank it will take among 
 gold-producing lands. 
 
 My own conviction — a conviction that is, I suppose, made up 
 from what I have seen and heard from qualified men — is that Rho- 
 desia will not be much inferior to the Transvaal. True, it has no 
 Witwatersrand — forty miles of reefs ; but the superficial area is 
 twice the size c-f the Transvaal State, and the prospectors have 
 only succeeded in discovering a few plums. Then, though the 
 railway has been brought to Bulawayo, it is still far from the 
 Belingwe and Selukwe districts, and within a radius of 100 miles 
 from the town there are many gold fields richer than those in the 
 immediate neighborhood of the railway terminus. It is necessary 
 to state this in the clearest manner, for many will be carried away 
 by the idea that now the railway is at Bulawayo the output of gold 
 should follow immediately. 
 
 
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122 
 
 VAST STORES OF NATURAL WEALTH. 
 
 There is no doubt in my mind that gold will be produced in 
 payable quantities from these Rhodesian mines ; but the extent of 
 profit depends upon circumstances. It is also as certain that Rho- 
 desia cannot hope to compete with the Transvaal under present 
 conditions. Bulawayo is 1360 miles from the sea, and at least 40 
 miles from the richest mines. Johannesburg is 390 miles from the 
 sea, and is in the centre of its forty mile long gold field. That 
 simple fact means a great deal, and shows an enormous disadvan- 
 tage to Rhodesia. 
 
 The latter country will have to pay four times more for freight 
 than the Transvaal gold fields. Against this must be set the small 
 •duties that will have, to be paid. After paying five per cent, to 
 Cape Colony, goods will be admitted free to Rhodesia, Then the 
 heavy taxes paid to the Boers will still further diminish the disad- 
 vantages of Rhodesia ; yet when we consider the time wasted in 
 the long railway journey, and the haulage by ox-wagon to the 
 mines, we shall find a much heavier bill of costs against the gold 
 output of Rhodesia, than on that of the Transvaal. 
 
 A good substantial rrilway from Beira or Sofala to Bulawayo, 
 via Victoria, would completely reverse things. Bulawayo would 
 then be about the same rail distance from the sea as Johannesburg 
 is ; the poor ores could then be worked profitably, and the aggre- 
 gate of gold product would in a few years rival that of the Rand. 
 If I were a Chartered Director, my first object should be to get the 
 shortest and most direct route to the sea from Bulawayo, and a 
 substantial railway along it, and having obtained that, and a liberal 
 mining law, I should feel that the prosperity of Rhodesia was as- 
 sured. 
 
 
:ed in 
 fent of 
 
 Rho- 
 
 resent 
 last 40 
 Im the 
 
 That 
 idvan- 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Chief City of the Transvaal. 
 
 TT^ONTINUING his observations on the Transvaal and its tur 
 yJl bulent political condition, the writer states some plain 
 
 ^i^ -^ truths, and points clearly to the impending struggle 
 between the English and Boers. He says : 
 
 Between Bulawayo and Johannesburg there is a great differ- 
 ence. In common with some 400 guests of the Festivities Com- 
 mittee, I looked in admiring wonderment at the exuberant vitality, 
 the concentrated joyous energy, and the abounding hopefulness of 
 the young sons of British fathers who, in the centre of Rhodesian 
 life, were proud of showing us a portion of their big country, and 
 what they had done towards beginning their new State. We shared 
 with them their pride in their young city, their magnificently broad 
 avenues, the exhibits of their resources, their park, their prize cab- 
 bages, and the fine, bold, go-ahead-ive-ness which distinguished 
 their fellow-citizens. 
 
 We felt they had every reason to be proud of their victories 
 over the rebel Matabele, the endurance tbey had shown under 
 various calamities, and the courageous confidence with which they 
 intended to face the future. From our hearts we wish them all 
 prosperity. 
 
 At Johannesburg, however, different feelings possessed us. 
 Without knowing exactly why, we felt that this population, once 
 so favored by fortune, so exultant and energetic, was in a subdued 
 and despondent mood, and wore a defeated and cowed air. When 
 we timidly inquired as to the cause, we found them laboring under 
 a sense of wrong, and disposed to be querulous and recriminatory, j 
 They blamed both Boers and British ; the whole civilized world 
 and all but themselves seemed to have been unwise and unjust. 
 They recapitulate without an error of fact the many failures and 
 shames of British Colonial policy in the past, gave valid instances 
 
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124 
 
 THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAI,. 
 
 of their distrust of the present policy, pointed to the breaches of 
 the Convention of 1884, and the manifest disregard of them by the 
 Colonial Secretary, described at large the conditions under which 
 they lived, and demanded to know if the manner in which the 
 charter of their liberties was treated was at all compatible with 
 what they had a right to expect under the express stipulations of 
 . the Convention. 
 
 " Why,'' said they, " between Boer arrogance and British indif- 
 ference, every condition of that Power of Attorney granted to Paul 
 Kruger has been disregarded by the Boer, and neglected by the 
 British." They then proceeded to dilate upon Boer oppression, 
 Boer corruption, the cant and hypocrisy of President Kruger, the 
 bakshish-begging Raad, the bribe-taking Ministry, the specious way 
 in which promises were made, and, when their trust was won, the 
 heartless way in which these same promises were broken. 
 
 ALMOST UNBEARABLE OPPRESSION. 
 
 From these eloquent themes they proceeded to detail their 
 worries from taxation, high wages, extortionate freight charges, 
 the exactions levied upon every necessity of their industry, the ex- 
 orbitant price for coal, and imposts on food designed expressly to 
 pamper the burgher at the expense of the miner. Then in a more 
 melancholy tone they discussed the mistakes of their friends — 
 Jameson's tactless raid — the poverty of the country, the decline of 
 business in the city, the exodus of the Australians, and the pros- 
 pects of a deficit in the Treasury, etc. 
 
 I wish that I could have taken down verbatim all that was said 
 ' to me, for the spokesmen were of undoubted ability, fluent ii. 
 speech and full of facts, not a tithe of which I can remember. As 
 I fear I cannot do justice to what was urged with such vehemence 
 and detail, you must be content with the broad sense of their re- 
 marks only. These men have stories to say which should be said 
 to shorthand writers. I have read many books and articles on 
 South African politics, but I was never so interested or convinced 
 as when these men told their stories straight from the heart. 
 
 I then turned an inquiring attention to the Johannesburg^ 
 
of 
 the 
 lich 
 I the 
 ath 
 of 
 
 [dif. 
 raul 
 I the 
 ion, 
 the 
 
 THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAI,. 
 
 125 
 
 newspapers, and from a heap of them obtained their opinions on 
 the gloom prevailing in the " Golden City." There were columns 
 of allusions to the general distress, of the unemployed becoming 
 numerous, of tradespeople unable to find custom. Clergymen had 
 been interviewed, who said that " poverty was rampant," that shop- 
 keepers were almost distracted through fear of insolvency, that 
 the country's credit was going and almost gone, that Australians 
 were leaving in such numbers that suf&cient berths on steamers 
 could not be found, and that the inaction of the government was 
 driving skilled and willing workmen away. 
 
 GREAT BUSINESS DEPRESSION. 
 
 My hotel-keeper, a bright sociable man, was induced to give me 
 his own opinions on the depression. He acknowledged that his own 
 hotel was doing fairlj'^ well, but the other hotels were mostly empty. 
 Tradesmen he knew were bitterly lamenting the want of custom, 
 buildings in course of erection were stopped because the owners 
 did not think themselves justified in proceeding with the structures, 
 rents were hard to collect from tenants, ±he upper stories were 
 already empty, reductions had been made on the lower floors, and 
 still there were no permanent tenants; goods stored in bonded ware- 
 houses had to be auctioned, as the proprietors had not the means 
 to take them away, etc. 
 
 Encountering a gentleman whom I knew in Sydney, Australia, 
 and who is now on the Stock Exchange here, I inquired of him 
 what he thought of the condition of things. He said : " Mostly 
 everything is at a standstill, I think. To-day stocks and real estate 
 are a trifle firmer, but I cannot conceive any reason for it. There 
 is nothing within my knowledge to justify confidence. Old Kruger 
 is relentless and implacable. He will never yield, whatever people 
 may say. And unless the reforms are granted, so that the mines 
 can be worked at a profit, Johannesburg must decline, and things 
 will become as bad for the State as for ourselves. The old man 
 positively hates us, and would be glad to see the town abandoned. 
 
 "On the strength of the Industrial Commission report many 
 of us bought largely, but when we found that there was a majority 
 
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 126 
 
 THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAt. 
 
 
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 against us, we sold out in such haste that for a while it looked like 
 a panic. The majority of the Raad had been bought out by the 
 Dynamite Company, and, of course, we were helpless. You people 
 at home have no idea of the corruption of our Government. Kruger 
 appears not to know that when he calls the Dynamite Company a 
 corner-stone of the State, he is giving himself away. We know 
 that the Company and its twin brother, the Netherlands Railway 
 Company, support the twenty-four members of the Raad, and as 
 they, with Kruger, are the State, these companies may well be 
 called corner-stones." ' - 
 
 At the club I met a gentleman whose moderate way of express- 
 ing himself made me regard him as being inclined to be impartial, and 
 when urged to give his views, he said that " undoubtedly there were 
 great grievances which every well-wisher of the State would desire 
 to see removed. The administration was so corrupt that it was 
 diflScult to get a Boer official to attend to any business, unless his 
 palm was oiled beforehand. The officials had got into the habit of 
 excusing themselves from doing their duty because they were over- 
 whelmed with work, or that they had no time. It is a way they 
 have of hinting that unless it is made worth their while, they will 
 not put themselves out to do what they are paid to do by the Gov- 
 ernment. Many companies understand this so well that they set 
 apart a fund from the profits to meet this necessity. 
 
 FLAGRANT POLITICAL CORRUPTION. 
 
 " You know, perhaps, that the Dynamite Concession is one of 
 the most corrupt things in the State. One memli.'r of the Raad 
 gets $1.20 a case, and the Government pocket $2.50 for every case 
 of dynamite sold in the Republic. When we know that $i2.oci 
 would be a sufficient price for a case of dynamite, to invoice a case 
 at $10.00 higher shows that some people must have grand pickings. 
 Were the mines in full operation they would consume about 250,- 
 000 cases, and this extortion of $16.00 a case means $2,500,000 
 blackmail on the mining industry. " 
 
 " Then the railway administration is just as bad. The tariff 
 is abnormally heavy. The first-class fares are greatly in excess, 
 
 and as foi 
 
 when it w 
 
 make the 
 
 "Th( 
 
 this ? " 1 1 
 
 ."No 
 
 Committe 
 
 absolve 1 
 
 change. 
 
 the Boer 
 
 They are 
 
 ruption -v 
 
 too willii 
 
 demorali 
 
 there is 
 
 closed tl 
 
 Thi 
 
 Johanne 
 
 midnigl 
 
 the trail 
 
 cials rec 
 
 passeng 
 
 moved 
 
 the Bo( 
 
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 Tl 
 
 the doc 
 
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 into at 
 
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THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAL. 
 
 127 
 
 and as for freight charges, you can imagine how high they were 
 when it was proved during the drift closure that ox-wagons could 
 make the transport as cheaply as the railway." 
 
 " Then you appear to justify Rhodes in his attempt to rectify 
 this ? " I said. 
 
 " No, I do not ; but all that he stated before the Parliamentary 
 Committee about the abuses is perfectly true. I cannot, however, 
 absolve him for attempting to promote a revolution to effect a 
 change. But about this corruption at Pretoria. I do not blame 
 the Boers so much as I blame the Hollanders and our Jews here. 
 They are the real causes of the disorders in the State. The cor- 
 ruption was started by the Hollanders, and the Jews have been only 
 too willing to resort to bribery, until the share market has become 
 demoralized. These fellows unite together to discredit a mine, until 
 there is no option but to close it. Many of the mines have been 
 closed through their intrigues. Mine is one of them, for instance." 
 
 CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICERS. 
 
 This was my first day's introduction to the moral condition of 
 Johannesburg. But to begin at the beginning. On arriving at 
 midnight at the frontier of the Transvaal, near the Vaal River, 
 the train was stopped in the open veld until daylight, for Boer offi- 
 cials require daylight to make their conscientious examination of 
 passengers and their luggage. Half an hour after dawn the train 
 moved over the Vaal Bridge, and we were soon within the grip of 
 the Boer Custom House. I was told later that the officials were 
 insolent ; but I saw nothing uncommon, except a methodical pro- 
 cedure such as might belong to a people resolved to make a more 
 than usually thorough search. 
 
 The officials came in at the rear end of the carriage, locked 
 the door behind them, and informed us we were to go out before 
 them. The male passengers were ushered into one corrugated-iron 
 house, the females, with their respective searchers behind them, 
 into another. One burly passenger had diamonds concealed on his 
 person, but his clothes were only slightly felt. A small, pale 
 clergyman just behind him, however, received marked attention, 
 
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128 
 
 THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAI,. 
 
 ftnd was obliged to take off his boots, and every article of his bag- 
 gage was minutely scrutinized. Probably some of the women 
 searchers performed thei^ duties just as thoroughly. My servant 
 was asked to pay duty on some of my shirts, but he refused to pay 
 anything, on the ground that the shirts had been repeatedly worn 
 and washed. 
 
 The distance to Johannesburg from the frontier was but an 
 hour and a half of ordinary running, but from the time we neared 
 the Vaal River it occupied us eleven hours. A reporter from the 
 " Star " had come aboard at the frontier station, and from him we 
 learned a few facts regarding Johannesburg, such as that the Out- 
 lander miners intended to starve the burghers out by closing the 
 mines, that the Australians were leaving in crowds, and though 
 there were three presidential candidates in the' field, Kruger was 
 sure to be returned for a fourth term, as General Joubert was known 
 to be weak, and Schalk Burger almost unknown. 
 
 REEF OP GOLD. 
 
 The Transvaal veld was much greener and more rolling than 
 that of the Orange Free State. Johannesburg came into view 
 about 9 A.M. ; but instead of making direct for it the train sheered 
 off and came to a halt at Elandsfontein, six miles east. It was 
 then we first obtained an intelligent comprehension of the term 
 *' Main Reef," to whose production of gold the existence of Johan- 
 nesburg is due. Its total length, I am told, is thirty-eight and a 
 half miles, to be accurate, and along this a chain of mines, well 
 equipped and developed, exists, out of which, however, only ten 
 miles of the reef can be profitably worked under the present eco- 
 nomic circumstances. The working of the remaining twenty-eight 
 miles depends mainly upon the removal of the burdens, upon low 
 wages, abundant labor, cheap transport, etc. 
 
 To either side of Elandsfontein runs a lengthy line of chimney 
 stacks, engine houses, tall wooden frames, supporting the head- 
 gear, stamp mills, with clusters of sheds, huts and offices, hills of 
 white tailings and ore. To the westward these become more numer- 
 ous, and as the train moved from Elandsfontein towards Johannes- 
 
THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAIy. 
 
 129 
 
 burg, it clung to llic side of a conimanding ridge by which we 
 obtained a panoramic view of mine after mine, each surrounded by 
 its reservoirs, hills of tailings, lofty stores of ore, iron sheds, mills, 
 offices and headgear structures, until finally they occupied an 
 entire valley. 
 
 Presently, while we still clung to the ridge, we saw that the 
 scattered cottages, with their respective groves, were becoming 
 more massed, and looking ahead of them we saw the city of Johan- 
 nesburg, filling the breadth of a valley, girdled by a thin line of 
 tall smoke stacks, and dominated by two parallel lines of hills, the 
 crests of which rose perhaps 300 feet or so above the city. The 
 scent of eucalyptus groves filled the air, for now the ridge on our 
 right was given up to cottages, villas, mansions, each separated by 
 firs, eucalyptus, flower gardens and varied shrubberies, the whole 
 making a charming sight, ar.d a worthy approach to the capital of 
 the mining industry with its golden promises of wealth. 
 
 LIKE A EUROPEAN OITT. ^ 
 
 Reduced to matter-of-fact figures, Johannesburg proper covers 
 four square miles; its roads and streets are 126 miles in. length, 
 twenty-one miles of which are macadamized, and ten miles have 
 tram lines. The city's parks and open spaces occupy eighty-four 
 acres. There have been twenty miles of gas-piping laid, while the 
 electric light is supplied by forty-two miles of wire. The water- 
 works supply 600,000 gallons of water daily for domestic use, exclu- 
 sive of what is required for the mines and street watering. 
 
 The streets of the city generally are about 50 feet wide, while 
 the principal business streets average 90 feet in width. Several of 
 these are flanked by buildings which would be no discredit to any 
 provincial city in England, while the array of shops have their 
 windows as artistically dressed with wares as those of Regent Street 
 in London, which gave me some idea of the character and good 
 taste of the people. 
 
 A photograph of Johannesburg taken in 1888 revealed a thin 
 collection of galvanized iron structures, widely scattered over a 
 roadless veld, while present photographs show a mature city, com- 
 
 
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 130 
 
 1*HE CHIEF CITY OF THE- TRANS VA At. 
 
 pact, with au aspect of age, well furnished with churches, massive 
 buildings, parks with trees over a hundred feet in height, rich villas 
 and artistic mansions. It was scarcely credible that in such a short 
 period such a marvellous change had been wrought. The wonder 
 was increased when I was driven along the length of Hospital Hill, 
 :ind noted the streets of this suburb, bordered by artistic and costly 
 ] louses, luxuriant shrubberies, flower gardens and stately lines of 
 shade trees. 
 
 The marvel was greater still when my conductor told me that 
 as late as 1892 this suburb, now so flourishing, was a mere virgin 
 grassy veld. " What, all these miles of groves and gardens aud 
 villas sprung up since 1892 ? " " Yes, so prodigiously rapid is the 
 growth of vegetation, trees, climbing plants and shrubs, when daily 
 watered, that these shade trees which gi /e tht suburb such an 
 appearance of age are only a few years old." 
 
 SIGNS OP THRIFT AND PROSPERITY. 
 
 Now these picturesque and comfortable residences of such 
 varying architecture, whose furniture I could just see through open 
 windows and doors, and bespoke great wealth and taste, you must 
 bear in mind would adorn Birmingham or Manchester. Imagine 
 miles of such houses crowded with fair occupants and troops of 
 daintily-clad children, their long hair floating in the wind as thej 
 sported in snowy garments on the lawns and amid the flowers, 
 and then my surprise, and something more, as I suddenly came in 
 view of a fort which the rude Boers have built to terrorize this com- 
 munity. 
 
 The superb ridge, which seemed to me with its beautiful houses 
 and gardens a veritable paradise after four thousand miles of travel 
 over treeless plains, and which would certainly be an ornament to 
 any city on the globe, had in its centre a large and ugly earthwork, 
 behind which were monstrous Krupp guns to lay waste this Eden, 
 should the humanity of Johannesburg ever be driven by despair to 
 strive physically for the rights of freemen. The mere suggestion 
 of it is brutish, and a Government which can coolly contemplate 
 such a possibility, and frighten timid women and young cl^'ldren 
 
lassive 
 villas 
 |a short 
 
 roudar 
 il Hill, 
 
 costly 
 lines of 
 
 such 
 
 THE CHIEF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAI,. 
 
 m 
 
 with such horrid prospects, are only fit to be classed with the 
 Herods of the Dark Ages. 
 
 A short drive northward of the suburb placed me in a position 
 to view the far-reaching desolate wastes of the primitive veld, and 
 to realize more fully what human intellect, skill, 'energy and capital 
 have done on Hospital Hill and in Johannesburg itself. Twelve 
 years ago there was not a vestige of life — human or vegetable, 
 except the grass — to be seen within the entire range of vision from 
 the Hill, and yet the creators of the remarkable transformation we 
 had just seen were to be threatened with slaughter and devastation 
 if once they plucked up courage to exact the rights which every 
 civilized government would long ago have granted to them. 
 
 It were well now, after briefly showing what Johannesburg and 
 its population is, that the chief of the State and his rustic burghers, 
 in whose hands lie the future of this remarkable city and its indus- 
 try, should be presented to the reader in order that he might realize 
 the striking incongruity of first-class mechanical ingenuity, spirited 
 enterprise, business sagacity and tireless industry being subject 
 to senile madness and boorish insensibility. 
 
 INTELLEOT RULES THE WORLD. 
 
 That such a thing should be is most preposterous and contrary 
 to all human precedent. For elsewhere, and since the dawn of civi- 
 lization, Intellect has always become Master, Captain and King 
 over Ignorance, but at Johannesburg it is Asinine Ignorance which 
 rules Intellect. Another reversal of human custom is seen in the 
 submissiveness of Intellect to Ignorance, and though, being natur- 
 ally sensitive under the whip and restless under the goad, it remon- 
 strates sometimes, its remonstrance is in such a sweet, mild way, 
 that the spectator can only smile and wonder. 
 
 Fitting words are wanting to describe my overmastering sur- 
 prise at the state of things in the Transvaal ; I am limited by space 
 and time, so that I must let my pen race over these pages and trust 
 largely to the intelligence of those who read the lines. I have a 
 printed cutting before me of a discussion in the First Raad of the 
 Boer Republic, during which the President, in the support of his 
 
 
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 \ V. 
 
 i 'B 
 
132 
 
 THIC CHIEF CITV OP THE TRANSVAAI,. 
 
 views, stands up and says that Isaiah had been told by the Lord 
 that Israel had been punished because the rulers of that people 
 had not hearkened unto the voice of the poor. 
 
 Another speaker of similar intelligence rose up to contend 
 that the Lord had enjoined that the rich, not the rulers, should 
 help the poor, and Isaiah had not been told that the poor were to 
 be helped with other people's money. This construction of Scrip- 
 ture raised the President of the State to his feet again, and he reit- 
 erated the fact that the Lord had meant the rulers, whereupon 
 another Senator interpolated the remark that some people were in 
 the habit of shielding themselves behind the Bible with a view to 
 saving their own pockets and justifying their actions. 
 
 MONEY SPENT FOR DEPENOES. 
 
 At Standerton the President was questioned as to the prospects 
 of assistance being given to poor burghers. His entire reply is 
 worth quoting, but I have only room for a small portion of it. Said 
 he: " The burghers' distress has been caused by the war (Jameson's 
 raid), and the subsequent unrest has not tended to improve matters. 
 The burghers have suffered from these circumstances. The coun- 
 try has been compelled to spend a lot of money on the building of 
 forts, nearly $10,000,000, by which our means have been exhausted. 
 In the Zoutpansberg district especially, the condition of things I 
 know to be most distressing. White families as well as black are 
 dying rapidly. Still I expect you to turn to the Bible in a time of 
 adversity like this. Follow the prophet Isaiah's advice, and look 
 to the Lord God who has so far befriended you. Why will men 
 not follow in the path of the Lord instead of losing money at races 
 and by gambling ? " 
 
 I was fortunate enough to have an early morning interview 
 with President Kruger. As he was fully dressed in the usual black 
 suit and little old-fashioned top hat, and smoking on the verandah 
 of his house, the old President must have risen from bed an hour 
 earlier at least, and though all the clocks in this region are fully 
 thirty minutes behind time, 5 a.m. is a remarkably early hour to 
 begin business. Two-armed guards in the unifonn of London 
 
THE CIIIKF CITY OF THE TRANSVAAt. 
 
 133 
 
 kople 
 
 police inspectors stood in the street barring the way to the house ; 
 but a mere look from the President sufficed to give us admission. 
 
 His " Good-nioniing " in English slipped from him uncon- 
 sciously, and after a shake hands he led the waj- to a spacious 
 saloon, wherein tiie first thing that attracted my attention was a 
 large and coarse oil painting of him. 
 
 It was clear that neither Kruger nor his friends knew any- 
 thing of art, for the picture was an exaggerated reproduction of 
 every defect in the President's homely features, the low, narrow, 
 unintellectual brow, over-small eyes, and heavy, massive expanse 
 of face beneath. The man himself was almost beautiful in com- 
 parison with the monster on the canvas, and I really could not help 
 pitying him for his innocent admiration of a thing that ought to be 
 cast into the fire as an intolerable monstrosity. 
 
 A REPULSIVE BOER. 
 
 But presently the President spoke — a mouthful of strange 
 guttural words — in a voice that was like a loud guigle, and as the 
 great ja vs and cheeks and mouth heaved and opened, I stole a 
 glance ar the picture, and it did not seem to me then as if the 
 painter had libeled the man. At any rate, the explosive dialect so 
 expanded tJJtt cheeks and widened the mouth that I perceived some 
 resemblance to the brutal picture. 
 
 I was told by my introducer, after the interview was over, that 
 the President had already read a chapter in the Bible, and that it is 
 his custom to do so every morning before appearing in public. I 
 then understood the meaning and tone of his last words to me. 
 Said he : " What I have said, shall be done." He was alluding to 
 the fact that the Dynamite Monopoly and Railway Rates were the 
 children of the State, but they should be put into the hands of the 
 Attorney-General, and if it were discovered that the terms of the 
 concessions were in any way contravened, reparation should be 
 made. The manner of his last words reminded me of the Jo vie 
 way — " and what I will, is fate " — but when I learned how he had 
 been engaged, I knew he had been infected with the style of the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
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CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Gold and Diamond Mines cf South Africa. 
 
 HE history of the diamond mines may furnish some clew to an 
 e;_j_ understanding of the situation, if nothing more. Diamond ' 
 dealers say that the precious gems have increased very much in 
 value since the beginning of the war. The mines of Kimberley are 
 the greatest diamond producers in the world, furnishing from 
 ninety to ninety-five per cent, of all the diamonds sold. Even 
 more could be put on the market, but the mines are controlled by 
 the richest trust on earth, which limits the output so as to keep 
 
 up prices. 
 
 Yet the discovery of diamonds in South Africa goes back only 
 a few years. One day in 1867 the children of a Boer farmer, who 
 lived on a farm seventeen hours' ride west of Hopetown, on the 
 bank of the Orange River, were playing with some stones they had 
 found in its bed. An Ostrich hunter named O'Reilly happened to 
 pass, and the Boer farmer. Van Niekerk, called his attention to an 
 especially brilliant stone that a Griqua boy had found. O'Reilly 
 was startled. He scratched on a pane of glass with the stone, and 
 immediately decided that he had a diamond in his hand. He 
 promised the Boer half of whatever it proved to be worth, and 
 wanted to follow up the search at once. 
 
 After many wanderings he went to an English physician in 
 Graham's Town, a Dr. Atlierstone, who was the first to recognize 
 the grer.t value of his "find." He recognized it as a diamond in a 
 moment, and estimated its weight at 21 3-16 carats. A little later 
 this stone was sold to Sir Philip Wodehouse, then Governor of Cape 
 Colony, for $2,500. O'Reilly soon brought another stone from the 
 same locality which weighed 8J4 carats, and it was sold to the 
 same person for $1,000. One of the most beautiful of South Afri- 
 can diamonds later came from Van Niekerk' s farm on Orange 
 
 River, the so-called " Star of South Africa," weighing 83^ carats, 
 134 > ^ 
 
 found by f 
 
 possession 
 
 Inime 
 
 Orange R 
 
 Kaffirs an 
 
 ing a few 
 
 River Va 
 
 Society, i 
 
 earnest. 
 
 In 1 
 children 
 river, bul 
 suspectei 
 and the 
 build his 
 a diamoi 
 weighin 
 
 Th 
 the Ko 
 came I 
 foundec 
 British 
 mine ■« 
 
 gitigs 
 
 Jagers 
 
 have s 
 
 T 
 
 were 
 
 the O 
 
 The I 
 
 to ma 
 
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 the I 
 
GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 135 
 
 ^dby 
 [keep 
 
 found by a Kaffir. The brilliant later cut therefrom came into the 
 possession of the Earl of Dudley for $125,000. 
 
 Immediately after the first report of these discoveries the 
 Orange River was crowded with white, black and yellow Europeans, 
 Kaffirs and Hottentots, and here and there they succeeded in find- 
 ing a few diamonds. Thence the search spread to the bed of the 
 River Vaal, and here, on the property of the Berlin Missionary 
 Society, at Pniel, camps were pitched, and the work began in 
 earnest. 
 
 In 1870, new diamond diggings were discovered, again by 
 children playing with stones. This was not on the banks of the 
 river, but on the high table land where their existence had not been 
 suspected. It was on the farm of Du Toits Pan, between the Vaal 
 and the Modder rivers. It was in the mud which had been used to 
 build his house that the children saw a shining object, and dug out 
 a diamond. In pulling up a plant another child found a diamond 
 weighing eighty carats clinging to the roots. 
 
 DIAMONDS OP THE FIRST WATER. 
 
 The richest mine of all, however, was found in July, 1871, on 
 the Kolesberg-Kopje. The old mines were abandoned, and then 
 came De Beers New Rush. The town of Kimberley was later 
 founded, in the neighborhood of this mine, being named after the 
 British Colonial Secretary at that time. Lord JCimberley, and the 
 mine was known as the Kimberley mine. Later some small dig- 
 gings were found in the Orange Free State, Kossifontein and 
 Jagersfontein, from which some of the diamonds of the first water 
 have since been taken. 
 
 The confusion and disorder of the frenzied fortune hunters 
 were tremendous, and political confusion followed in the claim of 
 the Orange Free State to Kimberley and the mines around it. 
 The British government held that this was British territory, and 
 to make its claim good purchased the claim of an old Griqua chief 
 to this land. 
 
 The British referred the matter to arbitration, notwithstanding 
 the protest of the Orange Free State, ipaking a British officer the 
 
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 ■■*'S*--S!i^Sfi»^ ■ * 
 
 '*4,i,>/.;)'i ' 
 
186 
 
 GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 I 
 
 fi 
 
 , 
 
 : 
 
 umpire. He decided in favor of Great Britain, and meanwhile, 
 with a huge rush, thousands of miners had qome into the country. 
 The Free State protested against the decision in vain, for England 
 claimed that its power was necessary to preserve order, and the 
 Free State was obliged to accept $450,000 for its claim. This inci- 
 dent has not been forgotten by the Free State Boers, and is no 
 small incentive to them to aid their brothers of the South African 
 Republic. 
 
 Several of the wiser miners began to combine for the formation 
 of companies to purchase machinery that they might go to the 
 deeper levels where the famous "blue ground'' lay, filled with dia- 
 monds. By 1885 many of these companies were at work, and then 
 a further combination of their interests took place in the formation 
 of the De Beers Consolidated Company, Limited. The moving 
 spirits in this combination were the redoubtable Barney Baruato 
 and Cecil Rhodes. Under the able financial management of the 
 latter, this company now pays a dividend of ten millions annually 
 on a nominal capital of twenty millions. 
 
 MINES OP GREAT DEPTH. 
 
 The latest improvements in mining machinery have been of 
 course adopted, and the best engineers are engaged in conducting 
 the work. The "yellow earth" of the surface in which the early 
 prospectors found jtheir wealth has been dug through, and the 
 "blue ground" is being worked to unprecedented depths. This 
 peculiar formation appears to be practically inexhaustible, for 
 soundings have never been able t(i get beyond it. 
 
 Nowhere else on the earth is this peculiar blue quartz to be 
 found, so it has been called kimberlite. It is very hard, but alters 
 and softens under moisture and air. The miners have taken advan- 
 tage of this, and the large companies haul the blue ground to the 
 surface, and spread it out to disintegrate naturally. It is spread 
 out on floors surrounded by armed guards night and day, and there 
 it is first harrowed by two engines some 500 yard.s apart dragging 
 the harrows over it. 
 
 There it stays for six.months or a year, and is then sent to the 
 
 crushing 
 every bit 
 alone rei 
 are calle< 
 separate 
 of rock. 
 Th« 
 the drill 
 venienci 
 xng whi 
 treated 
 are the^ 
 seems t 
 
 ing in 
 
 Al 
 
 ing dia 
 
 the mi: 
 
 ears at 
 
 premii 
 
 the pi 
 
 reachi 
 
 1 
 formi 
 authc 
 have 
 the e 
 as tl 
 of til 
 
 beiti 
 min 
 tral 
 in s 
 
L-.ri if 
 
 iwhile, 
 )untry. 
 [ngland 
 (nd tlie 
 (is iiici- 
 is no 
 African 
 
 |niation 
 to tJie 
 jth dia- 
 (d then 
 iiatiu;! 
 loviiior 
 
 GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 137 
 
 crushing works, where it is washed and rolled by machinery until 
 every bit of foreign matter has been removed and the diamond* 
 alone remain. Some bits that do not pulverize under the harrow 
 are called hard blue, are picked out by hand and carefully treated 
 separately, for large stones are sometimes in these hard masses 
 of rock. 
 
 The work in the mines is done chiefly by Kaffirs, who wield 
 the drills and use the dynamite for the blasting with little incon- 
 venience. They are engaged for a specified number of weeks, dur- 
 ing which they are kept in a well-guarded compound, fed, and if ill, 
 treated by the company. Only at the end of their term of service 
 are they paid and permitted to leave, when they return with what 
 seems to them untold wealth, to buy a vv^ife and set up housekeep- 
 ing in their home, some weeks' journey away. 
 
 All kinds of precautions are taken to prevent them from steal- 
 ing diamonds which they find w^hile at work. As each man leaves 
 the mine he must strip to the skin and submit to a search of mouth, 
 ears and nose. The companies try to prevent stealing by offering 
 premiums for the finding of large stones, but, strange to say, all of 
 the precautions have not prevented the largest diamonds from 
 reaching the market through private persons. 
 
 HOW DIAMONDS ARE FORMED. 
 
 The diggings at Kimberley have done much to explain the 
 formation of the diamond itself, for kimberlite is recognized by jill 
 authorities as being of eruptive origin, and the diamond in it must 
 have been formed by the tremendous heat generated at the time of 
 the eruption. In fact, the mines look like chinnieys, or '" pipes," 
 as they are called, the blue ground running down toward the center 
 of the earth like a huge water-pipe. 
 
 The depth of the mines is very great, a level in the Kimberley 
 being 1,520 feet down and in the De Beers, 1,200 feet. Most of the 
 mining now is done under ground by galleries running to the cen- 
 tral shaft. This prevents many accidents, and is a great economy 
 in space and time. 
 
 The sorting of the stones is an art and science in one. Gop^ 
 
 iMv:- .j 
 
 II 
 
 Ml 
 
 1: m 
 
 n. 
 
 10 -^ 
 
138 
 
 GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 eyes and judgment are necessary. Here are found some with deep 
 tints of brown, pink and yellow, which are most valuable, being 
 classified as fancy stones. Those with slight shades are least valu- 
 able, and the pure white rank next. 
 
 The largest diamond ever found in the world was discovered 
 here in 1893, and is known as Excelsior. It weighed 971^ carats, 
 and was discovered at Jagersfontein. It far surpassed the De Beers, 
 found some time before, which weighed only 428^ carats, yet was 
 quite a diamond itself. 
 
 South Africa is deeply indebted to the diamond mines. When 
 they were first discovered, it was at the almost unknown end of a 
 mysterious and unpopular continent. When claims were pegged 
 out in Kimberley in 187 1, it was probably as difl&cult to obtain in- 
 formation about the interior of Cape Colony as it is still of the head 
 waters of the Niger. Yet by the end of 1872 the value of the im- 
 ports and exports of Cape Colony had more than doubled, and the 
 population working in the Kimberley mine alone was estimated at 
 upwards of ten thousand. 
 
 STRANGE METHOD OP WORKXNG. 
 
 At first the mines were worked on the open system, roadways 
 being left by which the gravel was carted away. Soon these fell 
 in, and were replaced by wires stretched from a line of scaffolding 
 on the edge of the chasm to some point on the claim below. 
 
 The scene was a strange one. Amidst a cloud of dust, or in a 
 slough of mud, white men and black toiled, sweated, and dug at 
 the bottom of a huge and ever deepening pit. Some claims had 
 been sunk considerably lower than their neighbors, and all lay 
 under the threatening shadow of a loose and crumbling wall. From 
 the uneven surface, from amidst the crowd, struggling like pigmies 
 far down in the bowels of the earth, rose a never-ending succession 
 of buckets full of gravel, traveling slowly along the wires on theii 
 way to the floors above, where they were sorted by the dry process. 
 
 When a large stone came to hand, or when the partner down 
 below could endure the dust no longer, the bucket, instead of re- 
 turning empty, was occasionally freighted with a bottle of cham- 
 
 pagne, put 
 
 one of the 
 
 With 
 
 jostling 
 
 verse, mai 
 
 conscienci 
 
 great pro 
 
 means in 
 
 vant to r( 
 
 against t 
 
 and fevei 
 
 hand, thi 
 
 Mea 
 
 in. By 
 
 der were 
 
 below th 
 
 Scarcely 
 
 a dozen 
 
 debris J 
 
 success. 
 
 catchin: 
 
 ( 
 
 Mi 
 on the 
 far-seei 
 that gi 
 contro 
 000 e\ 
 
 open 
 grout 
 belo^\ 
 capiti 
 
 are c 
 
GOIvD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 139 
 
 deep 
 
 )eing 
 
 Ivalu- 
 
 ^ered 
 
 irats, 
 
 feers, 
 
 was 
 
 pagne, purchased possibly at an extravagant cost in exchange for 
 one of the diamonds just unearthed. 
 
 Within the camp, surrounding the sorting floors, hung another 
 jostling crowd, largely recruited from the vilest scum of the uni- 
 verse, many of whom were ready to sell what was left to them of 
 conscience, of honor or of purity, for the gems from below. A 
 great proportion of these were illicit diamond buyers, using every 
 means in their power to tempt the white master or the colored ser- 
 vant to rob those around them. Prior to the passing of the laws 
 against the illicit purchase of diamonds, in 1882-83, crime, disease 
 and fever held high revel at Kimberley, walking openly, hand in 
 hand, through the filthy by-streets of a dissolute city. 
 
 Meantime the walls surrounding the mine were rapidly falling 
 in. By 1882 half the claims were buried, and many of the remain- 
 der were scarcely workable. At the bottom, then some 450 feet 
 below the surface, water accumulated and could iiot be removed. 
 Scarcely a digger who was not the claimant and defendant in half 
 a dozen different suits. Efforts were made to tunnel through the 
 debris and to gain access to the buried claims, but with little 
 success. The crumbling reef itself fought against the miners, 
 catching fire after rain and smoldering for long periods. 
 
 GREATEST MINING COMPANY IN THE WOPvLD. 
 
 Many sold out or abandoned their claims, seeking employment 
 on the newly-discovered gold mines at Barberton. At length a few 
 far-seeing men, chief amongst whom was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, created 
 that great institution, the De Beers Mining Company, which to-day 
 controls the diamond market of the world, and spends over $5,cxx),- 
 000 every year- in labor alone. 
 
 The deserted pit, garnished by a few rustling wires, still lies 
 open to the sky, but mining is continued by means of under- 
 ground shafts, carried in some instances to a depth of 1200 feet 
 below the surface, and necessitating the employment of more 
 capital than any ordinary individual could hope to dispose of. 
 
 Of the diamond mines still worked on the open system some 
 are owned by the De Beers Company, but a few belong to private 
 
 i^m mm 
 
 ■''• ml-''' ■ 'if 'ill 
 
 m 
 
140 
 
 GOI.D AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 individuals or to syndicates. It is quite possible that diamond- 
 iferous areas now unknown may be thrown open to prospectors, as 
 there is every reason to believe that the crystal lies hidden in 
 many parts of South Africa. 
 
 Though history shows that large fortunes were made in the 
 Kiniberley mines, and that many most deserving men remained 
 wealthy after the crash, faulty legislation and want of organization 
 allowed far too great a proportion of the gains to fall into the hands 
 of the " scum," whilst haste, greed and inexperience, by causing 
 men to dig straight down without regard to any other interest than 
 their own, were eventually prejudicial to all, and caused a property, 
 since proved to be the source of almost fabulous wealth, to be 
 inaccessible and absolutely valueless to those who then owned it. 
 
 GEMS FOUND IN MANY PLAGES. 
 
 A number of diamonds are annually washed from the neigh- 
 borhood of the Vaal River, and mines are worked at and near Kini- 
 berley, in Griqualand West. A few stones have been found at 
 Klerksdorp in the Transvaal, and discoveries have been reported 
 from the neighborhood of the Zambesi, and Delagoa Bay. 
 
 The historical record of the diamond in South Africa is fraught 
 with striking incidents, and it has been said many a time and oft 
 that the discovery may be ranked as one of the Seven Wonders of 
 the World. It certainly has been productive of as astounding and 
 magnificent wealth as any discovery of modem times, quite as 
 astounding and magnificent as the discovery of gold in California, 
 Australia, the South African Republic, or as the discovery of gold 
 in any of the gold centres in the known world. In its extension 
 of the British Empire, in the spread of the English language, in 
 providing homes and elbow room for industrial populations, it is 
 unrivaled, and nothing has been so effective in reclaiming native 
 races from barbarism and bringing them within the limits and 
 influence of civilization. " , 
 
 Like most discoveries, whether of new countries, new material 
 for science or labor to manipulate, the discovery of diamonds owes 
 more to accident than to expert explorers. Whatever else may be 
 
 *^«s;c^ 
 
GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 m 
 
 said of tlie slowness and lack of enterprise of the Cape it had done 
 all in its power for years after it was suspected from the diamondif- 
 erous and auriferous indications that gold and precious stones 
 existed in South Africa to test the reliability of scientific experts, 
 and had expended thousands of pounds of sterling money in the 
 employment of geological and mineralogical explorers with no better 
 result than getting the most confident reports that by no possibility 
 could a particle of gold or a precious stone be found in any part of 
 the South African Continent. 
 
 Auriferous indications of most profuse promise had been 
 brought by the late Chevalier Forssman, of Potchefstrom, to Cape- 
 town and London, taken from his lands in the Transvaal at least 
 twenty years before the discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West, 
 and a quarter of a century before the establishment of the South 
 African gold industry, but neither Colonial nor English capitalists 
 could be induced to invent. Capital is apt to be suspicious. 
 
 AOOOUNTS WERE NOT BELIEVED. 
 
 Neither the Cape Colonist nor the people of England would 
 believe in the discovery of real diamonds at the Cape for a very 
 long time. First it was denied that " the Star," already mentioned, 
 was a diamond ; when that could no longer be denied, " Oh, then it 
 fell from a star, was dropped by an ostrich, was imported from India 
 by owners of land in the Colony to send land up to a* fictitious 
 value." But by Christmas, 1869, there were 6,000. people located 
 at Pniel, and as many on. the other side of the Vaal, digging on 
 the river banks, between Hebron and Cawood's Hope. 
 
 At one time dealing in stolen diamonds was carried on in the 
 most barefaced manner, and. reprisals in the form of tent burning 
 were of nightly occurrence. The Post-office at Kimberley had been 
 robbed of a large consignment of diamonds worth thousands of 
 dollars, there had been several attempts to waylay the post cart 
 and rob the mail bags of the diamonds which they were known to 
 contain. In one case the mail bags had been stolen at the post- 
 office, and then it became plain that diamonds in transit must be 
 better guarded. Fortunately in most cases diamonds stolen were 
 
 
 'f I 
 
 
 i^M 
 
 
 
 
 iff .;!; • 
 
142 
 
 GOI.D AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 recovered — or at least the chief part of them. Everything about 
 the fields grew with astonishing rapidity. 
 
 In 1870 the output of diamonds did not exceed in value a few 
 thousand dollars a year. In 1880 the diamond diggings had be- 
 come mines with steam machinery in full work ; claimholders had 
 amassed fortunes, and the yield of precious stones was estimated to 
 exceed twenty million dollars a year at least. The establishment 
 of the De Beers Company by the amalgamation of smaller compa- 
 nies brought about a new era in diamond mining, and gave it a per- 
 manency it never could otherwise have attained, and has given it a 
 world-wide distinction surpassing all other mining operations. 
 
 MAKING SOUTH AFRICA RICH. 
 
 The diamond industry in its infancy saved the country from 
 bankruptcy ; to-day it is making for South Africa an enviable name 
 throughout the whole wide world. No industry was ever more 
 perfectly organized than that of the De Beers Mining Company. 
 All its mining operations are carried out under superintendence 
 and management of first-class men. The average number of per- 
 sons employed daily in 1899 reached the grand total of 1,729 whites 
 and 7,340 blacks ; almost every nationality being represented by 
 the employees. Everything is done with admirable precision ; and 
 there is a grandeur about the magnitude and boldness of the in- 
 dustry which should fill the heart of every man connected with it, 
 from the directors, the chief manager and his subordinates, with 
 pride. 
 
 The great diamond industry of Kimberley, combined by Cecil 
 Rhodes into one vast consolidated company representing a market 
 value of many million dollars, is managed by an American. He is 
 Gardner Williams, and his assistant, Louis I. Seymour, is also an 
 American. The selection of Mr. Williams was made by Mr. 
 Rhodes. 
 
 The way Williams got to" South Africa is an interesting tale. 
 It was when the great Transvaal gold find of Witwatersrand was 
 first attracting English attention. There were many doubts in the 
 beginning among London capitalists of the real value of the ore. 
 
 The Lon 
 directed 
 mining a 
 Mr. 
 
 fields, w 
 
 iraversec 
 
 country 
 
 niarvellc 
 
 powdery 
 
 gusted. 
 
 NeA 
 
 such CO 
 
 doubted 
 
 and eve 
 
 getting 
 
 a few y 
 
 annum, 
 
 made a 
 
 diamon 
 
 T1 
 Boers 1 
 Trans'' 
 that ai 
 Boers 
 the CO 
 1 
 dow a 
 
 had -w 
 it aga 
 them 
 
 Thel 
 
 1 
 
 Reso 
 
about 
 
 a few 
 lad be- 
 [rs had 
 ited to 
 Ihrneiit 
 pompa- 
 a per- 
 iu it a 
 
 GOtD AND DIAMONDS OF >^OUTH AFRICA. 
 
 143 
 
 The London house of Rothschild determined to investigate, and 
 directed its American correspondent to engage an American gold- 
 mining authority to visit the African workings. 
 
 Mr. Williams, a famous expert of the Western American gold 
 fields, was engaged for the purpose. He went to the Transvaal, 
 traversed the beautiful grazing lands so diflferent from the gold 
 country of America, entered a few shafts in the " reefs " of that 
 marvellous deposit, unlike any other on earth, examined the black, 
 powdery, alluvial soil that the burghers said was ore — and was dis- 
 gusted. 
 
 Never in the experience of man had gold been found under 
 such conditions, and Mr. Williams was unbelieving. He even 
 doubted the pannings. He regarded the alleged results as fraud, 
 and eventually reported that the whole business was not worth 
 getting oflf one's horse to look at. That same black alluvial plain 
 a few years later was turning out $40,000,000 worth of gold per 
 annum. But, losing this great chance, Mr. Williams nevertheless 
 made a hit at Kimberley, and became the manager of the greatest 
 diamond field on earth, which is the source of fabulous wealth. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 
 
 There would not have been any war between the English and 
 Boers if gold had not been discovered within the boundaries of the 
 Transvaal. The Outlanders, or foreigners, are fighting for rights 
 that are accorded to new settlers by all civilized nations, and the 
 Boers are fighting for supremacy and the exclusive right to govern 
 the country by the most oppressive and barbarous laws. 
 
 The Transvaal was nothing but a rolling inland tract of mea- 
 dow and mountain. It was fit for nothing but farming and ranch- 
 ing, with an occasional good shot at big game. The Dutch settlers 
 had won it from the savages by blood and suffering, and they held 
 it against the English with their lives' forfeit. The English let 
 them have it. Why not? It was scarcely worth the quarreL 
 The land did not even possess a seaport. 
 
 It was in 1881 the British left the Boers their barren republic. 
 Resources were few, exports fewer, and the treasury was empty. 
 
 Hi 
 
 » : 
 
 I ' hi 
 
 U -^^xi 
 
GOI.D AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 There was little coninumication with the outer world, for there were 
 no railroads. It was forty days by ox-cart to Cape Town. 
 
 In 1884 a man named Arnold told a farmer named Geldenhuis 
 that there was gold on his land. Geldenhuis did not believe it, 
 but repeated the gossip, and sold his farm to two adventurous 
 brothers named Struben, who put up a mill and began to work the 
 grayish, powdery dirt that has since proved the richest gold ore the 
 earth has ever shown. The Boer government proclaimed nine 
 farms public gold fields. 
 
 Then the rush began. The Boers, always slow where enter- 
 prise wins out, were unbelieving. They could not make up their 
 minds to abandon the certainty of cattle-raising for the uncertainty 
 of mining, even with rich claims crying for takers. A few settled 
 on the Witwatersrand and went to work. Meantime the news of 
 the find spread over the borders into English territory. The word 
 made a sensation in Cape Town, and a horde of adventurers at 
 once set out. The news reached London and started the adventur- 
 ous there. Within a year nearly every working claim was under 
 the spade, and nearly all were in English hands. The Boers on 
 the spot had made up their minds too late. 
 
 OBTAINED NOWHERE ELSE SO EASILY. 
 
 The workings of the Witwatersrand — White Water Range, 
 in English — were thirty miles in length when all were developed. 
 The gold was found in a formation seen nowhere else in the world. 
 Regular beds, or " reefs," of dry, powdery conglomerate, in thick- 
 ness from two to twenty feet, are found throughout this district. 
 This black veldt is the ore. Nowhere else on earth is gold mined 
 and worked so easily or so cheaply. , "' - 
 
 In 1887, midway in the district and on the site of a hamlet 
 that had become the centre of the industry, a hustling, bustling 
 town was laid out, the city of Johannesburg. It was named after 
 the surveyor. Its altitude is 5,600 feet above the sea. In twelve 
 years the finest and largest city in South Africa has sprung up on 
 the bare mountain side, and the hills have been lined with the huge 
 chimneys, the reservoirs, the engine sheds, the stamping houses 
 
OOI.D AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 145 
 
 were 
 
 Inhuis 
 Jve it, 
 liiroii.--: 
 Jk the 
 |re the 
 nine 
 
 and the offices of great works that employ 6o,cxx) native miners 
 and 10,000 Europeans. 
 
 In 1899 the 198 companies had decreased to 137, but those 
 paying dividends had increased from twenty-eight to forty-five. 
 These forty-five companies paid dividends of $25,448,925 on a capi- 
 tal of $101,473,375, or something more than twenty-five per cent. 
 
 " It is a curious anomaly," wrote Major Ricarde-Seaver, in 
 1894, " to see, at the end of the nineteenth century, a minority of 
 fifteen thousand burghers, all told, ruling a majority of sixty thou- 
 sand enlightened, wealthy and prosperous aliens, who, although 
 they possess the richest and most valuable portion of the country, 
 have no voice in its management. The franchise must be extended 
 to all qualifying for citizenship, and when this is done, the Out- 
 landers, as a class, will cease to exist. They will become citizens, 
 and the control of the State will pass into the hands of the majority, 
 or, in other words, the Anglo-Saxon race." 
 
 RHODESIA A LAND OF GOLD. 
 
 Johannesburg is rightly named the " Gold City," for its output 
 is constantly increasing. Bulawayo, in Rhodesia, is likely to prove 
 a rival to Johannesburg. There are many gold mines there, but 
 they are not developed. Before the war started nearly all who went 
 to South Africa for gold located at Bulawayo. In 1898 it was a 
 small place, but the gold rush has been the means of enlarging the 
 city, and it has increased its population tenfold. From all appear- 
 ances Bulawayo will be an excellent place for prospectors after the 
 Transvaal war is ended. 
 
 Gold in South Africa is but rarely found in alluvial deposits. 
 Although it may be washed from the sand of some of the rivers and 
 from certain parts of the sea-shore, and although nuggets of con- 
 siderable size have occasionally been unearthed in places so far dis- 
 tant from one another as the south of Cape Colony and the valley 
 of the Zambesi, the individual digger, whose capital consists of a 
 spade, a washing-trough, and a couple of tins of bully beef, will 
 probably do better by obtaining employment on some mine, than 
 in excavating and washing, alluvial soil on his own account. 
 
 ' r M 
 
 i^r ilifV; 
 
 i"**^^"''^""- — - 
 
 MWaaa— Mi 
 
146 
 
 GOIyD AND DIAMONDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 The richest alluvial gold-fields known are those near Lyden 
 burg, in the Transvaal, where a large amount of the precious metal 
 has been recovered ; but the total output at Lydenburg for several 
 years sinks into utter insignificance when compared to that now 
 yielded annually by the Witwatersrand mines. 
 
 The mining laws of most of the South African communities 
 require that the holder of a claim shall not merely pay the license 
 dues exacted, but shall do a certain amount of work upon the 
 ground within a given time ; in other words, that he shall prove 
 the value of his claim. Quite properly this work is made a condi- 
 tion of fixitj of tenure, and, failing its completion within the period 
 fixed, the right of the holder lapses. 
 
 In the above law lies the chance of the prospector. Were the 
 holding of a claim dependent entirely upon the payment of the 
 necessary monthly license, a A'ealthy capitalist might retain large 
 tracts of land indefinitely, without even disturbing the surface of 
 the soil. Arrivals in the country would thus be prevented not only 
 from working on their own account, but perhaps from working at all. 
 
 THE LUOKY MAKE FORTUNES. 
 
 As it is, the capitalist relies upon the prospector to carry out 
 the law on his behalf, and the prospector turns to the capitalist for 
 the wherewithal to develop the riches whose existence his researches 
 have disclosed. This mutual dependence has led in many cases to 
 an amalgamation of interests. Where a district is found to be au- 
 riferous, syndicates or men of means are ready to pay experienced 
 miners to peg out reefs for them, in return for a monthly wage and 
 for a share in what is eventually discovered. 
 
 By those who are lucky, large fortunes may thus be realized ; 
 and those who are not personally successful in drawing great prizes 
 are at least earning an honorable living at the time, and are free to 
 turn to other employments when they wish to do so. 
 
 Those having a little money to fall back upon may perhaps do 
 better by exploring on their own account, but in either case the 
 chances of prospectors in South Africa are quite equal to those of 
 men working in alluvial districts elsewhere. Though they piav 
 
GOtD AKD mAMONDS OK SOUTH AmCA. 
 
 14T 
 
 u U bv their own exertions, the public is 
 not actually recover t^'jf^'^^,^;:: f„, the liberty of doing so ou 
 
 nearly always associated with ^"^ „ indicated by the chu - 
 
 U„od of workings tbemselvcs is occ ^^ ^^ ,^i„g „„e of the 
 
 acter of the vegetation, lemon^'^^^ ^^^^ ^^^.^^ ^^^^ ^,,„ occupied 
 most conspicuous signs of the a . 
 
 by a colony of miners. , ^<,„„tries is not always 
 
 ^ Besides this, experience gauied in ^^^ gold-be.nng cou^ 
 
 of service in South Africa. F°' '"'' ; of the Witwatersrand 
 iomerate containing the anriferons depos ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^ 
 
 ?X Transvaal was examined by e^pe ^ ^^^^^^_ ^^ ji„d 
 
 discoverer, and ^-lared t"t eswV--^ nearly a quarter 
 the group of mines-«nd Johannesburg P^^ increasing their yield 
 
 of the total output of the wuo 
 month by month. 
 
: CHAPTER X. 
 Cecil J. Rhodes — "the Uncrowned King." 
 
 ® I HE rapid march of events in South Africa can scarcely be re- 
 e )| corded without some mention of the Right Hon. Cecil J. 
 Rhodes, who became Premier of Cape Colony in July, 1890, and a 
 member of Her Majesty's Privy Council in January, 1895. This 
 most astute and fortunate man has played an important part in 
 almost all the great political or financial events that have taken 
 place in South Africa. As a diplomatist and intermediary, where 
 opposing interests require to be reconciled, his abilitjr is unques- 
 tionably extremely great. 
 
 Though not a gifted orator, he never fails to command atten- 
 tion, and, though exceedingly plain spoken, remains a riddle to 
 those most intimate with him. Apparently a believer in National 
 Federation, he gives away a small fortune to the Irish Home 
 Rulers. Enterprising, or even rash in matters of business, he 
 satisfies those connected with him, earns the respect of those who 
 feel themselves injured by his actions, enriches himself, and is yet 
 regarded by all as an honest, straight-forward man. 
 
 In spite of Solon's advice to call no man happy until he is 
 dead, it is safe to say that Mr. Rhodes will certainly be regarded for 
 all time as one of the leading statesmen in South Africa. Posterity 
 may even give his name an honorable place among those of other 
 great adventurers, who, since the days of the Tudors, have helped 
 to found or guard the British empire. Mr. Rhodes was succeeded 
 as Premier of Cape Colony by Sir John Gordon Sprigg, early in 
 January, 1896. 
 
 The first five years of Mr. Rhodes's politics were devoted to a 
 seemingly foolish admiration of the Kalahari Desert., To most 
 Cape Colonists and Cape Govei-nments, Bechuanaland was a wil- 
 derness, and Mr. Rhodes, with his plea for extension thither, was 
 a voice crying in the wilderness. The first use which Mr. Kruger 
 
 148 
 
CECIL J. RHODES— "THE UNCROWNED KING. 
 
 149 
 
 made of his guarantee of independence was to send out his raiders 
 east and west to found a new republic, for the Boer holds that 
 everything north of the Vaal was made over to him forever many 
 years ago. 
 
 It is curious to note that the Dutch- conciliation part of the 
 Rhodes programme broke down before the one incalculable factor 
 — Boer obstinacy. After all his efforts as Deputy Commissioner 
 to " square " the Boer raiders, it cost an expedition to keep Bechu- 
 analand open. However, thanks to the Imperial Government, not 
 the Colonial, the way to the north was kept open, and through it 
 Cape Town is linked by rail with Bulawayo. 
 
 SCRAMBLE FOR TERRITORY. 
 
 But meanwhile all sorts of people were sending up and spying 
 out the North itself: Germans, Boers, and so forth; boundaries 
 were all uncertain and conflicting territorial rights veiled in the 
 mist. With each fresh rumor Mr. Rhodes sat on thorns. What 
 Government should he get to take the next step ? Colonial Minis- 
 ters stuck short even at Bechuanaland. The Imperial Government 
 was not prepared to do any more to define its " sphere of influence " 
 until and unless private enterprise was ready to do something to 
 develop it. " Can't j^w do something?" was Sir Hercules Robin- 
 son's answer to a last urgent appeal from Mr. Rhodes. " I want 
 something to quote to the Imperial Government in proof that there 
 is real enterprise at work to make the country ours not merely in 
 
 name. 
 
 )> 
 
 That conversation was the germ of the great enterprise, begun 
 and carried on by Mr. Rhodes, which has linked the southern coast 
 of Africa with the vast region north of the Transvaal, where a new 
 nation is buckling on the harness for a rapid march forward and a 
 brilliant career. 
 
 The plan means the acquirement of territory that has been 
 running to waste through all past ages. Bechuanaland, annexed 
 by Cape Colony, is an example of empire-extension by protectorate. 
 Rhodesia is an example of " empire-extension on joint-stock prin- 
 ciples." The former plan is the more correct — and stagnant. The 
 
 Hi 
 
150 
 
 CECIIv J. RHODES— "THE UNCROWNED KING." 
 
 latter makes big mistakes— and progress. Joint-stock imperialism 
 is as old as the East India Company; but the Rhodes version of it 
 has some new aspects, both for good and evil. 
 
 When Gordon tolc' him the story of his refusing a roomful of 
 gold offered by the Emperor of China for crushing the Tai-ping 
 rebellion, Mr. Rhodes deplored the wasted opportunity. He would 
 have taken as many roomfuls as he could get. " One may have 
 big aims, but the bigger they are the more money one needs to 
 help them through." Napoleon remarked that " Providence was 
 generally on the side of the big battalions." The battalions of the 
 Napoleon of finance are substantial dollars. He has to win, like 
 his prototype, by sudden dashing concentrations of these battalions 
 on a divided and hesitating enemy. 
 
 MAKING AND GIVING AWAY MONEY. 
 
 It is absurd to talk of Mr. Rhodes as if he despised money. 
 It is equally absurd to talk as if the extremely good bargains which 
 he has struck, when selling his brains to the eager world of share- 
 holders and speculators, proved that money was to him what it is 
 to the average millionaire. Mr Rhodes husbands his fortune with 
 one hand and lavishes it with the other, just as Napoleon kept the 
 recruiting sergeant busy at one end of the scale while he never 
 hesitated to fling a few thousand men to certain death at the other. 
 
 " But what is all this money wanted for ? Isn't it to ' square ' 
 people — an engine of corruption? " That is the question commonly 
 suggested by some impressions of Mr. Rhodes which have become 
 current, not without a grain of fact to each ton of fancy. After 
 Mr. Rhodes conceived his northward schemes and began to press 
 them on High Commissioners and Colonial Secretaries, he was con- 
 tinually brought up by the bogy of the British taxpayer. The 
 British taxpayer is not stingy, but it is impossible to eat territory 
 at such a pace as John Bull has done for the last half century with- 
 out satiety supervening, and some fastidiousness about the menu. 
 John Bull will pay for annexing a country already proved good, and 
 what he has once taken he will hold with blood and treasure, pro- 
 vided muddling governments do not overdo military disaster. 
 
CECIL J. KHODES--THE UKCKOWED KINO." ^" 
 
 , ,. f littl,. -wars, with small aPP"*"* 
 But.heuhe ^f ^'''^ ^^rVrSiSh Africa. He is chary 
 
 profit and still less glory, asb^has ^^^^^^^^^^ He does not 
 of taking up large "^^ P"^'"f '/poreign Office pen, a " sphere 
 >„tod declaring, by a stroke ^J-J° ^^^ Something more was 
 of inflnence ; " bnt there the^ni^^^ P ^ ^^^^^^^ ^ Trans- 
 deeded, if the Transvaal borderUndw ^^^ ty 
 
 vaal emigrations And aft^^l^-g ^^^^^^ ,, ,, .onder^ a _ 
 this same miserable dittcmiy , j everything,' or every 
 
 Un of Mr. Rhodes's behef *at '-^^ J future in South Afhca, 
 TW at least for f^J^^tTis Nearly everything in the acqui- 
 
 should also conclude that ^°^^ ^^ ,„,,eed. 
 sition of territory, and IS pretty su , 
 
 onw THE BILLS ARE PAID. 
 
 ontrasted what he called the miserably 
 
 An English statesman '^"ted « administrative ideals 
 
 squaUd ass<^iations of BfCwstatle -rth. The statesman 
 of a rule like Sir Harry Johnston s tot ,^ .^^pany has 
 
 forgot the instructive fact that for ye^s ^ ^^^^^^^ ^ 
 
 Ln paying cash down to keep up^^Har y^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 
 Stion, while Mr. Rhodes's own poctot. j^ ^^^^^ scarcely 
 
 Harry's brilliant little raids °" ^^ ^^^^^^^inkers to make a boast 
 
 fef^o'r consistent in a ^l^f °^^f Jons, allow the Treasury to 
 
 of retaining and i-^'^^'^^^^Zslich mn in paying the bdl 
 S^a r^e slrtiL^rthat man with a sordid pr^cu- 
 
 be analyzed as follows. A Chartered Company g ^^^.^^ ^^ 
 a coS for what it can get out o it. A d ^^^^^^^ ^^ 
 
 ^vernm^nt could only gf ^ .f ^^^^^ J'ssets which a proper gov- 
 lot got a dividend ye*! 1'"^ it has go ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^ 
 
 elnent could not touch ; ^at .s to ^aj ^^^ ^^^^^ Canada 
 
 o™a prospective boom. ^ ■"eg^lar go^" ^ royalty does not 
 
 £LJn, a heavy royalty -gol^^^^^^^^ 
 
 S :r;X":f iutJng an administration is solved y 
 
 V 
 
 I t^ 
 
152 
 
 CECIL J. RHODES— "THE UNCROWNED KING." 
 
 But the British Soutli Africa Company, by virtue of Mr. 
 Rhodes's patent fifty per cent, clause, can go shares with the pri- 
 vate exploiters and speculators out of whatever value the investing 
 public of Europe chooses to put on the prospectuses of a country 
 still undeveloped. On other gold-fields, the government may take 
 toll by royalty, transfer dues, stamps, duties on mining necessa- 
 ries, licenses, or, as in the Transvaal, percentages on monopolies 
 granted to private persons. Here the idea is to make things easy 
 for the prospector till he strikes what he considers a find ; then 
 the Company comes in as a sort of ground-landlord and claims half 
 of the shares which the vendor gets allotted to himself in floating 
 the find into a company. 
 
 Thus in all subsidiary companies the Chartered Company 
 holds scrip, which it can either hold as an investment or sell to the 
 investing public. Mr. Rhodes laid down the principle that ordi- 
 nary revenue got of the settlers must be spent in administration ; 
 it is this speculation mining revenue that has to pay the piper — 
 to the tune of millions eventually. In short, Mr- Rhodes has in- 
 geniously arranged to bleed the British share-gambler in order to 
 pay for the neglected duties of the British taxpayer. 
 
 SPECULATING IN SHARES. 
 
 In the speculative stage of all gold-fields vast sums are drawn 
 from the credulity, as it is often called, or from the avarice and 
 recklessness, as it might be called more justly, of the people who 
 buy mining shares in the hope of selling them again to other peo- 
 ple at a profit. We do not speak of swindles, but simply of the 
 inevitable risk in the purchase of geological chances. Generally 
 speaking, these sums go into the pockets of private persons. 
 
 To a considerable extent, of course, that is true also of the 
 exploitation of Rhodesia ; but the peculiarity of the case is that 
 when the process is concluded, whatever may be the fate of all the 
 various gold companies, and even of the Chartered Company it- 
 self, there will have been incidentally added to the empire a prov- 
 ince, of more or less value for colonization, fitted up with railways, 
 telegraphs, and all the plant of a precocious civilization. 
 
fany 
 the 
 
 )rdi- 
 
 ion; 
 
 ir — 
 in- 
 to 
 
 CECIL J. RHODES— "THE UNCROWNED KING." 
 
 163 
 
 ^n the interim Mr. Rhodes takes, and gets his friends to take, 
 large risks. His own " roomful of gold " is not enough for his 
 schemes, and nothing is more remarkable than the way in which 
 he has been able, throughout his career, to induce financial asso- 
 ciates to put their resources also into his hobbies. No doubt one 
 part of the secret is their uniform experience that he always does 
 his best to see that they come out of it not badly. 
 
 However that may be, his personality seems to have cast a 
 spell over the Beits, the Bamatos, and all the other long-headed 
 men who were in close contact with his achievement of amalgama- 
 ting the diamond mines ; and so, when his northern scheme most 
 needed it in the early days, he was able to count on De Beers for 
 a risky loan. Risky it was thought at the time ; yet here again 
 he boasts that De Beers has had no cause to repent. One way or 
 another, the good British (and Continental) investor has had to 
 make it up to De Beers and forestall all losses. 
 
 NOT EAGER TO FURNISH THE MONEY. 
 
 Sometimes the spell fails to work, and the allies disappoint 
 him. The Transcontinental telegraph, which is linking the Cape 
 to Cairo, was a scheme praised in every English paper. Here, at 
 least, they said, was imperialism in which was no guile, because it 
 would never pay. Yet when Mr. Rhodes sent out circulars in 
 London to the shareholders of all his concerns, who were doing 
 very nicely just then, inviting them to put money, by way of a 
 thank-offering, into the guileless and unremunerative telegraph, 
 his only answer — so he tells the story — was from one indignant 
 shareholder who wrote to ask whether these highly improper cir- 
 culars were being sent out at the shareholders' expense. It is just 
 this kind of person whom Mr. Rhodes has made lay out large sums 
 on the extension of the Empire — by the ingenious mechanism 
 above described. 
 
 So, too, the inquiry at Westminster brought out the fact that 
 the Chartered Company had had to be tided over several lean 
 periods by private advances from Mr. Rhodes and his friend, Mr. 
 Beit. When Dr. Jameson telegraphed down that it was necessary 
 
 
 h 4 
 
 S ^ 
 
 l/4Mei] 
 
 H^JiHii > 
 
154 
 
 CECIL J. RHODES -"THE UNCROWNED KING." 
 
 to smash Lobengula, and Mr. Rhodes sent the characteristically 
 laconic reply, " Read Luke xiv. 31," the result of the calculation 
 of ways and means, which the Scripture quoted enjoins, was not 
 promising. So little promising, in fact, that this time De Beers 
 failed Mr. Rhodes. 
 
 He hurried up to the seat of war to find awaiting him a reply 
 telegraphed from Kimberley to a telegram of his own proposing a 
 loan : " Wish you luck in your war," such was its purport ; "Sorry 
 we cannot see our way clear to the loan you want." So once again 
 Mr. Rhodes had to see the way himself, out of his own pocket. The 
 skeptics thought they would score a point when they called for a 
 list of Chartered holdings, and it proved that Mr. Rhodes had sold 
 a block of his shares ; it was a surprise to those skeptics to learn 
 that Mr. P^hodes had only sold Charters to keep the Charter going. 
 
 NAPOLEON OP FINANOE. 
 
 And so the " financial Napoleon " goes on recruiting his bat- 
 talions and disposing of them ; driving hard bargains with Consoli- 
 dated Goldfields shareholders, and even, on one occasion at least, 
 with Chartered shareholders ; throwing the money back again into 
 the Charter at weak points ; recovering loans when the tidei turned 
 and the Company could repay him ; subscribing heavily to almost 
 every one of those subsidiary gold companies from whose vendor- 
 shares the Chartered shareholders in turn look to get their profits. 
 
 Of the sins of the British South Africa Company we have 
 heard enough since 1895. What of the credit side ? It (with the 
 allied Railway Companies) has opened up to the world a province 
 as large as any two countries in Europe (Russia excluded) ; has 
 organized, and paid for, the crushing of the last native war and the 
 last native rebellion in the long series of African wars and rebel- 
 lions, giving for the first time in the history of African govern- 
 ments, compensation for damage done to the amount of $1,250,000 
 in Matabeleland alone ; it has set up an administration which is at 
 least not corrupt, with pure and competent courts of justice ; and 
 has secured the enthusiastic, the almost intolerant, support of the 
 vast mass of the white inhabitants of the country. ; 
 
 o< 
 
 sense, 01 
 
 ordinary 
 
 seeing, 
 
 himself 
 
 one gre 
 
 been tl 
 
 many 3 
 
 Tl 
 
 seem t 
 
 l^is P^ 
 and m 
 
 uponi 
 
 under 
 
 publi< 
 
 Provi 
 
 ( 
 
 day £ 
 
 toria 
 
 the 
 
 doth 
 
 cott 
 
 jnei 
 
 '^■■Wt 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 Oom Paul Kruger and other Famous Leaders. 
 
 1 „v,V man was chosen presi- 
 
 N May 9tH, 1883, a mo«t ^^^^J^^^,, he is a n.an of 
 
 ^;^^ dent of tBe South African Repub ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ 
 
 W extraordinary ability is " jj^^ chair of the Trans- 
 
 .etained his ^^^^ »»f f Z,Sion «hich he has had to enconnter 
 vaal, and the outbursts of op^^tio^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ,ot served to 
 
 on several occasions have heen 
 
 dislodge him. ^ ,„ r,.„ A man of strong native 
 
 ^'president Kruger is a sturdy Boer^ A .^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ -^^ 
 sense, of iron wiU, blunt even to r^g^ yet 'very shrewd and far- 
 ordinkry people, a man of ^«"P^*^ ^^,^1, ^ interprets to suit 
 
 his purposes, tie oniy tlis peopic ^ 
 
 -rhb£^.ra;roS:r£u 
 
 5S:^rrt^^ert;e%e.ill.eonly..atnivine 
 
 l-Sence either decrees or pernnt. ^^^^ ^^^ ,^ 
 
 Oom Paul is a person of^^^^^^. „, ^;,iting the Raad m Pre- 
 day sitting on his " ^toep^v^randah) ^^ .^^^^^^ ^to 
 
 toria but he is a difficult bird to entrap ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^j^at 
 
 if^^ u4 
 
 i f 
 
1 i , 
 
 'li 
 
 '(i 
 
 156 OOM PAUL KRUGKR AND OTHER FAMOUS I.EADERS. 
 
 of Church Square, uutil his Honor, attired in his invariable black 
 frock-coat and broad-brimmed top-hat of ancient design, hurries 
 back to his beloved " stoep," in order to puff away at his enormous 
 pipe of Transvaal tobacco, and contemplate the New Dopper Church 
 opposite his residence. Here also, since threatening letters and 
 rumors of assassination have become more frequent, a guard has 
 been stationed, and two sentries of somewhat casual bearing, with 
 untidy cartridge-belts, are posted to warn oflF any possible intruder. 
 The house is certainly an insignificant-looking bungalow for 
 the chief of the State. It is a one-storied building, with wooden- 
 trellised verandah running along its whole length, and abuts on 
 the roadway without any intervening space. The only indications, 
 besides the sentries and the flagstaff, that the abode is one out of 
 the common, are the two mottled white marble lions presented by 
 Barney Bamato to the President. They are small and not partic- 
 ularly artistic animals, but they are quite pets with the Kruger 
 
 family. 
 
 GREAT REUGIOUS FESTIVAL. 
 
 When the writer happened to be in Pretoria, Oom Paul was 
 extra busy on account of the quarterly " nachtmaal," the Boer reli- 
 gious festiv9.1, which fell this year on Palm Sunday and the day or 
 two before. On these occasions the big square surrounding the 
 church is invaded by Boers who have trekked in from all parts of 
 the country, with their long wagons and spans of twelve or more 
 oxen, till the place resembles a huge farmyard. They outspan at 
 the foot of the government buildings, and boil their pots at the 
 church door, in exercise of their free rights as burghers. There is 
 a similar gathering around the President's church. Long services 
 are carried on, and the two buildings are crammed to suflfocation. 
 In the intervals more secular matters are transacted with his Honor 
 Stephanus Johannes Paulus, who is not averse, by the way, to doing 
 a little preaching himself. 
 
 " I braved the sentries," says a visitor, " and was very civilly 
 received by the President's grandson, who promised an introduc- 
 tion to his grandfather on his return from the Raad. On coming 
 back, however, the old gentleman was not in a particularly com- 
 
 OOM I 
 
 municative 
 
 cealed the \ 
 
 gate friU.' 
 determined 
 
 ainty.' H< 
 viewers, an 
 well-knowi 
 he would < 
 Paul was i 
 "In a 
 ^resident 
 and prefe 
 could pho 
 was scare 
 going to ^ 
 ner more 
 house wa 
 was now I 
 
 "Aj 
 
 permissi 
 
 all, and 
 
 His sen 
 
 gave m« 
 
 office, h 
 
 remain< 
 
 and to 
 
 departe 
 
 after a' 
 
 Boer o 
 
 H 
 
 is rela 
 
 a hug 
 
 Krug< 
 
 in tl 
 
OOM PAUI, KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS 1.EADERS. 167 
 
 municative mood. He sat behind a sort of screen which con- 
 cealed the upper part of his face, showing only the familiar ' New- 
 gate frill.' He eyed my camera distrustfully, and was evidently 
 determined not to be drawn into any definition of the word ' suzer- 
 ainty.' He has indeed been somewhat tactlessly handled by inter- 
 viewers, and now resents the approach of any newspaper man. A 
 well-known Frenchman, for instance, asked him point-blank what 
 he would do if the English came and occupied Pretoria. Uncle 
 Paul was speechless with rage. 
 
 " In answer to a few questions put through an interpreter, the 
 President intimated that he had nothing to say just at that moment, 
 and preferred to smoke away undisturbed. He said, however, I 
 could photograph his lions and sentries if I liked, but he thought it 
 was scarcely worth while to waste time over the house, as it was 
 going to be pulled down on the following day and rebuilt in a man- 
 ner more consonant w'th the dignity of the chief of the State. His 
 house was eighteen years old, and originally built by a Pole, but 
 was now out of keeping with the fine new buildings of the capital. 
 
 A SNAP SHOT AT KRUGER. '' 
 
 " As to being experimented on himself, he said that if he gave 
 permission to one journalist he would have to grant the favor to 
 all, and too many fearful caricatures of him had been published. 
 His sentries, however, were much readier to face the camera, and 
 gave me their names and the numbers of their boxes at the post- 
 office, in the hope that I would send them their portraits. It only 
 remained to snapshot the President as he retreated within his abode, 
 and to take a few more external views of the latter, after which I 
 departed, looking round from time to time to see if the guard were 
 after all covering me with their rifles for daring to accost the Arch- 
 Boer on his own 'stoep.' " 
 
 His worst enemy would not accuse him of lack of courage. It 
 is related of him that he was once hunting when he gave chase to 
 a huge buffalo. The animal fell into a wallow, and in a second 
 Kruger was on top of it, rider, horse and buffalo, rolling together 
 in the big puddle. Disentangling himself, Kruger seized the 
 
 
 ^ w 
 
 \ I 
 
 I 
 
 ' m '41 
 mm 
 
 
 \r 
 
' mil 
 
 168 OOM PAUI. KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 buffalo by the horns and twisted its neck until he forced its nose 
 under water. After a fearful struggle, by sheer strength, he drowned 
 the animal. 
 
 Kruger once injured his left thumb with a rifle, whereupon he 
 coolly took out his knife and amputated the wounded digit. On 
 another occasion he had a severe attack of toothache. For three 
 or four days and nights he endured the pain without a murmur ; 
 then one night, as he could not sleep owing to the troublesome 
 tooth, he got up, hunted for his knife, and with this dug out the 
 offending molar. 
 
 But President Kruger is above all things a wily diplomatist, 
 as well shown when a deputation of Outlanders waited upon him 
 to hint that he was responsible for the decrease in value of mining 
 shares. Oom Paul answered them in a parable about a pet monkey 
 he once had. " Years ago," said the President, " on a cold day, I 
 and the monkey made a fire, in which the animal burned his tail, 
 and in revenge bit me. I said to him : ' I made a fire to warm us 
 both, but you burned your tail in it. That was your own fault, and 
 I don'tvsee why you should be angry with me.' " 
 
 SHREWD WAY OP DIVIDING PROPERTY. 
 
 On another occasion he had referred to him a question about 
 the division of certain property between two brothers, who agreed 
 to abide by Kruger's decision. He listened patiently to both sides, 
 and then delivered his judgment. To the elder brother he said: 
 " I decide that you, being the senior, shall divide the property. 
 But I also decide that the younger brother shall have his choice of 
 the two portions." 
 
 " The Transvaal sun was already high in the heavens when 
 at 6 o'clock on an August morning, I c led upon President Kru- 
 ger," writes a traveler. " I found him sitting on his front porch 
 with his feet propped up against one of the Bamato lions. Nearby 
 sat Mrs. Kruger placidly knitting a pair of gray woollen socks for 
 her husband, and occasionally smiling at the quaint sallies of wit 
 which he flung out for the benefit of some country burghers who 
 were occupying the steps. ,./^' 
 
nose 
 ►wned 
 
 |on he 
 On 
 I three 
 rmur; 
 tsome 
 U the 
 
 OOM PAUI. KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS I^EADERS. 169 
 
 " As we approached the gate, Oom Paul got up and, knocking 
 the ashes from his pipe on a lion, said something which made his 
 hearers explode with laughter and indicated to our party, with a 
 wave of the hand, that he would receive us within. 
 
 " While the others were paying their respects to Mrs. Kruger, 
 I had time to look over the ' White House,' as it might be called, 
 ihough in color alone is the home of the Transvaal president simi- 
 lar to that furnished the head of our nation. It is a little, one- 
 story stone aflfair, covered with white plaster, more humble in ap- 
 pearance than the home of the ordinary American farmer. A 
 veranda about six feet wide runs along in front, and morning- 
 glory vines creep up the posts. 
 
 " The only suggestion of decoration is furnished by two huge 
 marble lions, which recline on either side of the steps. So massive 
 are they that the house appears, in comparison, even smaller than 
 it is. Barney Bamato gave these to Mr. Kruger to remind him of 
 the 'Great Trek' from Cape Colony, in 1836, when the Boer 
 pioneers killed 6,000 lions. 
 
 BLAOK OOFFEE AND PERFECT HEALTH. 
 
 "Oom Paul, like all his countrymen, has been practically 
 nourished on black coflfee. To it he ascribes his remarkable health, 
 for he has never been sick a day in his life. He drinks it poison- 
 ously strong, and so hot that, as the Boers say, ' if spat on a dog it 
 will take oiBf his hair.' 
 
 " He shook hands with me on being introduced, and immedi- 
 ately began to speak to my sponsors with such a rapid flow of Ian. 
 guage that I can only describe it as a splutter. He used the Taal 
 dialect, a deteriorated form of Holland Dutch, spoken by the Boers, 
 who also employ many Kaffir words in their conversation. Oom 
 Paul soon had the party laughing heartily over some recent ex- 
 perience. One of the gentlemen took occasion to lean over and 
 prompt me in a stage whisper with : ' His Honor is in a good humor 
 this morning. Ask him anything.'" 
 
 It could easily be guessed that there would be no warm friend- 
 ship between President Kruger and Cecil Rhodes. Yet it were 
 
 t 
 
 '•^j- j.i/i- 
 
160 OOM PAUI. KRUGRR AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 pertinent to ask, Why all this intermittent exhibition of spite and 
 vain anger from the Colossus— for he is colossal in many ways — of 
 the Transvaal ? Ever since the Jameson episode Mr. Kniger has 
 had the game in his own hands, and because his cards have been 
 badly played, with a probable disastrous result to himself and 
 others, he blackguards the amused on-looker, and figuratively tells 
 him "not to look on while he is playing, as his presence only 
 irritates." The reason for all this is too apparent, and verges, in 
 its unreasonableness, on the keen jealousy displayed by foreign 
 nations to British supremacy. 
 
 DESERT TURNED INTO A GARDEN. 
 
 The Transvaal, with all its potentialities and proved riches, 
 is on the downward grade, whilst Rhodesia, the scorned, the water- 
 less desert, and the land with nothing to show (as Paul Kruger 
 termed it) is progressing out of all understanding. The slump in 
 the one is put down to Kruger, and the rise in the other is placed 
 to the credit of Rhodes. There lies the point in a nutshell. 
 Imagine an old-established and flourishing business, in a leading 
 thoroughfare, losing its trade to a neighboring newcomer, with 
 half the stock to offer, no connection to boast of, and yet cutting 
 out its older and more powerful rival by leaps and bounds. The 
 proprietor of the older establishment, if a business man, will over- 
 haul his whole system, and work on lines more modem and en- 
 lightened, and endeavor to retain the trade, the fruits of past years 
 of success. 
 
 Mr. Kruger is not a business man, and therefore cannot reason 
 on these lines, but, instead, stands at the narrow door of his empty 
 shop and relieves his feelings by berating his brisk rival. The 
 very pillars of his stability are deserting him by the exodus of a 
 number of his burghers into Rhodesia, and the stream of Dutch 
 colonists from tbe Cape and the Orange Free State being diverted 
 Into the newer channel. Paul Kruger is like a wealthy proprietor 
 who has lined his own pockets, but is doomed to see the edifice he 
 has built fall about his ears, to the detriment of his whole staff and 
 employees. In his rival, Cecil Rhodes, he sees a man whose pockets 
 
and 
 Is— of 
 (r has 
 been 
 and 
 tells 
 only 
 |es, in 
 (reign 
 
 OOM PAIII. KRIJGI'R AND OTHKR FAMOUvS IJvADICRvS. Ml 
 
 have not been oveibnrdened with riches made ont of his own ven^ 
 tnre, 1)ut whose work is fonnded npon strict business principles, and 
 which will flourish for years after he retires from the management. 
 The enmity and envy engendered by this state of affairs has been 
 well reflected lately by the epithets hurled upon the devoted head of 
 Mr. Rhodes. " Murderer," with probably a few adjectives, omitted 
 in transmission, is the selected choice from the pious man's vocabu- 
 lary ; but to do Kruger full justice we do not ascribe such violent 
 language to a deliberate expression of a man who is cognizant of 
 the excellencies of his neighbor, and hates him the more for his vir- 
 tues being impressed upon his notice. 
 
 LAND TEEMING WITH RICHES. 
 
 Paul Kruger is, unfortunately, built roughly, and his utter 
 blindness to the plain path that lies before him excites pity more 
 than disgust. There is not the .slightest doubt that he has firmly 
 persuaded himself into the belief — which is not less convincing be- 
 cause it suits his own pocket — that the Transvaal's existence de- 
 pends upon the Dynamite Concession. Imagine a young a'ld prom- 
 ising land, teeming with riches, being dependent upon a private 
 contract for its existence 1 What can be the fate of a land, where 
 every ^vish of the majority of its inhabitants is thwarted, and all 
 opposition to the existing autocracy is set down as the machinations 
 of its enemies? 
 
 Paul Kruger, with teeth clenched and fists doubled, retains 
 
 and yearly increases his power, as against all comers. Small 
 
 wonder it is that the sight of Rhodes working away patiently at 
 
 an extreme corner of his dominion, without active authority or the 
 
 desire for siich, recommending the granting of any wishes of the 
 
 settlers that may be right and proper in a free and open country, 
 
 excites his rival to abuse. Where the fight is unequal betvv-een t i-e 
 
 two powers of South Africa is, that Rhodes knows his K liger, hi.t 
 
 Kruger, if he tried, has not the capacity to understand his Khodes. 
 
 There can hardly be a doubt that each force will keep to the track 
 
 until the last, with a result that is easily foretold. 
 
 When the war began a niece of President Kruger, far from her 
 11 
 
 I 
 
tl * 
 
 102 OOM PAUI. KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS I.EADERS. 
 
 native land, was anxiously scanning every war dispatch that gave 
 her information regarding the prowess of the sturdy Boers, whose 
 successes caused her loyal heart to beat exultantly and her cheek 
 to glow with excitement over each fresh burgher victory. 
 
 In 1898, in company with her brother, she came to the United 
 vStates, where he was obliged to look after an interest he had secured 
 in one of the rich gold and silver mines of southern Arizona. At 
 that time no thought was entertained of war or the devoted pair 
 would have remained in the land of their nativity ; one to defend 
 his rights, and the other, if need be, to nurse and aid in every way 
 possible her valiant kinsmen, friends, and countrymen. 
 
 BOER GIRL IN AMERICA. 
 
 Sannie Kruger's grandfather was a mixture of Boer and Eng- 
 lish, this combination being brought about before the great trek 
 in the beginning of the century, when the Boers and English 
 fraternized, and up to that time had not acquired the deep hatred 
 they have for one another at the present day. Her grandmothei 
 was a Boer girl and a sister of the present wife of Oom Paul Kru- 
 ger, while her father was a nephew of this clear-headed and re- 
 sourceful pilot of the destiny of the Transvaal Republic. She is, 
 therefore, a grandniece of both Kruger and his wife. On her mo- 
 ther's side she is also a great niece of General Piet Joubert. This 
 condition of affairs has been brought about from the fact that the 
 Boers intermarry among one another, crossing the relationships 
 until they exceed in complicity and intricacy even the famed rela- 
 tionships of the West Virginia and Kentucky mountaineers. 
 
 Unlike most of her countrywomen, vSannie Kruger was educated 
 in Europe, the greater part of her training being obtained in France 
 and Belgium, where she became highly proficient in painting and 
 music. President Kruger severely condemns foreign customs and 
 a continental training, but the fair slip of a girl he calls his niece 
 so captivated him that he forgave her this unpardonable offense 
 and even overlooked the slight strain of English blood in her na- 
 ture, which probably, more than anything else, accounts for her 
 love of travel and her determination to accompany her brother in 
 
 ' :\ 
 
fat gave 
 whose 
 cheek 
 
 United 
 [secured 
 Jia. At 
 
 led pair 
 
 defend 
 
 pry way 
 
 d Kng. 
 at trek 
 
 nglish 
 
 hatred 
 mothei 
 111 Kru. 
 and re- 
 She is, 
 ler nio- 
 
 Tliis 
 lat the 
 nshipi* 
 i rela. 
 
 Heated 
 '^rance 
 ? and 
 s and 
 niece 
 feus^ 
 r na- 
 • her 
 ir in 
 
 OOM '?AVh KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 16:1 
 
 his unheard-of determination to leave his native country and come 
 to America and hazard his fortunes in the most progressive of 
 Anglo-Saxon countries. 
 
 In speaking of her kinsfolk, Miss Kruger throws much light 
 upon what is generally unknown in this country concerning her 
 people. The impression that usually obtains concerning the Boe»s 
 is that they are purely an agricultural people, with few desires and 
 simple tastes.; and from long contact with the savage tribes whose 
 territory they took by force, they have acquired to a greater or less 
 extent a certain barbarity and coarseness not possessed by more 
 progressive peoples and diflferent tastes. 
 
 VICTIMS OP PREJUDICE. 
 
 She says : " We Boers are plain folk, with few caste and class 
 lines, having a strong national feeling, and desiring to be left alone 
 to govern ourselves as best we see fit. The impression that pre- 
 vails that we are coarse, uneducated and brutal is due to the preju- 
 dices scattered broadcast against us by the Outlanders, who are 
 desirous of taking by hook or crook our lands and property which 
 have, contrary to first impression, proved very valuable, not alone 
 in mineral wealth, but as an agricultural community. 
 
 " It is true that * the doppers,' as we call them, the plain 
 farmers, who live on isolated farms and rarely if ever mingle with 
 the life of our cities or towns, are more or less uneducated and plain 
 in their tastes ; but in the United States on the Western farms and 
 in fact scattered all over the country you have settlers who are 
 cruder and more primitive in their way of living than our ' hay- 
 seeds ' are. A ' dopper ' girl dresses and looks as different from a 
 town-bred girl as your country lass does from your city-bred maiden. 
 Your farmers' daughters are not duplicates of your daughters of 
 wealth and fashion, are they? No more are we like the ' dopper' 
 women. 
 
 " The 'doppers' all dress in gowns cut after the same pattern, a 
 cheap print of bright color made into a short skirt for convenience 
 sake, gathered full around the waist, a blouse simply made with a 
 low band for a collar, topped off by a sunbonnet. On Sundays and 
 
 f f 
 
 .ftl 
 
 
 ■ )■ 
 
 m 
 
 W'ri 
 
 
 I ffi 
 

 1G4 OOM PAUL KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 holidays tliey appear resplendent in tlieir gaudiest, brightest and 
 best gowns, with a nurrow ribbon of gay color, tied in a 'Dutchy' 
 bow- — short, stiff loops and long ends somewhat like the fashion in 
 vogue in this country several years ago. 
 
 " We girls of the cities and towns, however, dress as fancy dic- 
 tates, and it is no unusual thing to see copies of La Mode, Harper's 
 Bazaar and the latest London fashion plates adorning the dressing 
 tables of these city belles. As a rule, however, on ordinary occa- 
 sions we dress very simply owing to the fact that we ride a great 
 deal ; and as we ride astride like the men, we cling to short skirts 
 rather than trailing gowns. To tell you the truth I do not see how 
 American girls accustom themselves to ride in the awkward manner 
 they do, and I am glad to see the progressive young ladies in the 
 West have adopted our mode of riding. 
 
 READY TO ADOPT PASHIONABLB DRESS. 
 
 " The general impression that Boer wives wear a Mother Hub- 
 bard and never appear in anything else is a base libel on the race. 
 Perhaps in some of the outlying farms this may be true, but our 
 mothers as a rule wear a two-piece garment, the skirt and waist 
 being simply made, while their children, as I have before stated, 
 lean very strongly toward foreign fashions, and adopt them en all 
 possible occasions. 
 
 " It is also generally asserted that a great deal of Zulu blood 
 is intermingled with our race. This is another English absurdity. 
 We pride ourselves upon our hereditary clannishness, and we treat 
 the Zulus and Basutos and Mashoanos simply as servants to do the 
 drudgery and other labor which they are willing to perform to par- 
 ticipate to a slight degree in the influences of our civilization. We 
 carry our relationships almost to an absurdity, for a Boer, even if 
 he is only a fiftieth cousin, is a relative, but from our custom of 
 intermarrying all Boer families are more or less closely related. 
 
 " Like all Boer girls I am an excellent shot and I fervently 
 wish I were back in the Transvaal that I might if need be defend 
 our land fro.n the relentless attacks of the English invader. From 
 sheer necessitv we have all been obliged to learn how to shoot, and 
 
 OOM 
 
 one of the 
 
 at long ra 
 
 "Out 
 
 through tl 
 
 to the won 
 
 in time of 
 
 the case 
 
 take a ha 
 
 "Wc 
 
 will show 
 "He 
 needed b; 
 return tli 
 to the lai 
 sible, rej 
 Rorke's 
 
 An^ 
 
 executiv 
 
 with his 
 
 was the 
 
 man wii 
 
 the hig' 
 
 band — ^1 
 
 Tt 
 
 in the! 
 
 lions w 
 
 dead of 
 
 had to 
 
 in her 
 
 Iti late 
 
 farms 
 
 that h 
 
 from t 
 
 that y 
 
RRS. 
 
 flitest and 
 
 'Dutchy' 
 
 fashion in 
 
 [fancy die- 
 Harper's 
 dressing 
 lary occa- 
 ^e a great 
 lort skirts 
 >t see how 
 d manner 
 ies in the 
 
 her Hub- 
 the race. 
 2, bnt our 
 md waist 
 re stated, 
 :in en all 
 
 ilu blood 
 bsurdity. 
 we treat 
 to do the 
 II to par- 
 on. We 
 , even if 
 stom of 
 ited. 
 :rvently 
 : defend 
 From 
 >ot, and 
 
 OOM PAUL KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 105 
 
 one of the first prerequisites of our education is to hit a bull's eye 
 at long range. 
 
 " Our cunning with the gun has been handed down to us 
 through the generations. When treking on the veldt it often fell 
 to the women to keep the prowling lions away from the wagons, and 
 in time of war our ^vomen stand behind the laager or barricades, aa 
 the case may be, loa . the guns, tend the wounded and if needed 
 take a hand in the shooting also. 
 
 " We will be defeated in the long run by the English, but we 
 will show that we know how to fight. 
 
 " Here I am continually harassed by the thought that I am 
 needed by my country, and at times so strong is the inclination to 
 return that I am almost persuaded to commence the long voyage 
 to the land of my nativity so that I may be able to help, if it is pos- 
 sible, repeat to the British the terrible lessons we taught them at 
 Rorke's Drift and Majuba Hill." 
 
 PRESIDENT OP ORANOE FREE STATE- 
 
 Another celebrity in South Africa is President Steyn, chief 
 executive of the Orange Free State. He spent his earlier years 
 with his maternal grandmother at Bloemfontein. This good lady 
 was the wife of the famous Boer leader and pioneer, Wessels — a 
 man with some sterling qualities, whose memory the Boers hold in 
 the highest reverence. Mrs. Wessels was a fit wife for such a hus- 
 band — brave, determined, patriotic, gentle and loving. 
 
 The natives disputed every step the " trekking " Boers took 
 in their country, but they were hardly more dangerous than the 
 lions which prowled about in large numbers. Many a time in the 
 dead of night Steyn's grandmother, when a young married woman, 
 had to fly from impending death in one form or another, one child 
 in her arms, another running by her side clinging to her skirts. 
 In later years, when the Boers had settled dov^r to cultivate their 
 farms and the Wessels were able to look back on the stormy days 
 that had passed, a phrase that Steyn and his brothers heard often 
 from their grandmother's lips was : " You are free men. See to it 
 that you remain free." 
 
 ■j iiaaiMiit 
 
lOG OOM PAUL KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 The marriage of the president of the Free State is quite a little 
 romance in itself. He was intended for a legal career, and when 
 nineteen years of age left South Africa to pursue his studies in 
 Europe. On the same ship was a sweet, winsome lassie of twelve, 
 and the boy and girl became boon companions to the end of the 
 voyage. Steyn studied with diligence and success. Sometimes 
 he thought of his little traveling companion, and wondered if hei 
 should ever see her again. 
 
 Six years passed, and Steyn returned to Bloemfontein a full- 
 fledged barrister. He had only becu home a few days when he 
 attended a school function, and one of the first guests he was in- 
 troduced to was a beautiful young woman of eighteen, in whom 
 he quickly recognized his ship companion of six years before. 
 Under similar circumstances young people are apt to call such a 
 coincidence " destiny," and Steyn and his SM'eetheart were no ex- 
 ception to the rule. His offer of marriage was accepted, but 
 Steyn's financial position did not warrant him in setting up house- 
 keeping just then. He had plenty of brains, but few briefs to 
 exercise them on. There was nothing for it but to wait and work. 
 
 THOUGHT TO BE STEALING A SWEETHEART. 
 
 Steyn traveled a great deal in circuit, and the letters for his 
 sweetheart he addressed secretly to a mutual friend, upon whom 
 Miss Fraser — for such was the young woman's name — called every 
 day for her billets-doux. Bloemfontein even now is no larger than 
 a decent-sized English village ; in those days it was so small that 
 everybody made a point of knowing everybody else's business. 
 
 Consequently, people were quick to notice the friendship that 
 had sprung up between Miss Fraser and Steyn's friend in the bar- 
 rister's absence, and the general impression was that this friend 
 was trying to steal Steyn's sweetheart from him, thus proving 
 himself a traitor to Steyn and unworthy of recognition by any 
 honest, fair dealing resident of Bloemfontein! Friends deserted 
 the unhappy man; where once he was met with smiles he saw 
 nothing but frowns, but he stuck loyally to his trust despite it all. 
 
 When Steyn returned to Bloemfontein, people received him with 
 
a little 
 
 wlien 
 
 lies ill 
 
 |twelve, 
 
 of the 
 
 ietinies 
 
 if he» 
 
 a full, 
 en lie 
 as ill- 
 whom 
 'before, 
 such a 
 no ex- 
 id, but 
 house- 
 iefs to 
 I work. 
 
 'or his 
 
 whom 
 
 every 
 
 r than 
 
 1 that 
 s. 
 
 • that 
 
 2 bar- 
 riend 
 >ving' 
 
 any 
 irted 
 
 saw 
 
 all. 
 ivith 
 
 OOM PAUI^ KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS I.KADERS. 107 
 
 veiled cxi^ressions of commiseration. Steyn could not understand 
 it. He hastened to the residence of the man who had been acting 
 as his " postman," and inquired the meaning of it all. He roared 
 with laughter when he heard of the conclusion his fellow townsmen 
 had jumped to, and how surprised those good 'but nii.sguided folk 
 were when they saw the rising young barrister and " the base 
 deceiver " >valking arm in arm through the streets may be readily 
 imagined. 
 
 At last Bloemfontein learned the truth. They had much to 
 ask forgiveness for from the man upon whom they had too quickly 
 l^asscd judgment, and he was feted and banqueted for many days 
 thereafter. The marriage of Advocate Steyn and Miss Fraser 
 rounded off a pretty little romance, but whether the " postman" 
 acted as " best man " — if there is such an office at a Boer wedding 
 — deponent sayeth not. 
 
 In this wise did the man who is figuring so prominently in 
 the Transvaal war meet, woo and win a charming bride. 
 
 OTHER CELEBRITIES. 
 
 Doubtless the action of the Orange Free State people in aiding 
 the Boers against the British was started by Dr. Frank W. Reitz, 
 Premier of the Transvaal, who w^as formerly President of the 
 Orange Free State. He resigned in 1895, because of ill health, and 
 visited England, and was cordially received by King Leopold, of 
 Belgium, and by the President of France. 
 
 Dr. Reitz conies of German stock, his ancestors having settled 
 in Holland two centuries ago. His grandfather went to Afnca, 
 where Dr. Reitz was born, in 1844. He was graduated from the 
 vSouth African College, studied law in England, and was called to 
 the bar in 1868. He practiced successfully in Cape Town for six 
 years, and was then appointed Chief Justice of the Orange Free 
 State. In 1889 he was elected President, and his official service 
 was entirely satisfactory. 
 
 The great general and ccmmander-in-chief of the Boer army is 
 Pietrus Jacobus Joubert. When the British General Symons wn- 
 killed in one of the first engagements of the war, it was just like 
 
 *K J' 
 
 Si. . (f «r 
 
 ■ s I 
 
 J * *• i 
 
 ' *'" Si 
 
 III 
 
 Wt* i 
 i M 
 
 i m 
 

 168 OOM PAUL KRUGKR AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 Joubert to telegraph condolences to Lady Synions. He is frank- 
 ness and honesty personified. He is a man and a soldier of the 
 type Englishmen and Americans like. Nothing could be more 
 courteous than his treatment of his English prisoners, from Lady* 
 smith. Nothing could be kinder than his care for the wounded 
 enemy. 
 
 Here is what a correspondent of a London journal said of him, 
 writing from Ladysmith : 
 
 " At daybreak I got back to the station just as Joubert's train 
 was steaming away to Sandsspruit, By dint of audacity the station 
 master was persuaded to stop it. I boarded the General's own spe- 
 cial saloon carriage. Evidently the sheer impudence of the thing 
 must have staggered him, for he forgave me and came into my 
 compartment. We chatted for hours on the journey to the big Bv.r 
 camps at Sands River, or spruit. 
 
 COMMANDER OF THE BOER ARMY. 
 
 " I noted that the General was generally popular, the Boers 
 clustering about the stations to shake hands with him. He woul<l 
 descend, when the train stopped long enough, to say a few words 
 by way of encouragement. There were some feeble attempts at 
 cheering, but your Transvaal burgher has no lungs for that form 
 of popular approval. 
 
 " I asked and received permission to snapshot Joubert and his 
 more immediate friends. He stepped out of the train and took up 
 a position for that purpose. In appearance he bears strong traces 
 of his French origin. His quick, dark eyes beam with shrewdness 
 and kindness. He has a belief that the future and the present are 
 for the Boer, and declares he would cut his throat sooner than give 
 way on the points of Transvaal's claims or doubt God's personal 
 support of its cause." 
 
 Joubert, with the addition of some polish, is a typical Bo»^r. 
 He comes of an old French Huguenot family, long settled in South 
 Africa, with a strong infusion of Dutch blood. Like President 
 Kruger, he was born of good family. He was a worker and at 
 one time was a farmer. But his innate ability soon lifted him into 
 
 OOM 
 
 public life. 
 lie, and aft 
 be Preside 
 honor fron 
 Inth« 
 
 'smarted 
 Transvaa 
 to Englai 
 was form 
 ber 30, 1^ 
 the triun 
 The 
 and Maj 
 was the 
 dealt El 
 Joubert 
 English 
 at Maju 
 
 No 
 
 fairnesj 
 
 lying li 
 
 in 1S8 
 
 ftushe(3 
 
 Engla' 
 
 sessed 
 
 u 
 
 ernme 
 coven 
 and g 
 
 J 
 coun1 
 
 agaii 
 
 nets 
 
him, 
 
 train 
 itioii 
 
 spe- 
 iuu<r 
 
 my 
 
 OOM PAUL, KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. U19 
 
 public life. He became State Attorney to the South African Repub- 
 lic, and afterward Vice-President. He has long been ambitious to 
 be President, and in 1893 came within 881 votes of winning this 
 honor from the great Krnger himself. Joubert is very popular. 
 
 In the late seventies, during the troubles with England that 
 culminated in the war, under the memory of wliicli England has 
 smarted ever since, Joubert became a very prominent figure in 
 Transvaal aifairs. He accompanied Kruger on his memorable visit 
 to England, when the demand for the independence of the Republic 
 was formulated. This demand was finally refused, and on Decem- 
 ber 30, 1880, Kruger, Joubert and Pretorius formed themselves into 
 the triumvirate tliat declared the Republic independent. 
 
 Then came the memorable war, with Laing's Nek, Ingoga Rion 
 and Majuba Hill following in rapid and fatal sequence. Joubert 
 was the hero of Majuba Hill. He personally led the force that 
 dealt England the blow she has neither forgotten nor forgiven. 
 Joubert remarked the next day that he always had supposed the 
 English flag was red, but now he knew it was white ; he had seen it 
 at Majuba Hill. That remark completed his conquest of the Boers. 
 
 REPUTATION FOR FAIRNESS. 
 
 Nothing is written about Joubert that does not comment on his 
 fairness. The Boers, in their insatiable ambition to possess out- 
 lying lands that England seized before them, raided Bechuanaland 
 in 1884. The movement was a popular one. The Boers were 
 flushed with victory. They believed the land was more theirs than 
 England's, for they had broken the ground before England pos- 
 sessed it. But Joubert stopped it. 
 
 " I positively refuse," he declared, " to hold office under a gov- 
 ernment that deliberately breaks its covenants, and we have made 
 covenants with England." He meant it. He would have resigned 
 and gone back to his farm, and the Boers knew it. 
 
 Joubert orgnnized the army of the Transvaal. He divided the 
 country into seventeen military departments, and each department 
 again and again into smaller divisions, with commanders, field cor- 
 nets and lieutenants of various ranks in charge. Every man in 
 
 ! 
 
 ' i 
 
 ij ■'.) ^'.. 
 
170 OOM PAUL KRUGKR AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 the Transvaal became a trained soldier without leaving his farm. 
 Every man had his complete equipment ready at home. Every 
 man was pledged to appear at an appointed spot at the summons. 
 
 To mobilize the entire force of the Republic Joubert had to send 
 only seventeen telegrams. The word passed down the line, and in 
 an incredibly short time hundreds of post riders carried the summons 
 from farm to farm. Within forty-eight hours the entire nation would 
 be in arms, fully equipped and provisioned for a month, awaiting only 
 the command to assemble. In the old days of Majuba Hill the 
 army thus assembled was an army of sharpshooters. Then Jou- 
 bert's proud boast was true — " Forty bullets per soldier, and a 
 man per bullet." But game is almost as scarce in the Transvaal 
 now as in New Jersey, and with practice lacking the Boers are not 
 the marksmen they were many years ago. 
 
 ANECDOTE OP KRUGER AND JOUBERT. 
 
 This story is told of Joubert and Kruger in Paris : The Gen- 
 eral was asked how he trained the Boers to such splendid marks- 
 manship. " We are hereditary marksmen," he said. " We had to 
 send our children to school, and the country was full of wild beasts 
 and Kaffirs. So every boy had to carry a rifle and know how to 
 defend himself and his sisters. He was expected to prove his skill 
 by bringing home bags of game. That's how we teach our boys. 
 Isn't that so, Kruger ?" 
 
 The burly President, thus appealed to, puffed his pipe con- 
 tentedly for a few moments and then said : " Yes, we make our 
 boys understand that the meek inherit the earth." 
 
 Joubert and Kruger, it is well known, are not the warm per- 
 sonal friends they once were. Not that there is enmity, or even 
 coldness between them, but they have drifted apart. This was un 
 avoidable between two such men, when Joubert grew big enough to 
 become a serious rival to the great Boer President. Twice they 
 have run against each other for the presidency, but in the last elec- 
 tion Kruger, because of his fiercer anti-British attitude, far out- 
 stripped his rival. 
 
 Like Kruger, General Joubert has a popular nickname in the 
 
 00^^ 
 
 Transvaa 
 
 A complii 
 
 Piet." I 
 
 Boer for 
 
 British c 
 
 Phi 
 
 mander- 
 
 brick b 
 
 Boer ar 
 
 somewl 
 
 practice 
 
 Vi 
 
 special 
 
 accidei 
 
 theQi 
 
 and tl 
 
 in moi 
 
 has si 
 
 in the 
 
 phia 1 
 
 Joube 
 
 soutl 
 
 Ame 
 
 Ame 
 coloi 
 bosc 
 naffl 
 it w 
 dist 
 yes- 
 
 in 
 ten 
 
COM PAV. KKUOEK AK. OTHUK rA.O.S ^^^J^ 
 Transvaal, but not one nearly so aferiona^^^^^^^ 
 : compliment to his n1nUt.es. ""^ ^^/"°^i^ physical being. It >s 
 *pS7 But " slim" has no ----,*£ "^JoVt .eally is the 
 Boer for shrewd, or crafty, and no 
 
 British discovered at Ladysnuh ^.^^ Joubert.the co,,,- 
 
 Philadelphia is the birthplace ot o tUvee-storud 
 
 „, Jer-iu Jef of the Boer f<^c- In ^^^ ^,,^ ^„,„,„,„, the 
 
 brick building at ixo5 A«l^f "^^'^^ ^„Ming has been altera 
 
 Boer army first saw the >'f'.i,joubert family, but it renimns 
 
 „hat ^>- tlsltTe^^'lf Uen-s birth, 
 practically as It was at ^^^^^ 
 
 MARRIED Airo OAJIU!. i ^ 
 
 Very little is known in ^^^^^S^J:1^^ of tlJ Port 
 special deputy of the Cnstom House an ^^^ ^,„^ ,,,;aents of 
 Tcidently learned *at the Jonb"^^J^^^^ .^eir place of residence 
 the Quaker City. ^ l'"le '^"'„Xrt was born. The family was 
 and that it was here that P>^* J°"^^X the birth of the boy, who 
 
 tn moderate circumstaiices '^"^^''''^ J'^oved to some litt e town 
 has since earnedworld-w.de fame, they ^ ^^ pj^^^.j i. 
 
 ifthe central part of P^nn^y^^t %i„ie in Holland. The elder 
 ';h a tbrjonberts had "ved ^ ^fj^r^tve with a girl in the 
 
 ^-Xn the great r^X^^l^^^^^ ' 
 America, Joubert decided to t^k« ^'^ '^^J, Roek, near Stellen- 
 t" ly from Holland, and settle at^Fransc ^^^ 
 
 distmgmsli himselt. n ^_^^^ 
 
 W 
 

 172 OOM PAUL KRUGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 
 
 country to the World's Fair at Chicago. It is not generally known 
 that Piet Joubert and Paul Kruger are not friends, but enemies, 
 and that the war in the Transvaal has largely been urged on by 
 both because each was afraid that any lack of zeal he displayed 
 would cause his undoing and the political elevation of the other. 
 In fact they are rivals in every field of activity, have little in com- 
 mon and much in diflference. They are both men of strong per- 
 sonality, and bring to bear shrewdness and knowledge quite 
 unusual in their fight against each other. Kruger has thus far 
 had the advantage of money and position to aid him. This is the 
 explanation of the success of his political aspirations. 
 
 Though Kruger is President of the republic, Joubert's political 
 position is hardly less notable. He is Vice-President, commander- 
 in-chief of the army, a member of the Executive Council, the Cabi- 
 net of the republic, and holds a dozen other offices. He fails only 
 of the Presidency, though he has made two attempts to wrest this 
 from Kruger. The first time there were those who said that he had 
 polled more votes and was defeated by wholesale swindling. The 
 second time he was undoubtedly beaten by the presence of a third 
 candidate in the field, who divided the vote. 
 
 CAN GET THE BEST OF A BARGAIN. 
 
 Joubert is an honest man according to his lights, but they are 
 dim. He never has deliberately swindled any one ; but, being a 
 man of business first and a farmer or a generalissimo afterwards, 
 he takes the keenest delight in getting the best of a deal, whether 
 it be in mining shares, gold claims, water rights or oxen. It is 
 this pride in the conscious sentiment of " smartness" that is such 
 a prominent feature throughout the Boer character. 
 
 One of Joubert's foibles is being photographed. Probably he 
 is the most photographed man in the Transvaal. Owing to this 
 harmless little peculiarity his features are thoroughly well known. 
 A broad, straight furrowed brow, from which the whitening hair is 
 carefully brushed back, overhangs a pair of powerful, clear and 
 honest grey eyes, which look the stranger straight in the face, and 
 are not shifty and furtive as are those in the head of the average 
 
 Boer. 
 
 corner! 
 
 The n 
 
 on sir 
 power 
 ••eposc 
 
OOM PAUL KRIJGER AND OTHER FAMOUS LEADERS. 173 
 
 |own 
 
 lies, 
 
 by 
 
 }yed 
 
 [her. 
 
 [om- 
 )er- 
 lite 
 far 
 
 I the 
 
 Boer. The month is cold and hard, with no trace of a smile ; the 
 corners droop slightly, and the general expression is not amiable. 
 The nose is the striking featnre; it inspires respect, for it is built 
 on strong, commanding lines, and broadens out at the base into 
 powerful but sensitive nostrils. The face as a whole has dignity, 
 •"cpose, almost a certain nobility of its own. 
 
 A renowned commander vas sent to South Africa from England 
 to direct the movements and be responsible for the fortunes of the 
 British army. This is General Sir Redvers Buller, who wears th** 
 Victoria Cross, a badge of valor won on the battlefield. 
 
 A BRILLIANT OFFICER. 
 
 In May, 1858, a young man of whom nothing of any great 
 importance was known at the time joined the Sixtieth Rifles as 
 ensign, yet there are few E)nglishmen to whom his name and ex- 
 ploits are not familiar. This is because the Rifleman of 1858 is 
 now the man in whom the thoughts of every soldier of the empire 
 are centered. Sir Redvers' life has been crowded with incidents. 
 The first twelve years of his service were spent as a subaltern. He 
 saw plenty of fighting in them, for the Chinese war of i860 took 
 him to the east, and he was present at the actions of Sinlio, Taku 
 Forts and the capture of Pekin. 
 
 Ten years later he met Wolseley in Canada, and served under 
 him in the Red River expedition. Evidently he impressed the 
 commander-in-chief very strongly with his capabilities, for when 
 the Ashanti expedition was organized Buller was selected to accom- 
 pany him. When the troops returned to England, Sir Redvers 
 (then a Major) was given a staff appointment at the War Oflice. 
 
 In the latter part of 1878 the situation in South Africa de- 
 manded his presence in the field, and accordingly Buller took an 
 active part in the Kaffir and Zulu wars. For his services in the 
 various operations that ensued he was frequently " mentioned in 
 dispatches," granted the brevet of lieutenant colonel, thanked in 
 general orders, and awarded the proud distinction of the Victoria 
 Cross for personal heroism in the face of the enemy. 
 
 No precaution was omitted for the successful iDerformance of 
 
174 OOM PAUL KRUGKR AND OTHRR FAMOUS LKADERS. 
 
 the threefold task devolving upon Sir Redvers Duller and his com- 
 niand, a larger force than was coninianded by Wellington at Water- 
 loo. Buller's task was threefold. He was instructed to disarm the 
 Boers, to establish equal rights for white men south of the Zambesi, 
 and to arrange for the civil administration of the conquered terri- 
 tory when the war was over. No man is more competent than 
 Bnller to accomplish these ends. His character is complex. 
 Brave, determined, stern, with a biting tongue and burning zeal, 
 he exacts from others in pithy and monosyllabic sentences instant 
 and unquestioning obedience. 
 
 He is head of a county family, a Privy Councillor, and has 
 been Under Secretary for Ireland, where he is supposed to have 
 contracted sympathy for Home Rule. Although taciturn, brusque, 
 and even brutal in speech when on service, there is another side to 
 his character. His social characteristics are equally marked. An 
 excellent judge of the art of dining, and a perfect host, there is an 
 atmosphere of charm and a note of distinction that makes "Buller 
 the idol of his friends. He is human, and attracts more strongly 
 than he repels; unlike Kitchener, whose cold, hard, calculating 
 character left him almost friendless while carving his way to for- 
 tune, Buller's social reputation and magnetism have grown with 
 his manhood. 
 
 Tra 
 
 RIG 
 
 in 
 
 (( c 
 
 V 
 
 nation. ^ 
 
 first it was 
 
 it was pra 
 
 and of gc 
 
 energy ai 
 
 Transvaa 
 
 populatio 
 
 Great Bri 
 
 declined 
 
 they enU 
 
 was done 
 
 were so d 
 
 the Boer 
 
 they fled 
 
 but in V 
 
 him. B 
 
 of them 
 
 Tb 
 
 Transvi 
 
 Cetewa 
 
 lay on 
 
 hostilit 
 
 encroai 
 
 inflner 
 
 Natal. 
 
 tent; 
 
 audit 
 
il 
 
 i'^ '■ 
 
 Il.'lS 
 
 lliave 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Tragic Story of Majuba Hill and Lang's Nek. 
 
 RIGINALLY there were four republics in the Transvaal, but 
 in i860 they were united into one under the title of the 
 " South African Republic," which is now its official desig- 
 nation. The South African Republic did not prosper. From the 
 first it was impecunious, and within a decade after its establishment 
 it was practically insolvent. The discovery, in 1867, of diamonds 
 and of gold brought into the country a rush of strangers, whose 
 energy and enterprise might have altered the condition of the 
 Transvaal, but for the lethargy and obstinate isolation of the Boer 
 population. Burgers, the last President before the annexation to 
 Great Britain, was a man of vigor and talent, but the stolid Boers 
 declined to be welded by him into a nation. In a war upon which 
 they entered with Sekukuni, a powerful native chief, the fighting 
 was done for them by the warlike native tribe of Amaswazis, who 
 were so disgusted with their white allies that they left them. When 
 the Boers had to do their own work their hearts failed them and 
 they fled ignominiously. Burgers, with tears, strove to rally them, 
 but in vain, and he begged them to shoot him rather than disgrace 
 him. But they shrugged their shoulders, and more than two-thirds 
 of them fled home, leaving him hemmed in and powerless. 
 
 The republic was encircled by native enemies all round the 
 Transvaal borders, all waiting for the impending onslaught by 
 Cetewayo, the Zulu king, the master of a formidable army which 
 lay on the frontier ready to strike, and restrained from immediate 
 hostilities against the Boers — who had provoked him by many 
 encroachments — only by his fear of the English and the personal 
 influence of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the native secretary of 
 Natal. On the northeast the Amaswazis brooded in sullen discon- 
 tent ; northward, within and be3'ond the frontier, anarchy raged * 
 and in the west the Bechuanas were waiting for their opportunity. 
 
 175 
 
 
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176 
 
 STORY OF ^rAJTIRA HIIJ. AND LANO\S NEK. 
 
 Finaiiciall}' llic republic was hopelcssl}' iiisolveiU, Tlic Boers 
 set their faces against taxation. It is a notorious fact that wlieu 
 Shepstone annexed the Transvaal there was found in the public 
 treasury only twelve shillings and sixpence (about three dollars), 
 part of which was base coin. Clearly a crisis was impending which 
 threatened to involve South Africa in great peril. The annexation 
 was no sudden act. The Blue-books contain remonstrance on re- 
 monstrance addressed by British officials to the Transvaal autliori. 
 ties. At length Lord Carnarvon's forbearance was exhausted. 
 vShepstone was sent for to England, and received a commission of 
 date 5tli October, 1876, directing him, should the emergency render 
 such a course necessary, to annex the Transvaal to her Majesty's 
 dominions and put an end to the controversy. 
 
 THE BOERS REJECTED ALL REFORMS 
 
 Shep' "^one, escorted by twenty-five mounted policemen and a 
 lew officials, reached Pretoria in February, 1877. It was an open 
 secret that he was empowered to annex the country if he deemed it 
 advisable, but he expressed his readiness to refrain from that step 
 if certain reforms were carried out. The Boers would have no 
 reforms, and on April 12, 1877, Shepstone issued a proclamation 
 formally annexing the Transvaal to Great Britain. For some time 
 the Boers remained sullenly quiet. A few of them rendered good 
 and loyal service with Sir Evelyn Wood during the Zulu war, but 
 the main body stood aloof. Sir Owen Lanyon succeeded Shepstone 
 as Administrator of the Transvaal, and from the first was unpopu- 
 lar with the Boers. 
 
 At the close of the Zulu war Sir Garnet Wolseley, who held 
 the position of High Commissioner for Southeastern Africa, came 
 up into the Transvaal with a considerable strength of regular and 
 irregular troops. During his stay no actual outbreak occurred, but 
 there were ominous demonstrations, which would probably have 
 come to a head but for the presence of the troops. The Boer dis- 
 content was enhanced by the positive intimation from the Colonial 
 Secretary that " under no circumstances whatever would the Trans- 
 vaal independence be restored to the Boers," and by Sir Garnet's 
 

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STORY OF MAJUBA llli,i. AND I.ANCIS NKK. 
 
 \i> 
 
 less prosaic, but equally resolute utterance, that " so long as the 
 sun shone and the Vaal river flowed to the sea the Transvaal would 
 remain British territory." He finally left the Transvaal in March, 
 1880, and the troops in that territory were gradually reduced until 
 in November of the same year they consisted of but thirteen com- 
 panies of infantry, two troops of mounted infantry and four guns, 
 distributed in detachments in some half-dozen garrisons scattered 
 over the country. 
 
 Throughout the land there was a deceptive peace, which lulled 
 Lanyon into a sense of security, and to some extent deceived 
 Wolseley. The Boers were playing the waiting game. Mr. Glad- 
 stone became Premier in March, 1880. Taking it for granted that 
 he would act on the lines of his speeches when in opposition, the 
 Boer leaders called on him to rescind the annexation. The answer 
 of the Government came in the curt telegram : " Under no circum- 
 stances can the Queen's authority in the Transvaal be relinquished." 
 There was consternation among the Boers ; the British inhabitants, 
 trusting implicitly in an assurance so specific, rejoiced greatly and 
 bought land without hesitation. In the matter of taxation the 
 Boers had always presented a passive resistance against the British 
 rule, but Lanyon's officials considered that they might now crush 
 this resistance by active measures. A Boer named Bezuidenhuit 
 was levied on, and in default of payment, a seizure was made. 
 Bezuidenhuit and his friends forcibly recovered the article seized, 
 P.nd an attempt to arrest him was thwarted b^ a gathering of Boers. 
 
 DETERMINED TO FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENOB. 
 
 At a mass meeting on the 13th of December, 1880, it was de- 
 cided that the South African Republic should be restored ; it was 
 resolved to fight for independence, and a triumvirate consisting of 
 Kruger, Joubert, and Pretorius was appointed to administer the 
 government. On the i6th the republic was proclaimed at Heidel- 
 berg, which became the headquarters of the new Government. A 
 large body of Boers took possession of that place, another went to 
 Potchefstrom, and a third " commando " was detailed to another 
 
 service presently to be described. 
 12 
 
 ^;li 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
178 
 
 STORY OF MAJUBA IITIX AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 % 
 
 LatiytJii was powerless to interfere, and he and the English in 
 Pretoria had to await events, pending the expected arrival of the 
 detachment of the 94th regiment which had been ordered up from 
 Lydenburg, whence it was known to have moved on December 5th. 
 This ill-fated body was destined never to reach Pretoria. On the 
 march Colonel Anstruther had frequent warnings of danger, to 
 which he paid insufficient heed ; there prevailed in the force the 
 rooted belief that the Boers did J ot intend serious mischief. 
 
 It was scarcely to be expected that the men who had pusilla- 
 
 nimously recoiled from before Sekukuni's spear-armed natives 
 
 would venture to assail a body of British regular infantry. But 
 
 long before the end of this miserable war the valor and constancy 
 
 of the Boers, not less than their moderation and humanity, had 
 
 come to be acknowledged and admired. In this, their first conflict 
 
 with the " red soldiers," their unerring marksmanship was the chief 
 
 surprise. 
 
 TAKEN BY SURPRISE. 
 
 The scouting duties of Colonel Anstruther's detachment were 
 performed with carelessness ; else, whatever might have been its 
 fate, it would not have been taken by surprise. About noon on 
 December 20th, the little column, marching at ease, was approach- 
 ing Bronkhorst Spruit. The ground traversed by the road was 
 sparsely wooded, sloping down from either side. Military precau- 
 tions were neglected, and the convoy stretched to an interminable 
 length. The band at the head of the column abruptly stopped 
 playing when about 150 armed mounted Boers suddenly became 
 visible in skirmishing formation on a rise on the left of the road, 
 at a distance of a few hundred yards. Colonel Anstruther imme- 
 diately galloped back, and ordered the leading wagon to halt and 
 the others to close up. 
 
 A Boer advanced midway with a flag of truce, and was met by 
 Colonel Anstruther, to whom he handed a letter written in English. 
 Its terms were at once quaint and peremptory. " We don't know," 
 it ran, " whether we are in a state of war or not, consequently we 
 can't allow any movements of troops from your side, and wish you 
 to stop where you are. We not being at war with the Queen nor 
 
STORY OF MAJUBA HII,L AND LANGS NKK. 
 
 17!) 
 
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 with the people of England, but are only recovering the independ- 
 ence of our country, we do not wish to take to arms, and therefore 
 inform you that any movements of troops from your side will be 
 taken by us as a declaration of war." 
 
 The messenger was to take back an answer, which had to be 
 given within five minutes. Anstruther read the letter and tersely 
 replied : '* I go to Pretoria ; do as you like." The messenger de- 
 parted, and the colonel, hurrying back towards his men, ordered 
 them to skirmish. But it was too late. The Boers had closed in 
 upon the rear and flanks of the column and opened fire at point- 
 blank range. Their fire was deadly — every shot told ; that of the 
 troops was scattered and ineffective. In ten minutes, out of a total 
 of 259, there had been killed or wounded 155 ofiicers and men. 
 Colonel Anstruther, himself riddled with bullets, then ordered the 
 " Cease fire," and intimated the surrender of the remains of his 
 force. The Boers then closed in, ordered all arms to be laid down, 
 and formed a cordon round the scene of the slaughter. 
 
 FRIENDLY ACTS FOLLOW THE FIGHT 
 
 When the fighting was over, Boers and soldiers became very 
 friendly. The Boer commander, Joubert, came forward and shook 
 hands with Colonel Anstruther, expressing regret that he should 
 be among the wounded. A hospital camp was pitched closed by, 
 and leave was given for the retention of the wagons containing 
 baggage, provisions, and hospital equipment, tents for the wounded, 
 and some uninjured men as hospital nurses; the remaining . un- 
 wounded prisoners with the rest of the wagons were removed to 
 Heidelberg. Two men were permitted to carry the tidings of the 
 disaster to Pretoria, whence without hindrance surgeons, hospital 
 orderlies, and ambulances were sent out to Bronkhorst Spruit. 
 
 The Boers showed themselves most obliging, and were ex- 
 tremely solicitous for the comfort of the wounded in camp, bringing 
 milk, butter, eggs, bread, and fruit gratuitously. The statements 
 regarding the Boer losses in the short fight were curiously conflict- 
 ing. The Boers afiirmed that they amounted only to two killed 
 and five wounded. . u 
 
 mi 
 
 
 .1. if 
 
180 
 
 STORY OF MAJUBA HILI< AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 i'r' 
 
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 When Sir Garnet Wolseley went home he had been succeeded, 
 in July, as High Commissioner for South-Eastern Africa, by Colonel 
 (afterwards Major-General) Sir George Pomeroy CoUey, an oflScer 
 of high character. Tidings of the outbreak in the Transvaal 
 reached him at Pieter Maritzburg on the 21st of December, and 
 were in possession of the Colonial Office in London on the follow- 
 ing day. Reinforcements from India were promptly ordered to 
 Natal, and further instalments of troops were sent out from England 
 as early as possible. Considering the weakness of the forces at 
 Colley's immediate disposition, he would have been wise to wait 
 until he had been reinforced ; but he had a great contempt for the 
 Boers, and was eager to distinguish himself before he should be 
 superseded by officers of higher rank. He was warned by Colonel 
 Bellairs (in military command of the Transvaal) that there were 
 " from 6,000 to 7,000 rebels iu the field, who, under good leader- 
 ship, would exhibit courage, discipline, and organization." 
 
 INADEQUATE RELIEF COLUMN. 
 
 Colley hurried up towards the Transvaal frontier the few com- 
 panies of infantry which he had in Natal. The arrival of some 
 drafts was very opportune — a naval brigade was landed and sent up, 
 as also a squadron of dragoons and mounted infantry under the 
 command of Major Brownlow, and the Natal Mounted Police. 
 Colley had early intimated his intention to enter the Transvaal 
 about January 20th, 1881, with a column consisting of eight com- 
 panies of infantry, four guns, and a mounted squadron — a miserably 
 inadequate force. So far from accomplishing this anticipation, he 
 was able only to quit Newcastle (a border town of Natal) on Janu. 
 ary 24th with about 60 officers and 1,200 men. 
 
 This little fcrce was styled the " relief column," as it was in- 
 tended to raise the siege of the Transvaal towns in which were 
 scanty British garrisons beleaguered by the Boers. Apart from 
 Pretoria, the besieged capital of the Transvaal, there were six of 
 those places — Potchefstrom, Rustenburg, Marabastadt, Lydenburg, 
 Standerton, and Wakkerstrom, all of which held out gallantly until 
 the restoration of peace. 
 
STORY OF MAJUBA HILI. AND I.ANGS NEK. 
 
 181 
 
 Before advancing from Newcastle, Colley sent an ultimatum 
 to the Boers, ordering them, as insurgents, to disperse. They re- 
 plied, declaring that all they wanted was the rescinding of the 
 annexation and the restoration of the South African Republic under 
 the Protectorate of the Queen. On the 26th the British force en- 
 trenched itself on an elevated position at Mount Prospect, about 
 twenty miles north of Newcastle, in the mountainous region form- 
 ing the northern projection of Natal. The camp was about a mile 
 right of the road from Newcastle to Standerton, which crossed the 
 ridge known as Lang's Nek — about three and a half miles further 
 northward. In the vicinity of Lang's Nek a considerable number 
 of Boers were seen. On the morning of the 28th, Colley moved 
 out with a strength, all told, of about 1,160 men. 
 
 FORMED IN LINE OP BATTLE. 
 
 The pass over Lang's Nek crosses the ridge about the centre 
 of a rough semi-circle, on the west of which is the Majuba moun- 
 tain ; on the east is a long spur surmounted by a rocky crest. In 
 front of the proper left of this spur, several hundred yards to the 
 front, is an isolated conical hill. The ground in the bottom of the 
 enclosed basin is low, with a gradual rise towards the face of the 
 spur, something in the nature of a glacis. About nine o'clock the 
 British force, having moved up along a ridge out of shot, formed 
 into position on a rise in the bottom, with the mounted squadron 
 and the 58th on the right, the guns in the centre, and the 60th and 
 naval brigade on the left, the whole facing toward the spur. 
 
 The action was begun by shelling parts of the enemy's posi- 
 tion, and by pushing forward a company of the 60th and the Naval 
 Brigade, with their rockets., which took some effect on the Boer re- 
 serves in rear of the Nek. At ten o'clock the 58th advanced to 
 the attack of the spur, covered on its right by artillery fire and by 
 Brownlow's squadron. The leading troop of mounted men swept 
 ' with fine dash up the isolated hill, and then charged. The hill- 
 top was held by a Boer piquet of considerable strength. 
 
 Brownlow shot the Boer leader with his revolver, but his horse 
 was shot under him; Lieutenant Lermitte and Sergeant-Major 
 
 '} 
 
 
 m 
 
 
182 
 
 STORY OF MAJUI5A lUhl AND I.ANO'S NEK. 
 
 ■ f 
 
 Lmmy were killed; the supporting troop was checked— the lead 
 ing troop, fatigued and broken Ijy the charge, and with its leaders 
 all down, could make no head, and the whole squadron gave way. 
 It was no proper ground for cavalry, and the horsemen should 
 have acted as mounted infantry. Meantime, the 58th had 
 begun climbing the steep ascent through the long entangling 
 grass, which retarded the men's progress. The Boer piquet from 
 the hill, having repulsed Brownlow's squadron, moved down and 
 opened fire on the now exposed right flank and rear of the 58th, 
 while the Boers on the spur gathered on its brow and maintained 
 a deadly fire from behind cover. 
 
 CHARGED THROUGH A HAIL OP FIRE. 
 
 Anxious to get to close quarters out of this purgatory, Colonel 
 Deane gave the order to charge. The officers led nobly, and the 
 men struggled on through the hail of fire. Colonel Deane's horse 
 was shot, but he dashed forward on foot until riddled with bullets 
 ten yards in front of the foremost man. Major Poole and Lieu- 
 tenants Inman and Elwes were killed in supporting Colonel Deane ; 
 Major Hingeston and all the mounted officers of the 58th were 
 shot down or dismounted. The stubborn soldiers of that gallant 
 regiment — youngsters as they were, most of them — continued to 
 hold their ground unflinchingly for some time, notwithstanding 
 the bitter fire. 
 
 Lieutenant Baillie, carrying the regimental color, was mortally 
 wounded, and when his comrade Hill went to his assistance, the 
 brave yoimg officer said with his last breath, " Never mind me ; 
 save the color 1 " Hill, who had been carrying the Queen's color, 
 took the other also ; when he went down, Sergeant Budstock took 
 both colors, and carried them until the general retirement, which 
 soon had to occur. " The 58th," wrote Colley, " having fallen 
 back leisurely without haste or confusion, reformed at the foot of 
 the slope, and marched back into position in as good order, and' 
 with as erect and soldierly a bearing, as when it marched out." 
 
 Spite of much British bravery, the combat of Lang's Nek was 
 an unquestionable and severe defeat. But many noble deeds were 
 
 ST 
 
 performed. 
 
 man after 11 
 
 Trooper Di 
 
 frey and ! 
 
 Captain L 
 
 heavy fire 
 
 58th. Th 
 
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 men in 
 
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STORY OF MAJUUA HILL AND LANGS NEK. 
 
 185 
 
 performed. Lieutenant Hill (already named) brought wounded 
 man after man out of action, and worthily earued the Victoria Cross. 
 Trooper Doogen saved the life of Major Browulow ; Private God- 
 frey and Dandboy Martin remained with Major Hingestou and 
 Captain Lovegrove when those officers lay wounded, enduring 
 heavy fire in doing so. The great brunt of the losses fell on the I 
 58th. The casualties altogether amounted to 198, of which 173^ 
 belonged to that regiment, which had to bury 75 officers and men 
 out of a total strength of* 494. Lang's Nek caused the Boers ex- 
 ceptionally heavy loss. Their total casualties froui beginning to 
 end of the war were but loi, of which Lang's Nek accounted for 
 41 — 14 killed and 27 wounded. The Boers behaved with humanity. 
 Tile moment that the " Cease fire " sounded they gave permission 
 to the English surgeons to attend the wounded lying in front of 
 the Boer position, fetched water to them, and assisting in binding 
 up their wounds, rendered all possible relief. 
 
 A DISASTROUS REPULSE. 
 
 The folly of the forward position prematurely taken up by 
 General Colley with an inadequate force was made apparent by the 
 result of the battle of Lang's Nek. The comparative handful of 
 men in the Mount Prospect camp could no longer be regarded by 
 any stretch of imagination as a " relief column." That repulse 
 taught the Boers their ability to arrest the further advance of the 
 British force, and enabled them to turn their attention to the in- 
 terception of its line of communication. The Boers, in effect, were 
 masters of the situation. Their patrols penetrated nearly to Lady- 
 smith, and threatened Newcastle from the Drakensberg and Utrecht 
 districts. Convoys were cut off, captured, and destroyed ; the mail 
 service was arrested, and except for the telegraph service, which 
 remained uninterfered with, the Mount Prospect camp was all but 
 entirely isolated. An escort of mounted infantry sent out on 
 February 7th to attempt to reach Newcastle with mails, was driven i 
 back to the camp by the fire of the Boers. 
 
 Colley then determined to make a more formidable effort next 
 day to open up communications with Newcastle, and to clear the 
 
 .!> •: 
 
184 
 
 STORY OF MAJUBA HILL AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 Boers from the road. On the morning of the 8th he left camp with 
 live companies of the 6oth Rifles under Colonel Ashburuham, two 
 field and two mountain-guns under Captain Greer, R.A., and a 
 small detachment of mounted men under Major Brownlow. About 
 five miles south of the Mount Prospect position the Newcastle 
 road is crossed by the Ingogo river, which runs from west to east 
 through a valley. The ground north of the river is broken and 
 rugged ; from the south bank there is a gentle rise to the foot of a 
 flat-topped ridge strewn with rocks and boulders, and irregularly 
 cut by rocky depressions. 
 
 The general, leaving the two mountain-guns and a company of 
 infantry on a commanding crest north of the river, crossed it with 
 the main body, which ho formed on the plain beyond, and then 
 moved it forward to the foot of the ridge bounding the valley to tLe 
 southward. As the troops were ascending the rise to the ridge the 
 Boers showed themselves in considerable strength, and they at once 
 galloped forward to dispute the ridge, and to take advantage of the 
 cover afforded by the intersecting valleys. Greer brought his two 
 guns into action, but the Boers had already taken cover, from which 
 they directed a heavy and active fire on the guns and skirmishers. 
 Greer was killed early, and the command of the guns devolved on 
 Lieutenant Parsons. 
 
 HOT ENGAGEMENT AND MANY CASUALTIES. 
 
 The engagement became heavy and general about noon, when 
 the companies of the 6oth were pushed forward against the eneni}-, 
 whose fire from behind cover was very deadlJ^ The guns had to 
 be freely exposed, and were in action with case-shot at a range of 
 less than 500 yards. The gunners suffered very heavily, and a 
 company of *-he 60th, which most gallantly advanced to cover the 
 guns, and met the Boer fire at close range, had many casualties 
 from the steady and accurate fire of enemies enjoying almost per- 
 fect cover. 
 
 So severe was the fire of the Boers that the guns had soon to 
 be withdrawn from their exposed position, and during the rest of 
 the affair fired only occasionally. It was apparent that the enemy 
 
 >vere bei 
 
 camp for 
 
 ridges n< 
 
 Ingogo 
 
 duced b] 
 
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 Boers m 
 
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STORY OF MAJUBA HILL AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 185 
 
 of 
 ith 
 
 Mrere being gradually reinforced, and the general sent orders to 
 camp for three companie.i of the 58th to move out and occupy the 
 ridges north of the river, and for a part, if practicable, to cross the 
 Ingogo in support of the troops already deeply engaged and re- 
 duced by severe losses. 
 
 About three o'clock there was a comparative lull, although the 
 Boers maintained a very accurate fire, any one on the British side 
 being almost certainly struck if at all exposing himself. Later in 
 the afternoon the Boers received considerable reinforcements, and 
 Lieutenant Parsons, wounded as he was, re-opened with his guns 
 for a short time ; but darkness presently set in, and the Boers 
 gradually withdrew to their camp. It was Colley's conviction that 
 the enemy intended renewing the engagement next morning in 
 overwhelming strength, and he acted wisely in deciding to withdraw 
 to camp under cover of darkness. It was a gruesome night. Tor- 
 rents of rain were falling, and the darkness was intense, except 
 when the lightning flashes broke the blackness of the cold and 
 dismal night, thus adding to the terrors of the conflict. 
 
 FIELD STREWN WITH WOUNDED. 
 
 The ambulances sent out during the fight had not been able to 
 reach the actual scene of action, since the Boers had threatened to 
 fire on them if they advanced while the engagement was going on. 
 They were not now available in the darkness ; and the wounded, 
 whom in many instances it had been impossible to remove from the 
 advanced positions, had to be searched for. Those who were found 
 were collected and sheltered for the night as well as possible with 
 waterproof sheets, blankets, great-coats, etc.; but many lay as they 
 had fallen throughput the long, inclement night. The guns were 
 horsed, although insufficiently, by collecting all the available ani- 
 mals, and by withdrawing the team from the ammunition wagon, 
 which had to be abandoned. When all arrangements had been 
 completed, the force moved off" in silence, formed in hollow square, 
 the guns in the centre, the infantry in skirmishing order on the 
 four sides. The river, swollen by the rain, was deep and rapid ; 
 and some of the first men trying to cross were swept down, but 
 
•i 
 
 186 STORY OF MAJUBA HILL AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 found foothold on a sandbank. The main body crossed in detach- 
 ments with locked arms. The camp was reached about 4 a. m. on 
 the 9th. The soldiers had dragged the guns up the hill, the horses 
 being unable to pull them up the steep and slippery road. The 
 58tli companies spent the night on the northern ridges, and were 
 not withdrawn until the following day. 
 
 The total loss of this unfortunate day amounted to 139 officers 
 and men. According to the statement of the Boers, the Ingogo 
 fight cost them eight killed and six wounded. The Boers returned 
 to the scene of action on the morning of the 9th, expecting to re- 
 new the engagement. They took away two gun limbers and the 
 ammunition wagon abandoned over night by Colley's people, and 
 then fell back behind Newcastle to join their main force, reported 
 as threatening to prevent the advance of the reinforcements recently 
 arrived from India and now hurrying to the scene of action. 
 
 SEVERE AND COSTLY REVERSE. 
 
 Their disappearance gave opportunity to succor the wounded 
 and bury the dead without molestation, and opened the road from 
 Mount Prospect to Newcastle, to the hospital at which latter place 
 were promptly sent the wounded from the British camp. The com- 
 munications in rear of Mount Prospect remained open from this 
 time forward. 
 
 Sir George CoUey had sustained a second reverse, propor- 
 tionately more bloody than had been the first. By this time, one 
 would imagine, it might have begun to dawn on the home authori- 
 ties that Colley. to say the least, was not a successful commander. 
 His experience. of actual warfare was but slender: he had served 
 only in the China war of i860 and in the Ashantee campaign. He 
 was comparatively new to South Africa, and was quite unfamiliar 
 with the Boer nature. Yet the authorities had assigned to him as 
 second in command an officer senior to him in army rank, who had 
 fought with distinction through the Crimean and Indian Mutiny 
 wars, and in the Ashantee and Zululand' campaigns, in high and 
 successful commands. 
 
 Brigadier-General Sir Evelyn Wood was the only officer in 
 
 SI 
 
 the latter ' 
 
 with a loyJ 
 
 strange, si 
 
 fight with 
 
 Wood anc 
 
 tent to set 
 
 number o\ 
 
 He r( 
 
 gogo reve 
 
 the loth, 
 
 tone, niU5 
 
 would hj 
 
 soldiers 1 
 
 their rel 
 
 fectly rei 
 
 have ace 
 
 Pic 
 
 camp o 
 
 Hussar 
 
 reached 
 
 resolve( 
 
 be attei 
 
 arrive. 
 
 up to 
 
 Picter 
 
 ments. 
 
 S 
 
 Majut 
 
 His a 
 
 shoul< 
 
 He I 
 
 whicl 
 
 gum 
 
 mere 
 
STORY OF MAJUBA HILL AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 187 
 
 f>go 
 led 
 
 the latter campaign under whom Boers served and died — served 
 with a loyal devotion, died gallantly under his eye. He knew the 
 strange, simple, yet stubborn nature of the Boers ; he was ready to 
 fight with theui, and equally ready to argue them out of a folly. 
 Wood and Collcy were old and fast friends ; Wood was quite con- 
 tent to serve under his junior, and had hurried out to India with a 
 number of " special service " officers. 
 
 He reached Durban on February 12th, four days after the In- 
 gogo reverse, vSir G. Colley's account of which was in London on 
 the loth, and notwithstanding the unwarrantable optimism of its 
 tone, must have been read between the lines in Pall Mall. Then 
 would have been the time to avert further futile waste of brave 
 soldiers by instructing by telegraph Colley and Wood to exchange 
 their relative positions. The arrangement would have been per- 
 fectly regular, and Colley was the sort of man who would loyally 
 have accepted the secondary position. 
 
 WATTING FOR REINPOROEMENTS. 
 
 Picking up on his rapid journey the Indian column from its 
 camp on the Biggarsberg, Wood and it (consisting of the 15th 
 Hussars, the 2d battal'on 60th Rifles, and the 92d Highlanders) 
 reached Newcastle on the 17th. Colley met him there, and it was 
 resolved between the two officers that no further advance should 
 be attempted until more reinforcements, now on the way up, should 
 arrive. They parted on tbe 21st, Colley moving the Indian column 
 up to Mount Prospect without molestation ; Wood returning to 
 Picter Maritzburg to press on the advance of further reinforce- 
 ments. . 
 
 Sir George Colley's motive in making the fatal advance on the 
 Majuba mountain-top, whatever it might have been, died with him. 
 His assurance had been given to Wood that no further advance 
 should be attempted pending the arrival of further reinforcements. 
 He had engaged with the Boer Vice-President in negotiations 
 which promised favorable results. A reconnoissance in force to the 
 summit of the mountain could give no more information than a 
 mere patrol could easily ascertain — the position of the Boer en- 
 
 hi 
 
 m 
 
M STORY OF MAJUBA HILL AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 campments and an approximate estimate of the force occupying 
 them. A Boer piquet occasionally held the hill-top during the day. 
 and CoUey resolved to occupy it by making a night march. 
 
 At ten o'clock on the night of February 26th he left the Mount 
 Prospect camp with a force of 22 officers and 627 men — a smaller 
 force than he had employed at Lang's Nek. At the start its com- 
 position and order were as follows: — Two companies 58th, the 
 Naval Brigade, three companies 92d, followed by some details ; two 
 companies of the 60th moved out later to the piquet post close 
 to the foot of Inquela hiil, with instructions to occupy its summit 
 with some detachments. Further on, upon the narrow Nek between 
 the Inquela and the Majuba, Captain Robertson's company of the 
 92d was dropped as a link, with orders to entrench itself. 
 
 CLIMBING THE STEEP MAJUBA. 
 
 The Nek traversed, the troops, guided by friendly Kaffirs, had 
 now to undertake in single file the actual climb up the steep and 
 rugged side of the Majuba, whose top is 6,200 feet above sea-level 
 and more than 2,000 feet above the positions of the Boer laagers. 
 From time to time during the tedious and toilsome ascent, a halt 
 was made to enable the men — heavy laden with rations and extra 
 cartridges — to regain their breath. As the troops neared the sum- 
 mit the obstacles increased. The steep grassy slopes were suc- 
 ceeded by great boulders and deep dongas, varied by sharp crags 
 and treacherous loose stones, over and up which the wearied and 
 burdened men had to drag themselves. Near the top the ascent 
 had to be accomplished on hands and knees. Between four and 
 five in the morning of the 27th the force, much exhausted after 
 the heavy toil, and now only about 400 strong, gained the summit. 
 
 Like most of the mountains of South Africa, the Majuba is 
 crowned by no peak. Its top is a plateau of saucer-like shape, 
 dipping towards the centre, across which is a rocky reef about 
 breast high. The circumference of the plateau is about 1,200 
 yards. When the summit was reached it was still dark, and the 
 troops having got mixed during the scramble up, and being weary, 
 lay down where they stood until dawn. With daylight they were 
 
 extended 
 central he 
 deed, the 
 their own 
 defences < 
 Here 
 shots wei 
 in the Be 
 Seeing tl 
 tion was 
 positions 
 between 
 oxen we: 
 treat. I 
 were in 
 that the 
 revived, 
 and at 1 
 the mot 
 
 Jot 
 
 men in 
 
 below \ 
 
 who ex 
 
 attacke 
 
 and th' 
 
 to hole 
 
 to be r 
 
 advan< 
 
 clambi 
 
 protec 
 
 I 
 
 very 1 
 
 officei 
 
 recon 
 
STORY OF MAJUBA HII,I, AND I^ANG'S NEK. 
 
 iar» 
 
 day. 
 
 extended round the edge of the plateau, with a small reserve in the 
 central hollow. No instructions were given to entrench, and in- 
 deed, the troops had no tools for such a purpose ; but the men of 
 their own accord attempted to obtain some cover by throwing up 
 defences of turf and stones. 
 
 Here and there the soldiers showed on the sky line, and a few 
 shots were fired, which for the moment caused great consternation 
 in the Boer camps in the lower ground north-west of the Majuba. 
 Seeing that the mountain was in British occupation, the expecta- 
 tion was natural that an attack would presently be made on their 
 positions on the Nek, in which case they would find themselves 
 between two fires. Their first idea, it seems, was of flight. The 
 oxen were inspanned, and hurried preparations were made for re- 
 treat. But when it became evident that the troops on the summit 
 were in no great strength and had neither cannon nor rockets, and 
 that their Nek position was unmolested, the courage of the Boers 
 revived. Smijt, the fighting general, made a short, stirring speech, 
 and at his summons a number of the younger men began to climb 
 the mountain side under cover of the stones and scrub. 
 
 SHARP FIRING FROM BOER SKIRMISHERS. 
 
 Joubert, the commanding general, detailed a force of the older 
 men in support of the storming party — picked shots who remained 
 below watching the edge of the plateau, and firing at every soldier 
 who exposed himself. As the morning passed Boer detachments 
 attacked and hemmed in the British position on the north, the east, 
 and the south-west. The defenders were not in sufficient strength 
 to hold the whole of the edge of the plateau, and detachments had 
 to be moved hither and thither to meet and attempt to thwart the 
 advances of the Boers. Slowly and steadily the hostile skirmishers 
 clambered upwards from cover to cover, while the supports below 
 protected their movement with a steady and accurate fire. 
 
 During the hours from dawn to noon our men had not suffered 
 very heavily, notwithstanding the Boer mark.smanship. The first 
 officer to fall was Commander Romilly, of the Naval Brigade, while 
 reconnoitring with General CoUey. But the long strain of the 
 
J 1)0 
 
 STORY OF MAJUBA HII.L AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 i 
 
 Boers' close shooting began to tell on tlie nerve of the British sol- 
 diers, and when the Boers at length reached the crest, and opened 
 a deadly fire at short range, the officers had to exert themselves to 
 the ntniost in the effort to avert disaster. 
 
 The reserves r.tationed in the central dip of the plateau, out of 
 reach until then of the enemy's fire, were ordered up in support of 
 the fighting line. Their want of promptitude in obeying this order 
 did not augur well, and soon after reaching the front they wavered 
 and then gave way. The officers did temporarily succeed in rally- 
 ing them, but the " bolt" had a bad effect. 
 
 It was struggled against very gallantly by the officers, whc, 
 sword and revolver in hand, encouraged the soldiers by word and by 
 action. A number of men, unable to confront the deadly fire of 
 the Boers, had huddled for cover behind the rocky reef crossing the 
 plateau, and no entreaty or upbraiding on the part of their officers 
 would induce them to face the enemy. What then happened 
 one does not care to tell in detail. Everything connected with this 
 disastrous enterprise went to naught, as if there had been a curse 
 on it. Whatever may have been the object intended, the force em- 
 ployed was absurdly inadequate. Instead of being homogeneous, 
 it consisted of separate detachments with no link or bond of union 
 — a disposition which notoriously has led to more panics than any 
 other cause that the annals of regimental history can furnish. 
 
 DRIVEN BACK IN A WILD PANIO. 
 
 Fragments of proud and distinguished regiments fresh from 
 victory in another continent shared in the panic of the Majuba, 
 seasoned warriors behaving no better than mere recruits. To the 
 calm-pulsed philosopher a panic is an academic enigma. No man 
 who has seen it — much less shared in it — can ever forget the infec- 
 tious madness of panic-stricken soldiers. 
 
 In tlie sad ending, with a cry of fright and despair, the rem- 
 nants of the hapless force turned and fled, regardless of the effi)rts 
 of the officers to stem the rearward rush. Sir George Colley lay 
 dead, shot through the head just before the final flight. A surgeon 
 and two hospital attendants caring for the wounded at the ban 
 
STORY OF MAJUBA HILI. AND LANG'S NEK. 
 
 101 
 
 sol- 
 )ened 
 
 l^es to 
 
 >iit of 
 
 )rt of 
 
 [order 
 
 jvercd 
 
 (rally. 
 
 dagiiig place in the dip of the plateau were shot down , probably 
 inadvertently. The elder Boeis promptly stopped the firing in that 
 direction. But there was no cessation of the fire directed on the 
 fugitives. On them the bullets rained accurately and persistently. 
 The Boers, now disdaining cover, stood boldly on the edge of the 
 plateau, and, firing down upon the scared troops, picked off the 
 men as if shooting game. 
 
 The slaughter would have been yet heavier but for the en- 
 trenchment which had been made by the company of the 92nd, left 
 overnight on the Nek between the Inquela and the Majuba. Cap- 
 tain Robertson was joined at dawn from camp by a company of the 
 60th, under Captain Thurlow. Later there arrived at the entrench- 
 ment on the Nek a troop of the 15th Hussars, under the command 
 of Captain Sullivan. After midday the sound of the firing on the 
 Majuba rapidly increased,^ and men were seen running down the 
 hill toward the entrenchment, one of whom brought in the tidingr. 
 that the Boers had captured the position, thai most of the troops 
 were killed or prisoners, and that the general was dead with a bul- 
 let through his head, and the rout was complete. 
 
 A MURDEROUS FIRE FROM THE BOERS. 
 
 Wounded men came presently pouring in, and were attended 
 by Surgeon-Major Cornish. The entrenchment was manned by 
 the two companies, and outposts were thrown out, which were soon 
 driven in by large bodies of mounted Boers, under whose fire men 
 fell fast. Robertson despatched the rifle company down the ravine 
 towards the camp, and a little later followed with the company of 
 the 92nd under a murderous fire from the Boers, who had reached 
 and occupied the entrenchment. The Highlanders lost heavily in 
 the retreat, and Surgeon-Major Cornish was killed. 
 
 The surviving fugitives from Majuba and from the entrench- 
 ment finally reached camp under cover of the artillery fire from it. 
 which ultimately stopped the pursuit. With the consent of the 
 Boer leaders, a temporary hospital was established at a frirm -house 
 near the foot of the mountain, and throughout the cold and wet 
 night the medical staff never ceased to search for and bring in the 
 
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 I 
 
 m. 
 
 
 .1 ■,, 
 
 ill-! ' 
 
 i 
 
 
 1 
 
 ii 
 
 f 
 
 : 1^ 
 
 i. ■ 
 
 V 
 
 
.92 
 
 STORY Ck' MAJUBA lUth AND LANGS NEK. 
 
 n 
 
 wounc'ed. Sir George Colley's body was brought into camp on 
 March ist, and buried there with full military honors. The othei 
 dead of the Majuba fight rest in a cemetery on the plateau of the 
 mountain sunnnit — victims of a strange and almost incredible folly. 
 Of the 650 officers and men who were in action on this disas. 
 trous day 90 were killed, 133 were wounded, 58 were prisoners, anc\ 
 two were missing, the total casualties being 283, the great majority 
 of which occurred in the 92nd, whose losses were 125 ; in the 58th, 
 with a loss of 93 ; and in . ^le Naval Brigade, which lost 36 — more 
 than half of its strength. 
 
 SIGNING TERMS OP PEACE. 
 
 Sir Evelyn Wood reached Newcastle on March 4th, and 
 Assumed command. On the 6th he met the Boer leaders, when an 
 armistice to last for eight days was agreed upon. The British garri- 
 sons in the Transvaal were revictualled for twelve days, pending 
 the raising of their siege on the consummation of peace ; and Sir 
 Evelyn Wood acknowledged the right of the Transvaal people to 
 complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of the Queen. 
 Terms of peace were signed on March 23d; and nei t day General 
 vSir Frederick Roberts, who had been sent out with krge reinforce- 
 ments to succeed Sir George Colley, reached Cape Town, but 
 learning of peace being signed, immediately sailed home. 
 
 The total number of Transvaal Boers capable of carrying 
 arms was under 8000 at the beginning of hostilities. The total 
 British force in -South Africa, or on the way thither, at the close 
 of hostilities consisted of thirteen infantry regiments, five cavalry 
 regiments, twenty-two guns, three naval brigades — in all, not far 
 short of 20,000 men. This total was exclusive of the British 
 garrisons besieged in the Transvaal during the war. The Boer 
 casualties throughout the war, as already mentioned, amounted to 
 43 killed and 58 wounded. The British casualties were over 800 
 killed and wounded. At Majuba the Boers had one man killed 
 and five men wounded. 
 
 
 from til 
 
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 Pitsani 
 
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 the Bril 
 
 In 
 
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 address 
 
 Johann 
 
 agitatii 
 
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 Dr. Jai 
 
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 CHAPTER Xin. , 
 
 Dr. Jameson's Famous Raid in the Transvaal. 
 
 MONG the stirring incidents that have marked the progress 
 of events in South Africa was the bold attempt of Dr. 
 Jameson and others to overturn the government of the 
 Transvaal. Jameson, having received an appeal for help 
 from the Outlanders, or foreigners, in Johannesburg, the chief 
 town in the Transvaal, crossed the frontier with a force from 
 Pitsani Pitlogo, December 29, 1895. Colonel Grey and others 
 started from Mafeking with about four hundred men (volunteers) of 
 the British South Africa's troops. 
 
 In its issue of the ist of January, 1896, the London Times 
 printed a telegram from Cape Town the text of an appeal for help 
 addressed to the Administrator of Rhodesia by the Outlanders of 
 Johannesburg in the Transvaal, who had been long and fruitlessly 
 agitating for equal rights with the Boer inhabitants of that coun- 
 try. Appended to the message was a laconic announcement that 
 Dr. Jameson, at the head of an armed force and accompanied by 
 artillery, had crossed the frontier on the 29th of December and was 
 hurrying on by forced marches to the " gold reef city." The news 
 fell like a bombshell on the dawning New Year. 
 
 The position of affairs in the Transvaal which had given rise 
 to this sensational coup had been long discussed in South Africa, 
 but although strong language had been used, the probability of a 
 recourse to armed force had not been anticipated by the general 
 public. It was known, however, that for some years the intolerable 
 grievances of the Outlanders had raised apprehensions in official 
 quarters, and Lord Loch stated that, diiring his tenure of the High 
 Commissipnership, he found it necessary to make military prepara- 
 tions in view of a conflict which then seemed probable. It appears 
 also that the Boer Government itself was quite alive to the dangers 
 of the situation, and it was this fact, coupled with the conviction 
 
 13 193 
 
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 I,. 
 
 :< '<\. 
 
 \% 
 
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 ill 
 
p 
 
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 J = 
 
 194 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL. 
 
 that a prolongation of the s^a/us quo was impossible, which gave 
 rise to the invitation addressed to Dr. Jameson. The situation is^ 
 indeed, best described in the language of that document. The 
 chiefs of the Johannesburg Reform Committee wrote : — 
 
 " The position of matters in this State has become so critical 
 that we are assured that, at no distant period, there will be a con- 
 flict between the Government and the Outlander population. It 
 is scarcely necessary for us to recapitulate what is now matter of 
 history ; suffice it to say that the position of thousands of English- 
 
 ^ men and others is rapidly becoming intolerable. Not satisfied with 
 making the Outlander population pay virtually the whole of the 
 
 ■ revenue of the country, while denying them representation, the 
 policy of the Government has been to encroach upon the liberty of 
 the subject, and to undermine the security for property to such an 
 extent as to cause a very deep-seated sense of discontent. 
 
 STRONG INDIOTMENT AGAINST THE BOERS. 
 
 " A foreign corporation of Hollanders is to a considerable e/ttent 
 controlling our destinies, and, in conjunction with the Boer leaders, 
 endeavoring to cast them in a mould which is wholly foreign to 
 the genius of the people. Every public act betrays the most positive 
 hostility, not only to everything English, but to the neighboring 
 States. What we have to consider is, what will be the condition of 
 things here in the event of conflict ? Thousands of unarmed men, 
 women and children of our race will be at the mercy of well-armed 
 Boers, while property of enormous value will be in the greatest peril. 
 
 " We cannot contemplate the future without the gravest appre- 
 hensions. All feel that we are justified in taking any steps to pre- 
 vent the shedding of blood, and to insure the protection of our 
 rights. It is under these circumstances that we feel constrained to 
 .call upon you to come to our aid should a disturbance arise here. 
 The circumstances are so extreme that we cannot but believe that 
 you, and the men under you, will not fail to come to the rescue of 
 people who will be so situated. We guarantee any expense that may 
 reasonably be incurred by you in helping us, and ask you to believe 
 that nothing but the sternest necessity has prompted this appeal." 
 
gave 
 pioii is, 
 
 Tlie 
 
 Critical 
 I a con- 
 |». It 
 (tter of 
 iglish- 
 with 
 Jof the 
 the 
 
 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THR TRANvSVAAL. 195 
 
 Some mystery still attaches to the date of this letter, and the 
 circumstances under which the invitation it contained was to 
 become operative. From the correspondence which has been pub- 
 lished, it seems, however, that the reason it was acted upon towards 
 the end of December, 1895, was not that the contemplated crisis 
 had arisen in Johannesburg, but that the preparations for the inva- 
 sion were complete, and it was impossible to delay action any 
 longer without provoking suspicion. It is, indeed, questionable 
 whether suspicion had not already been excited. 
 
 On the side of Dr. Jameson, troops had been concentrated on 
 the frontier at Mafeking ; while, on the side of the Rand Reform 
 Committee, arms had been secretly imported into Johannesburg, 
 and stores had been established and stocked at various points along 
 the route which the invading force was likely to take. The Trans- 
 vaal Government were probably not unaware of the steps which 
 had been taken. Subsequent events, indeed, tend to show that 
 they were both aware of them, and prepared to counteract them. 
 
 GOOD REASON FOR ASSEMBLING TROOPS. 
 
 So far, however, as the assembly of Jameson's force on the 
 Irontier was concerned there was apparently no reason for appre- 
 hension. As it afterwards transpired this concentration was per- 
 fectly legitimate, and neither the Home Government nor the Junta 
 at Pretoria had any reason to question the ostensible legitimacy of 
 its designs. The object was to superintend the extension of the 
 Vryburg-Mafeking Railway along the western frontier of the 
 Transvaal to Gaberones, a hundred miles further north. In a Blue 
 Book published in the course of the year appears a letter on the 
 subject from the British South Africa Company to the Colonial 
 Office, explaining that this scheme rendered the presence of an 
 iinied force at Mafeking necessary, and asking that the High 
 Commissioner might be authorized to concert measures with Mr. 
 Rhodes for the supply of " adequate police protection " during the 
 progress of the railway works. 
 
 In this way Dr. Jameson found himself at Mafeking at the 
 head of a considerable body of Bechuanaland police towards the 
 
 i 
 
 •I, 
 
 :l -km 
 
 
 
 -, I 
 
 ' i 
 
106 DR. JAMRvSON S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL.. 
 
 end of December, 1895, awaiting the signal to ride to the rescne of 
 the Ontlandcrs. The signal, so far as it was other than the letter 
 of invitation, did not come, and Dr. Jameson seems to have de- 
 cided to act withont it. 
 
 Fonr days after Christmas the men were ordered to mnster in 
 marching order, and in the afternoon were formed into hollow 
 sqnares and addressed by Dr. Jameson, who also read out the letter 
 received from the Johannesburgers. Before Dr. Jameson could ask 
 if they were willing to go, the entire force spontaneously sang 
 "God Save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia." Jameson then, 
 according to one accoimt, added words to the following effect: 
 "When you get into Johannesburg, should you wish for more help 
 no doubt there are other English hearts such as the Cape Mounted 
 Rifles and the Natal Mounted Police, who would only be too pleased 
 to help you in such a cause." This closed Jameson's appeal. 
 
 INVADING PORdE ON THE MARCH. 
 
 Sir John Willoughby stepped forward and said that he was 
 pleased to be in command of such a trustworthy and willing force, 
 especially in such a matter. A little before sundown on the same 
 day the force started for the border. It consisted of Sir John 
 Willoughby (in command), Colonel White, thirty officers, and 380 
 rank and file, divided into four troops, numbered from A to D, each 
 with an inspector and two sub-inspectors, and an artillery troop 
 with one inspector and one sub-inspector, all in light marching 
 order, carrying only a cavalry cloak or mackintosh strapped to the 
 saddle and a towel and small hold-all in the wallets. They rode all 
 night, halting only for an interval of an hour about 10 P. M. to fodder 
 horses and for about ten minutes every two hours till they arrived 
 at Malmani, a small village about forty miles from the border. 1 
 
 Here they were met by " G " and " K " troops, lately trans- 
 ferred from the Bechuanaland Border Police, virho started from 
 Mafeking 120 strong, including officers. The men of these troops 
 did not know where they were going till after they had crossed 
 the border, when a copy of the Johannesburgers' letter was read 
 to them. The telegraph wires were cut at Malmani, and the force 
 
DR. JAMKSONS FAMOUS RAID IN THK TRANSVAAL. 11)7 
 
 lull ted about seven miles beyoud that place for breakfast on Monday 
 morning, the 30th. 
 
 The news of the invasion caused the profoundest .sensation in 
 England, while all over the Continent of Europe, which for months 
 past had been giver, up to a gamble in Transvaal gold mines, the 
 raid was denounced as an attempt by Great Britain to grab the 
 uew El Dorado. The British Colonial Office seems to have Ijeen 
 taken completely by surprise. Mr. Chamberlain, Foreign Secre- 
 tary, was at Birmingham when the news arrived, but he at once 
 took steps to endeavor to stop the expedition. Returning instantly 
 to London, he put himself into telegraphic communication with 
 Sir Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner at the Cape, and 
 messengers were sent to overtake and recall Jam.eson. 
 
 REPUDIATED BY THE HOME GOVERNMENT. 
 
 These eftbrts were unavailing. A proclamation was then 
 issued repudiating Dr. Jameson's act, and calling on all British 
 subjects to hold aloof from it. On January 2d Mr. Chamberlain 
 received the following telegram from Sir Hercules Robinson : 
 
 " NeWiOn telegraphed that his messengers overtook Jameson 
 ten miles beyond the other side of the Eland River. Brought back 
 verbal messages that despatches had been received and would be 
 attended to. Force was saddling up when messengers arrived, and 
 at once proceeded eastwards. Jameson has thus received both my 
 messages, and has disregarded them. De Wit telegraphs this 
 morning that it would have been impossible for him to have gone 
 to Jameson, and if it had been possible his mission would have 
 proved futile, as fighting commenced at four o'clock yesterday. He 
 had been unable to obtain particulars from Joubert (commander of 
 the Boers) last night, and he has heard nothing beyond rumor this 
 morning." 
 
 Similar eiforts to stop the invasion seem to have been made by 
 the Chartered Company, by Mr. Rhodes, and by the Reform Com- 
 mittee at Johannesburg. Owing, however, to the scantiness of the 
 supplies carried by the force and available on its route a return 
 seems to have been impossible. Meanwhile the Boers were sum- 
 
 
 n 
 
 i^j}>'^,i 
 
! i 
 
 198 
 
 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAl,. 
 
 :il 
 
 moiled to arms by General Joubert, and preparations were made to 
 give the invaders a warm reception. In Johannesburg everybody 
 seems to have been taken by surprise. The Reform Committee 
 were unprepared for a rising. The arms at their disposal were 
 comparatively few, and the population generally had not been taken 
 into their confidence. 
 
 None the less it became necessary to act. Accordingly the Boer 
 authorities were expelled from the town. A provisional government 
 was formed under the Transvaal flag, and companies of insurgents 
 were organized and armed. At this juncture President Kruger 
 astutely employed his diplomacy to prevent the invaders and the 
 rebels from acting in unison. Sending for the leaders, of the 
 R.eform Committee, he promised to consider their grievances, and 
 arranged an armistice with them. Not knowing where Jameson 
 was, and being further exercised in their minds by the Proclama- 
 tion of the High Commissioner, the Outlanders remained quiescent, 
 and consequently all the military resources of the Republic became 
 available for the resistance of the invading force. 
 
 REPULSED BY THE STURDY BOERS. 
 
 On the morning of the New Year Dr. Jameson came in touch 
 with the Boers in the neighborhood of Krugersdorp, a mining vil^ 
 lage within a short ride of Johannesburg, and connected with the 
 town by railway. The fighting which followed is thus described 
 by a member of the force : 
 
 " We mounted a very steep rocky hill in skirmishing order in 
 a terrible thunderstorm, the Boers having entrenched themselves 
 on an opposite and strongly fortified hill. We put several shells 
 into their fortifications, but were unable to dislodge the Boers. 
 The order was then given for the skirmishers to charge, but there 
 seems to have been some misunderstanding, as only twenty-five 
 men charged, about fifty going round to the left and trying to take 
 the Boers in the flank. It was during this movement that we saw 
 how strong the Boer position was, for a very heavy fire was iiiiinc- 
 diately poured on both parties. The attack proving fruitless, the 
 column was ordered to make a detour to the right, which we sue- 
 
■-■I '') 
 
 lade to 
 
 fryhody 
 
 imittee 
 
 il were 
 
 taken 
 
 le Boer 
 frnment 
 argents 
 [Kruger 
 md the 
 of the 
 ;es, and 
 [ameson 
 [oclama- 
 'iescent, 
 became 
 
 n touch 
 ing vil. 
 'ith the 
 scribed 
 
 rder in 
 iselves 
 shells 
 Boers. 
 t there 
 ty-five 
 o take 
 /Q sa w 
 iiiijuc- 
 :s, the 
 - suc- 
 
 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID m THE TRANSVAAL. 199 
 
 ceeded in doing, but we were so lienimed in by the Boers that it 
 was decided to rest for the night, hoping for assistance from Johan- 
 nesburg in the morning. 
 
 " The camp was formed in a rough hexagonal square, horses 
 and ammunition wagons inside, the men lying outside shoulder to 
 shoulder, with a Maxim pointing out from each corner. We were 
 twice attacked before this was completed, and again at about 9 p.m., 
 but repulsed the enemy each time without loss on our side. During 
 the night we were told we were to make a rush for Johannesburg 
 in the early morning, but we were attacked just before dawn, and 
 again on our attempting to form in battle line, losing three men 
 killed and four or five wounded. We managed to get away at 
 about 5 A.M., and, making a long detour to the right, rode at a fast 
 canter towards Johannesburg, followed by the Boers, who con- 
 tinually harassed our rear, inflicting all the injury they could. 
 
 THE WHITE FLAG WAS HOISTED. 
 
 " After three hours of this running fighting we were brought to 
 a halt at Doornkop, where we perceived a strong force opposed to 
 us. We succeeded in taking one bluff, but the second was too 
 strongly held, and had, moreover, a splendid natural fortification of 
 rocks. We fought on, however, till ten o'clock, when, on receipt 
 of a command from the English Government to return to the bor- 
 der. Dr. Jameson ordered the white flag to be hoisted. The horses 
 were all dead beat and our 7-pounder ammunition had given out, 
 but I think we could have gone on fighting for some time if necessary. 
 
 " At first when the flag was hoisted we could not believe that 
 it meant our surrender, and thought that it must be only tem- 
 porary for the purpose of recovering our wounded ; but after it was 
 known, and we were collected by the farmhouse, I constantly heard 
 men say that they had not the faintest notion that we were getting 
 the worst of it." 
 
 It would be idle to deny that the news of this disaster was 
 received with the deepest regret throughout England. The ille- 
 gality and rashness of the raid were generally admitted, but the 
 oppressive treatment of the Outlanders had won much sympathy 
 
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 ii'H 
 
 •ii^i*^ 
 
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 200 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL 
 
 for their cause. This sympathy became concentrated on Dr. Jame- 
 son and his followers when it became evident that his defeat was 
 largely due to the failure of the Johannesburgers to fly to his aid. 
 The British Government, however, pursued a strictly correct atti- 
 tude. Mr. Chamberlain acted with energy, and, while repudiating 
 the proceedings of Dr. Jameson, exerted himself, in consonance 
 with the sentiment of the country, to procure a merciful treatment 
 for the prisoners. If any disingenuousness was shown in the sub- 
 sequent negotiations with President Kruger it was not on the side 
 of the British Government. 
 
 The High Commissioner for South Africa, Sir Hercules Rob- 
 inson, was sent to Pretoria to discuss the crisis with the Transvaal 
 Government and to obtain a solution which should be satisfactory 
 to all parties. President Kruger declined to negotiate until Johan- 
 nesburg had surrer dered, and proceeded to take steps for an assault 
 on the town. Sir Hercules Robinson having represented to the 
 insurgents that their action was jeopardizing the lives of Dr. Jame- 
 son and his followers, they consented to lay down their arms and 
 the leading members of the National Reform Committee were 
 arrested. The High Commissioner then opened up negotiations 
 for the transfer of Dr. Jameson and his force to the British authori- 
 ties, and for securing a measure of redress of the legitimate griev- 
 ances of the Outlanders. On the latter subject he failed to obtain 
 any concession from President Kruger, but the transfer of the raid- 
 ers was granted on condition that they should be tried in England 
 for their offence, and brought to speedy justice. 
 
 KRUGER SHOWS A MAGNANIMOUS SPIRIT. 
 
 President Kruger's magnanimity in thus sparing the lives of 
 the " filibusters," as he called them, was highly extolled both in 
 England and South Africa, and the Queen addressed a message to 
 him expressing her satisfaction at his decision. It afterwards trans- 
 pired, however, that the praises lavished on the Transvaal President 
 were not altogether deserved, since Dr. Jameson had not surrendered 
 unconditionally at Doornkop, but in pursuance of a written under 
 taking given by the Boer commandant to spare the lives of himself 
 
r^ 
 
 Ijame- 
 it was 
 lis aid. 
 It atti- 
 [iatiiig 
 ]>naiice 
 [tmeiit 
 |e siib- 
 te side 
 
 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL- '2in 
 
 and his followers. This fact had been kept secret from the British 
 authorities, 
 
 After the release of Dr. Jameson, Mr. Chamberlain made an 
 effort to secure concessions for the Outlanders, and addressed an 
 elaborate memorandum to the Boer Government inviting Mr. 
 Kruger to England and suggesting a scheme of Home Rule for 
 the Rand. At first Mr. Kruger was disposed to accept the invita- 
 tion, but when he found that the British Government declined to 
 discuss a revision of the clause of the London Convention by which 
 the Transvaal was prevented from making treaties with foreign 
 governments, he refused the invitation and the negotiations were 
 
 suspended. 
 
 BROUGHT TO TRIAL IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Dr. Jameson and his followers were brought to England, and 
 the chief members of the force were tried in London, almost con- 
 currently with the trial of the Reform leaders at Pretoria. After a 
 preliminary examination at Bow street, they were committed to 
 take their trial for various infractions of the Foreign Enlistment 
 Act. The trial was at Bar in the Queen's Bench Division, before 
 the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Baron Pollock and Mr. Justice Haw- 
 kins. For the defence, various objections were taken to the indict- 
 ment on technical grounds, but these were overruled, and ulti- 
 mately the prisoners were all found guilty. Dr. Jameson was 
 sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment, Sir John Willoughby 
 to ten months. Major Robert White to seven months, and Colonel 
 Grey, Colonel Henry White, and Major Coventry to five months. 
 In each case the imprisonment was without hard labor, and the 
 Home Secretary directed that the prisoners should be treated as 
 first-class misdemeanants. Dr. Jameson and Major Coventry were 
 afterward released on the ground of ill-health. 
 
 The Rand reformers had a rather more exciting experience. 
 After a lengthy preliminary investigation they were all committed 
 'for trial, and a special tribunal, presided over by a judge imported 
 from the Orange Free State, was constituted to try them. The 
 proceedings, however, were cut short by a plea of guilty entered 
 by all the prisoners, the chiefs, Messrs. Phillips, Farrar, and Ham- 
 
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 202 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL. 
 
 mond, and Colonel Rhodes admitting the charge of high treason, 
 
 and the others the minor offence of kse majeste. The ringleaders 
 
 were then sentenced to death, and the remaining sixty prisoners to 
 
 two years' imprisonment, a fine of $io,cxx5 each, and banishment 
 
 for three years. 
 
 The severity of these sentences caused great indignation in 
 
 England and the colony, and even the Boers themselves petitioned 
 
 for their mitigation. The Transvaal Executive, however, took 
 
 time to reconsider them, and meanwhile the prisoners were huddled 
 
 together in an insanitary prison totally unfitted for their accom- 
 
 niod'^tion. One of them, Mr. Grey, committed suicide during this 
 
 period of suspense. Towards the end of May the decision of the 
 
 Government was made known. All the sentences were commuted 
 
 to a fine, the four leading prisoners being mulcted in $100,000 
 
 each and the rank and file in $io,cxx). A promise to abstain from 
 
 participation in politics was exacted from all of them. Colonel 
 
 Rhodes alone refused to give the promise, and was consequently 
 
 banished. 
 
 CHIEF CONSPIRATORS ESCAPED. 
 
 By this time the strong feelings which had been evoked by 
 the raid, both on the part of those who were inclined to defend it 
 and those who most violently denounced it, had subsided, and the 
 conviction became prevalent that, while much necessary justice 
 had been dispensed, the prime movers in the conspiracy had so far 
 escaped. From the beginning considerable suspicion had attached 
 to Mr. Rhodes, the Premier of Cape Colony and chairman of the 
 Chartered Company. The Chartered Company itself was also 
 thought to have been implicated. On the first news of the failure 
 of Dr. Jameson's invasion, Mr. Rhodes had tendered his resigna- 
 tion of the Colonial Premiership to the High Commissioner, and 
 on the return of that official from his mission to Pretoria it was 
 accepted. 
 
 Throughout the crisis Mr. Rhodes had preserved a singular 
 reticence. When asked what he knew about the invasion, he con- 
 tented himself with saying that "Jameson had taken the bit 
 between his teeth and bolted." After his resignation he came to 
 
reason, 
 
 leaders 
 
 lers to 
 
 Ihrnent 
 
 (ion in 
 
 and 
 
 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL. 203 
 
 England, and had an interview with Mr. Chamberlain, but what 
 occurred between the two statesmen has not transpired. Almost 
 immediately afterwards he left again for South Africa, landing at 
 Beira, and proceeding by the eastern route to Matabeleland, where 
 a native insurrection had broken out. The curiosity of the public 
 to know more about the secret springs of the raid was intensified 
 by the publication by the Transvaal Government of a number of 
 documents and deciphered telegrams by which Mr. Rhodes and 
 his colleagues seemed to be compromised. 
 
 Demands for an inquiry were made in both the Home and 
 Colonial Parliaments, and the latter appointed a Select Committee. 
 This committee published further documents and telegrams, and 
 found that Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Beit, another director of the Char- 
 tered Company, were privy to Dr. Jameson's proceedings, and that 
 the chief ofl&cers of the company in Cape Town were active pro- 
 moters of the raid. The London Board, however, were not impli- 
 cated, and Mr. Rhodes paid all the expenses incurred by the Cape 
 officials in connection with Dr. Jameson's invasion. Subsequently 
 the British House of Commons resolved on a further inquiry, and 
 in August a Select Committee was appointed, not only to investi- 
 gate the circumstances of the Jameson raid, but also to inquire 
 into the administration of the Chartered Company. 
 
 MANY DISASTERS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 The invasion of the Transvaal was but the beginning of a 
 whole series of disasters in South Africa. A few days after the 
 battle of Doomkop, while the attitude of the Outlanders was still 
 in doubt, a mail train laden with refugees from the insurgent city, 
 and bound for Natal, was wrecked en route^ and over thirty of the 
 passengers killed. A few weeks later a terrible catastrophe took 
 place at Johannesburg itself. Some fifteen tons of dynamite ex- 
 ploded in the suburb of Vredendorp, laying waste the whole district 
 and involving the loss of many lives. 
 
 The public had scarcely recovered from these shocks when bad 
 news was received from Matabeleland. Taking advantage of the 
 absence of Dr. Jameson and the Charter Company's police, and 
 
 li! : ll 
 
 M 
 
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 ^i)*,? 
 
! 
 
 
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 M; 
 
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 204 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL- 
 
 encouraged by the news of the disaster which had befallen them, a 
 portion of the Matabele native police had broken out into revolt, 
 and had massacred a number of whites, including Mr. Bently, the 
 Native Commissioner. Favored by the discontent which had been 
 caused by an outbreak of rinderpest — itself a serious visitation — 
 ♦^he rebellion rapidly spread, and even the usually timid Mashonas 
 took to the war path. Energetic measures were resolved upon by 
 the authorities, but owing to the great distance of the chief centres 
 of the revolt from the termini of the railways the rapid dispatch 
 of assistance to the colonists was difficult. 
 
 Mr. Rhodes, arriving in Mashonaland from Beira, organized a 
 force, with which he marched to the relief of Bulawayo and Gwelo, 
 then completely invested by the insurgents. He had to fight his way 
 through the ill-omened Shangani district, and his progress was con- 
 sequently slow. Meanwhile troops were hurried up from the south, 
 and Sir Frederick Carrington was appointed to command the forces. 
 At the same time Earl Grey succeeded Dr. Jameson as Adminis- 
 trator at Bulawayo, and the military forces of the Chartered Com- 
 pany were transferred to the control of Sir Richard Martin, who was 
 appointed Deputy High Commissioner in Rhodesia. 
 
 STRONG NATURAL DEFENSES. 
 
 In the middle of May Mr. Rhodes succeeded in relieving Gwelo, 
 and in effecting a juncture with a column sent out to meet him 
 from Bulawayo. A few days later Bulawayo was also relieved, and 
 the rebels, who had meanwhile proclaimed Nyamanda, a son of 
 Ivobengula, King of the Matabele, concentrated their forces on the 
 Matoppo Hills. In these fastnesses they proved safe from all but 
 the most reckless attacks, and after several attempts to storm their 
 kopjes and caves, in which many lives were lost. General Carring- 
 ton resolved to invest the hills with a chain of forts. In August 
 Colonel Plumer fought a decisive engagement with the combined 
 forces of the chiefs Secombo and Umlugula. This broke the back 
 of the rebellion, and overtures for peace were made by the rebel 
 commanders. 
 
 It was still, however, very unsafe to enter the Matoppo Hills, 
 
im, a 
 ivolt, 
 S the 
 'been 
 (on — 
 loiias 
 ^11 by 
 Intres 
 )atch 
 
 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL. 206 
 
 where the negotiations were to take place, and the British com- 
 mander hesitated to accept the invitation of the Matabele. Ulti- 
 mately Mr. Rhodes volunteered to open negotiations himself, and, 
 with three attendants, all unarmed, he gallantly proceeded to the 
 meeting-place. Throughout the campaign Mr. Rhodes had distin 
 guished himself by his coolness and activity. Although forced b}/ 
 the clamor at home to resign his position as chairman of the Char- 
 tered Company, he continued to exercise a predominant influence 
 in the colony. His personal prestige and his assurance that what- 
 ever occurred he would remain in Rhodesia, and watch the develop- 
 ment of the country, alone prevented the settlers from leaving the 
 country under the storm of disasters by which they were beset. 
 
 GERMANY LOOKING WITH EAGER EYES. 
 
 Among the natives, too, his name and personality proved more 
 powerful than that of any other Englishman. His valuable ser- 
 vices were fitly crowned by the courage with which he entered the 
 rebel stronghold in order to negotiate the terms of peace. Met by 
 a large force of rebels in arms, he dictated to them the terms of 
 surrender. The chiefs at once made their submission, and a few 
 days later their arms were laid down, and peace was proclaimed. 
 A scheme of administration by which the natives were to be 
 retained was drafted. Having successfully grappled with these 
 serious questions, Mr. Rhodes left Bulawayo for a time, to meet 
 in London the charges made against him in connection with the 
 Jameson raid. He traveled via Cape Town, where He was received 
 with immense enthusiasm. - 
 
 Ever since the London Convention gave back its independence 
 to the Transvaal, the Germans have cast longing eyes in the direc- 
 tion of that country. Berlin paid effusive court to Pretoria, and 
 one of the chief objects of the establishment of a German colony 
 in South-west Africa was to creep towards the western frontier of 
 the Transvaal, and thus shut out British expansion northwards. 
 This scheme was defeated by the vigilance and public spirit of Mr. 
 Rhodes, who, in the nick of time, despatched his pioneers to 
 Mashonaland, painted the map red as far as the Zambesi, and estab- 
 
 
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 206 DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL. 
 
 lished communications with Nyassaland, to the north of that river. 
 It seems that when first President Kruger suspected the real 
 nature of the Oiitlander agitation he turned for assistance to 
 
 Berlin. 
 
 England's relations with the Transvaal, which were so se- 
 riously disturbed by the Jameson Raid, remained more or less 
 strained throughout the year 1897. In March, the Transvaal 
 entered into a defensive alliance with the Orange Free State, the 
 object being to oppose a strong Dutch front to possible British 
 encroachments. A long correspondence took place between the 
 Colonial Office and the Transvaal Government in reference to cer- 
 tain legislation directed against aliens, and other acts of the South 
 African Republic, which were alleged to be contrary to the spirit 
 and letter of the London Convention. 
 
 THE SITUATION GROWINa WORSE. 
 
 The great expenditure on armaments incurred by the Trans- 
 vaal, the complaints of two of the Reform leaders still remaining 
 in prison at Pretoria, the publication of the official correspondence 
 relating to the Vaal Drifts affair of 1895, when war with the South 
 African Republic was threatened, the insulting references to the 
 Queen made by a nephew of President Kruger at a public meet- 
 ing, the President's persistent refusal to admit that a British suzer- 
 ainty was implied by the London Convention, and the exorbitant 
 claim put forward by the Republic for compensation for the Jame- 
 son Raid, all helped to aggravate the situation. Towards the 
 middle of the year, however, a better spirit began to prevail. The 
 obnoxious legislation in the Transvaal was withdrawn, and Presi- 
 dent Kruger contributed still further to allay the prevailing irrita- 
 tion by his graceful conduct in liberating the remaining Reform 
 prisoners on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee. 
 
 It is impossible, however, to pretend that relations of perfect 
 amity and mutual confidence were restored^ Apart from minor 
 sources of irritation, the Transvaal Government was far from sat- 
 isfied with the result of the Select Committee appointed by the 
 House of Commons to inquire into the origin and circumstances of 
 
 M^ 
 
DR. JAMESON'S FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAI,. 20; 
 
 river, 
 real 
 :e to 
 
 the Jameson Raid, and the administration of the British South 
 Africa Company. It had hoped that the work of this Committee 
 would have led the Imperial Government to prosecute Mr. Cecil 
 Rhodes for his share in the organization of the Raid, and to with- 
 ^ draw the charter of the British South Africa Company. Neither 
 of these* steps was taken. 
 
 The Committee, which was an exceptionally strong one, and 
 was presided over by Mr. Jackson, held thirty-one sittings between 
 February i6th and July 6th. It examined many witnesses, but 
 elicited few new facts. Mr. Rhodes, who, on his way from Rho- 
 desia to London, was the object of many remarkable demonstra- 
 tions of confidence on the part of British Afrikanders, both Dutch 
 and English, was examined and cross-examined at length by the 
 Committee, and frankly avowed that he had supported and financed 
 the Raid. He strongly defended his conduct; and his exposition 
 of the difficulties under which the Outlander in the Transvaal 
 labored, the maladministration of the Pretoria Junta, and the 
 enmity of the Republic towards England excited considerable sym- 
 pathy on his behalf, and served to explain the situation. 
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN STRONGLY SUSPECTED. 
 
 Much of the evidence adduced before the Committee turned 
 upon certain suggestions, by no means obscure, to the effect that 
 Mr. Chamberlain had some foreknowledge of the Raid, if he was 
 not actually an accessory to it. The non-production of a batch of 
 telegrams believed to refer to this matter and for which the Com- 
 mittee did not press, gave rise to some adverse comment. The 
 whole Committee, however, were unanimous in characterizing the 
 suggestions as absolutely unfounded. 
 
 . For the rest the Committee in their report severely censured 
 Mr. Rhodes for the part he had played in connection with the Raid, 
 and placed on record " an absolute and unqualified condemnation 
 of the Raid and of the plans which made it possible." With re- 
 gard to the alleged maladministration of the Chartered Company 
 the Committee confined itself to publishing a report received from 
 Sir Richard Martin, Deputy Commissioner for Rhodesia,, in which 
 
 J f i^ 
 
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^' 
 
 11 
 
 I 
 
 DR. JAMESONS FAMOUS RAID IN THE TRANSVAAL. 
 
 various charges were made against the Company. These charges 
 were subsequently rebutted by the directors in an elaborate de- 
 fence. Towards the end of July, Lord Salisbury announced in the 
 House of Lords that it was not intended to withdraw the Company's 
 Charter. 
 
 Immediately after his examination by the Select Committee, 
 Mr. Rhodes left London to return to Rhodesia, where he had re- 
 solved to devote himself to watching over the progress and devel- 
 opment of the colony. Arriving in South Africa he was again re- 
 ceived with demonstrations of welcome, and it was clear that he 
 still had a large following in the country. He proceeded to Bula- 
 wayo, and thence to his residence near Umtali. Although from 
 this moment little was seen or heard of him, his restless energy 
 was made manifest by the spirit and rapidity with which the rail- 
 way to Bulawayo was pushed forward. This great work, which 
 is almost entirely due to him, was happily completed towards the 
 end of the year, and was formally opened by the High Commis- 
 sioner amid great rejoicings throughout South Africa on Novem- 
 ber 5th. 
 
 PROJECT FOR GREAT AFRICAN RAILWAY. 
 
 Mr. Rhodes, who was recovering from an attack of fever, was 
 not present at the festivities, but the most enthusiastic appreciation 
 of his labors was testified by all the speakers, not excluding the 
 official representatives of the Imperial Government. In reply to a 
 telegram of congratulation from the residents of Bulawayo he de- 
 clared that he should not rest satisfied until the railway had been 
 further extended to the Zambesi. A further illustration of his in- 
 exhaustible energy was afforded during the year by the progress 
 made by his trans-continental telegraph scheme, the wires having 
 already "been carried beyond the Zambesi. 
 
 Following the surrender of Dr. Jameson and his party who 
 had invaded the Transvaal, they were handed over to the British 
 Government for trial of offenses under the foreign enlistment act, 
 and arrived in London in February, 1896. After a preliminary 
 examination the officers were put on trial before Lord Chief Justice 
 Russell. Eminent counsel appeartid in their behalf, but they were 
 
 v4^t*^ 
 
larges 
 |te de- 
 |in the 
 
 )auy's 
 
 littee, 
 
 ad re- 
 
 devel- 
 
 in re- 
 
 at he 
 
 Bula- 
 
 1 from 
 
 Jiiergy 
 
 10 ^ail- 
 
 which 
 
 ds the 
 
 ammis- 
 
 ^ovem- 
 
 DR. JAMKvSON S FAMOUvS RAID IN Till- TRANvSVAAI. 209 
 
 found guilty. Pu1)Hc opinion was to some extent divided, just as 
 it was wiien war actually broke out between the English and the 
 Boers, after all attempts to settle the contention by diplomacy had 
 failed. Much excitement was caused throughout Great Britain by 
 this trial ; for the time being the public mind was fully occupied 
 with it, and doubtless more so from the fact that the wisest states- 
 men looked upon it as only the beginning of troubles in the Trans- 
 vaal that would result finally in war. 
 
 THE GUILTY RECEIVE SENTENCE. 
 
 An appeal for a new trial was declined by the defendants, and 
 sentences were pronounced of imprisonment without hard labor. 
 Dr. Jameson, who was the chief conspirator in the attempt to over- 
 throw the Transvaal Government, was sentenced to fifteen months' 
 imprisonment, but on account of illness was released in the follow- 
 ing December. Other officers received various sentences, and some 
 of these were cut short by pardons secured under various pretences. 
 
 Meanwhile the Reform Committee of Johannesburg, who were 
 in league with Dr. Jameson and his party, were tried and convicted. 
 Some of them were sentenced to death and others to imprisonment 
 and heavy fines. The Transvaal Government, however, dealt leni- 
 ently with tlie offenders upon representations from the British 
 Government, and on the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee in June, 
 1897, the chief conspirators were liberated. 
 
 14 
 
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 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Cause for War Many Years Old. 
 
 ^HE dispute between Great Britain and the Transvaal, or, to 
 use its correct legal designation, the South African Republic, 
 is most unfortunate, especially for the latter country. It has 
 the area of New York and Pennsylvania put together. It has a 
 colored population, still in a state of barbarism, equal to that of 
 Alabama. It has a white population of only a little over a quarter 
 of a million, and to one-half of this white population, which is 
 English, all political rights are denied by the Dutch colonists. 
 
 To put it differently, if we imagine the white population of 
 Rhode Island and the negro population of Alabama spread out 
 over an area about equal to that of Colorado, and the entire politi- 
 cal power vested in one-half of the white population, the political 
 situation out of which come the causes of the war of the Trans- 
 vaal, will be clearly grasped. 
 
 The removal of their political disabilities was the first ostensi- 
 ble cause of Great Britain's action. The real underlying cause of 
 dispute, however, is the supremacy of the English-speaking race in 
 the colonial conquest of the world. The English Government found 
 in the political and civil disabilities of English-speaking men the 
 occasion for dissatisfaction. The cause lay in the final fact that as 
 long as Boers in the Orange Free State and the South African 
 Republic treated white men of English birth as they did, the para- 
 mount supremacy of Great Britain in South Africa was in peril. 
 An irrepressible conflict inevitably existed between the master claim 
 of Great Britain and the actual condition of British subjects in the 
 Transvaal. After fifty years of ebb and flow war has come to settle 
 _. the fate of South Africa, and with it of the continent itself. 
 
 it was not to be expected that the thousands of foreigners who 
 __ had been drawn to the Transvaal would rest satisfied under a system 
 . whereby they were heavily taxed without any representation. 
 210 
 
 .V(.«^' 
 
CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YICARS OLD. 
 
 '211 
 
 For this anomalous condition of affairs no one can be held 
 directly responsible. It is the result of the history of the nine- 
 teenth century. The beginning of the centv/y found what is now 
 Cape Colony inhabited by a population of mixed Dutch and Hugue- 
 not ancestry, drawn from the best and most adventurous blood of 
 both stocks, who had reduced the docile black population to slavery, 
 and were leading a simple agricultural and deeply religious life 
 with the virtues and the limitations of the patriarchal era. This 
 population, by treaty with Holland at Vienna in 1815, was trans- 
 ferred to the sovereignty of Great Britain. It found itself governed 
 by an alien administration, its law enacted and administered in 
 English, and its property rights over its negro labor suddenly 
 altered. 
 
 Under these two grievances, a foreign rule and interference 
 with slavery, a large body of Dutch farmers in 1836 crossed the 
 Orange River and organized the Orange Free State. In 1854 the 
 absolute independence of this State was recognized by Great Britain, 
 and there has since been no serious conflict between the two powers. 
 In the negotiations whicb preceded this recognition the position of 
 Great Britain was that the Dutch emigrants were subjects of Great 
 Britain when they startetd. that they remained so after reaching 
 their own home, and that tfweir independence was not completed 
 until it had been recognized and ratified by Great Britain. 
 
 CLAIMED INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 The Dutch farmers themselves claimed that when they crossed 
 the Orange River it was the recognized boundary of English ad- 
 ministration ; that they entered on territory which owed no Euro- 
 pean allegiance, and in which they had the same right which any 
 independent body of men would have to organize their own govern- 
 ment and create their own institutions. They held that when the 
 British Orders in Council of January 30, 1854, " declared the aban- 
 donment and renunciation of the dominion and sovereignty of Great 
 Britain over the Orange River territory on and after August i," it 
 was only the recognition of a condition of affairs which had been 
 reached independent of Great Britain. 
 
 
 u-.'>f 
 
 'nn«ni~-r u m , m it.:,s!ijm >-^ 
 
1 * 
 
 i .i! 
 
 
 212 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 This principle and precedent has its importance in the present 
 case because the entire position in the Transvaal from the stand- 
 point of international law hinges upon the issue whether when 
 Great Britain made the Orange River the boundary of its adminis- 
 tration, it left this territory free for any colonization or subject to 
 its own sovereignty, whenever it chose to again exercise it. 
 
 If the English contention is true, the Dutch trekkers remained 
 subjects of Great Britain and found themselves on the soil of Great 
 Britain. On the Bore contention, they passed out of the jurisdic- 
 tion of Great Britain, renouncing its sovereignty and gained a new 
 allegiance. This is an act which could not be taken by an English 
 citizen under English law, and the step as taken by a body of men 
 organized for a given purpose, raises exactly the same type of issue 
 as was debated in this country at the opening of the Revolution, as 
 to the precise character of allegiance which had been transferred 
 by Great Britain's colonists in seeking this country. 
 
 CANNOT RENOUNCE ONE'S COUNTRY. 
 
 The general precedents of the international law are thui, no 
 body of men under a civilized sovereignty can divest themselves of 
 the sovereignty to which they owe allegiance by occupying new 
 territory, because new territory can be taken up only by an existing 
 sovereignty, not by a body of men endeavoring to create a new 
 sovereignty for this purpose. Such an act by public law is filibus- 
 tering. The general current of law is, therefore, against the Boer 
 contention, though their case offers diflferences from all other modem 
 colonization, because most colonies have wished to preserve and 
 gain the protection of the old 'Sovereignty, while the purpose of the 
 Boer emigration was to escape it. 
 
 The first Boer trek which formed the Orange Free State suc- 
 ceeded without serious difiiculty in establishing itself in the terri-' 
 t.orj'^ which they had sought. The next emigration, of which Presi- 
 dent Kruger is one of the last surviving members, passed into a 
 territory more thickly settled and better organized under Zulu chiefs. 
 The fight was, therefore, bitter, long continued and nearly ended in 
 the destruction of the colony. Of the twenty-four members of the 
 
 VciM^' 
 
j*^ 
 
 sm' 
 
 knt 
 
 Ud- 
 
 len 
 
 inis- 
 
 to 
 
 CAU.SES FOR WAR MANY YKARS OI.D. 
 
 213 
 
 Transvaal Raad, in 1897, seventeen men carried bullet wounds won 
 in savage warfare, while wresting the Transvaal from its negro 
 owners and cultivators. 
 
 In 1852 this same issue occurred with the Transvaal which had 
 previously occurred with the Orange Free State. Unlike the latter 
 this second body of colonists had not as yet succeeded in subduing 
 the native tribes by which it was surrounded, and it still led a pre- 
 carious existence. It was, however, at a long distance from Cape 
 Colony. The British Government had no desire to assume re- 
 sponsibilities which would involve the military defense of the terri- 
 tory. Instead, therefore, as with the Orange Free State, of first 
 claiming sovereignty and later renouncing it, the first action taken 
 with the Transvaal was without any special assertion on either side 
 in regard to the matter. 
 
 REGARDED AS BRITISH SUBJECTS. 
 
 The Boer farmers undoubtedly looked upon the Transvaal as 
 already an independent power. The British ministers as undoubt- 
 edly considered its white inhabitants British subjects, who had not 
 lost this character by transfer to new territory. The following 
 convention, known as the Sand River convention, January 17, 
 1852, gave the Transvaal its first status. 
 
 The assistant commissioners guarantee in the fullest manner, 
 on the part of the British Government, to the emigrant farmers 
 beyond the Vaal River, the right to manage their own aflfairs, and 
 to govern themselves, without any interference on the part of her 
 Majesty the Queen's Government, and that no encroachment shall 
 be made by the said Government on the territory beyond the north 
 of the Vaal River, with the further assurance that the warmest 
 wish of the British Government is to promote peace, free trade and 
 friendly intercourse with the emigrant farmers now inhabiting, or 
 who hereafter may inhabit that country, it being understood this 
 system of non-interference is binding upon both parties. Her Ma- 
 jesty's assistant commissioners hereby disclaim all alliances what- 
 ever, and with whomsoever of the colored nations north of the Vaal 
 River. 
 
 ■I m 
 
 m^ii*ii^ 
 
214 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 Under this agreement the Dutch farmers of the Transvaal 
 continued to carry on their own government. 1858 their govern- 
 ment assumed the style and title of the South African Republic. 
 Two treaties were made with Portugal in 1869 and 1875, delimiting 
 their boundary, in which Great Britain was formally termed suze- 
 rain of the Transvaal State, but in this delimitation Great Britain 
 took no share in the organization in regard to a boundary which i 
 was treated in this organization, not as a boundary of Great Bri- 
 tain, but of a State under suzerainty, and in other respects inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 This definite position might have remained unchanged but for 
 the two successive circumstances which modified the internal con- 
 dition of the Boers, surrounded by native tribes, maintaining their 
 supremacy with difficulty over a native population, cut off from 
 civilization, without education, and without an outlet for their pro- 
 ducts during twenty years. From 1858 to 1877 the condition of 
 the Boers 'T)y no means improved. 
 
 PERPETUAL WARS WITH NATIVES. 
 
 There were at one time four separate republics claiming 
 rule over the region ; perpetual native wars rendered life and 
 travel unsafe, and such English settlers as came in found them- 
 selves without protection. Without these latter the Boers would 
 probably in the end, as their numbers increased, have maintained 
 their supremacy, but the presence and desire of the English settlers 
 added to the imperial political policy of Disraeli's administration, 
 together with the internal weakness of the Boers and the failure to 
 preserve internal peace, order and protection on an efficient level, 
 led, in 1877, ^o a declaration by British commissioners that "the 
 South African Republic was from that date British territory," and in 
 1879 orders patent were issued organizing the region as a territory. 
 
 A Boer rising followed, and the next step deciding the status 
 of the Transvaal was taken after successive English defeats ending 
 at Majuba Hill, in the convention of 1881, in which Kruger and 
 the other representatives of the Transvaal burghers declared " that 
 they do hereby agree to all the above conditions, reservations a»d 
 
 ,/ 
 
 *V4^^A^^ 
 
CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 215 
 
 [svaal 
 fvern- 
 
 iblic. 
 \itiug 
 isuze- 
 fitain 
 ^hich( 
 
 Bri- 
 [inde- 
 
 itfor 
 
 con- 
 I their 
 (from 
 
 pro- 
 )n of 
 
 limitations under which self-government has been restored to the 
 inhabitants of the Transvaal territory, subject to the suzerainty of 
 Her Majesty, her hairs and her successors." 
 
 While the original extension of imperial authority over the 
 Transvaal had taken place under Lord Beaconfield's government, 
 this convention was negotiated by Mr. Gladstone's government, in 
 which Great Britain reserved the right to move troops through the 
 Transvaal to have a resident, to guarantee native liberty and free- 
 dom from slavery, and the Transvaal Government agreed to give 
 " all persons, other than natives, the usual liberties given to aliens." 
 Owing to the different ministries under which these successive steps 
 were taken, when this and the following convention came up for 
 debate, the members of the Liberal ministry were interested in 
 asserting that the retention of suzerainty under one, and the veto 
 treaties in the other, gave Great Britain supremacy in South Africa. 
 
 THE POINT OF ^DISAGREEMENT. 
 
 On the other hand, the Conservative ministry was interested 
 in minimizing the control reserved by Great Britain. Lately these 
 conditions have been reversed. The Conservative ministry in Boer 
 negotiations has been anxious to magnify the rights retained under 
 the conventions, and the Liberals who opposed this policy have 
 been engaged in minimizing the rights which were reserved under 
 their negotiations. 
 
 It is, therefore, possible to quote detached portions from the 
 speeches of either at different times and places which will express 
 in the most unreserved language either the assertion of the sover- 
 eignty of Great Britain over the Transvaal, or the declaration that 
 this sovereignty was reduced to a mere shadow by the terms accepted 
 by the Liberal ministry in 1881 and 1884. 
 
 In 1884 the entire subject of British relations was re-opened, 
 and a new convention was negotiated by Lord Derby, in negotia- 
 tions which began with the request of the Transvaal to be relieve ! 
 of the suzerainty which the previous convention recognized, ;ii 
 under which the relations of the two countries had been continucl 
 for nearly thirty years. The conditions of the relations of the two 
 
 
 W4 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 ik-tii 
 
 
 iwi 
 
 I 
 
 'm 
 
 i 
 
 
 m.Jii*i''t 
 
216 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YKARS OLD. 
 
 couiJtries remained uiiclianged so far as the internal affairs of iK 
 Transvaal were concerned. With reference to the foreign relations 
 of the South African Republic, the following article was adopted : 
 
 " Article IV. — The South-African Republic will conclude no 
 treaty or engagement with' any State or nation other than the 
 Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or 
 westward of the republic, until the same has been approved by Her 
 Majesty the Queen. 
 
 " Such approval shall be considered to have been granted if 
 Her Majesty's Government shall not, within six months after 
 receiving a copy of such treaty (which shall be delivered to them 
 immediately upon its completion), have notified that the conclusion 
 of such treaty is in conflict with the interests of Great Britain or 
 any of Her Majesty's possessions in South Africa." 
 
 AUTHORITY NEVER GIVEN UP. 
 
 In adopting this article, and the convention of which it was a 
 part. Great Britain made no formal renunciation of suzerainty, and 
 the Transvaal no formal declaration of independence. Both were 
 content to leave unaltered the original issue, whicli turns upon the 
 conflicting interpretation of the relations of the two parties, the 
 English Government claiming that all the rights of the Transvaal 
 were the grants of the Crown to its subject, and the Transvaal 
 Government that it had possessed independence from the start, but 
 had submitted to a limitation upon its free rights with reference to 
 treaties, though not with reference to negotiations or agreements 
 whicli did not take the form of formal treaties. 
 
 These opposing views might have gone without question on 
 either side, if it had not been for the discovery of gold mines in 
 the Transvaal, and the gathering of a large alien population. This 
 •population was, at the start, of the usual character of mining popu- 
 lations. Alarmed at its rapid increase, and undoubtedly justly 
 apprehensive that a small permanent population would be over- 
 ridden by a large temporary population, the Legislature of the 
 Republic lengthened the period for acquiring citizenship from two 
 years to twelve, and imposed limitations which practically made 
 
CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OI.D. 
 
 217 
 
 patioiis 
 
 )ted : 
 
 ide no 
 
 m the 
 
 fard or 
 
 fy Her 
 
 ited if 
 
 after 
 
 them 
 
 tlusion 
 
 tain or 
 
 impossible the acquisition of political rights by those who were not 
 natives of the colony and speaking the Dutch language. 
 
 At no time has there been any suggestion from either party to 
 the controversy that the negro population should be given even 
 civil rights. They remain, to all intents and purposes, serfs, and 
 in the Dutch settlements they are not permitted even liberty on 
 the sidewalks. Their standing in court is about that of a ifree 
 negro in a Southern court before the war. Within the past ten 
 years, however, the character of the population at Johannesburg 
 and even in the gold mining region, has wholly changed. 
 
 HOW GOLD MINES ARE WORKED. 
 
 The gold mines are worked by elaborate mechanical processes, 
 the mining is on deep levels, the work is rather akin to that of a 
 highly skilled and scientific manufacture than the rough labor and 
 hazardous adventure of surface gold mining. A population of 
 engineers, highly skilled mechanics, surveyors and professional 
 men gathered at Johannesburg, grew in number to over 50,000, 
 though the right of suflfrage in this city, the decision as to all sani- 
 tary steps, the conduct of education, the adjustment of taxes and 
 the discharge of police duty — all rested in about 500 policemen, 
 brickmakers and other persons holding similar positions, who were 
 Dutch burghers. 
 
 This situation created the ground upon which Mr. Chamber- 
 lain began his remonstrances with the Dutch Government in 1897. 
 The Jameson raid led to an important English legal decision, declar- 
 ing the Transvaal in British law to be a " friendly State." Mr. 
 Chamberlain began his negotiations with the assertion on October 
 16, 1897, that Great Britain was the suzerain of the South African 
 Republic. This was the first direct assertion of this power since 
 the signature of the convention in 1884, and in denying right 
 under this basis to interfere the South African Republic made a 
 demand for arbitration in order to determine the precise relations 
 between the two countries. 
 
 The numerous arguments between the two powers on this issue 
 summed themselves ap in the declaration by the Transvaal that 
 
 rm 
 
 i ^M 
 
 ;> Hm 
 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 I, 
 
 218 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 the object of the convention of 1884 was to remove suzerainty, and 
 the declaration of Great Britain that, as its renunciation was not 
 asserted in terms, it must be assumed that the original sovereignty 
 which Great Britain possessed remained, was unfounded. The 
 issue thus presented, which involves a long series of negotiations, 
 of despatches, of public utterances and of signed instruments, is 
 one of those controverted questions upon which no one would will- 
 ingly predict the decision of an impartial court, and on which Great 
 Britain has refused arbitration and the Transvaal has sought war. 
 
 AGREED IN ONLY ONE THING. 
 
 All to which both contestants would agree was that the Trans- 
 vaal enjoyed independence as to internal relations, and that Great 
 Britain p assessed powers in regard to the Transvaal by its right of 
 veto upon the treaties of this republic, which removed the South 
 African Republic from the category of the independent sovereign- 
 ties. Beginning with the several States of the American Union, 
 which are for foreign purposes completely incorporated in the gov- 
 ernment of which they are part, and as to internal aflfairs " sovereign 
 States " of limited powers, passing on to the States of the Germanic 
 Confederation, which retain the privilege of foreign relation with- 
 out the privilege of foreign action, reaching protected States, whose 
 negotiations are from the start in the hands of a suzerain power, 
 the Transvaal evidently stands in a position freer than such a 
 State, as it has for many years, though under the protest of the 
 English Colonial Office, carried on negotiations at will, but has 
 been unable to embody these in treaties without the consent of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Shifting the position which he had originally taken, Mr. Cham- 
 berlain began to base English demands upon the assertion : First, 
 that the provision of the convention of 1884 guaranteed equal civil 
 rights to aliens resident in the Transvaal, and that these rights 
 were systematically withheld by the municipal Legislature of tl:t 
 Republic; and, second, that this reduced British subjects within 
 the Transvaal to a condition in which the British Government would 
 have a right to interfere, even if the position of the Transvaal were 
 
 ^i>^ 
 
CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 219 
 
 fty, and 
 /as Hot 
 [reignty 
 The 
 [latioiis, 
 lents, is 
 lid will- 
 Great 
 tilt war. 
 
 Trans- 
 it Great 
 •ight of 
 South 
 ereigu- 
 Union, 
 he gov- 
 vereign 
 irmanic 
 n with- 
 , whose 
 power, 
 such a 
 of the 
 at has 
 sent of 
 
 I^ham- 
 First, 
 1 civil 
 -ighls 
 >f tht 
 within 
 v^ould 
 were 
 
 that of a sovereign independent State, uncontrolled by Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The legal position of the Transvaal in claiming the right to 
 govern its own affairs without English interference is regarded by 
 many as a strong one. Its position in equity is less defensible. 
 Somewhat less than one-third of the population of the Transvaal 
 denied to a much larger white population permanently resident, 
 owning property and paying taxes upon it, any vote in the levying 
 of taxes and all share in municipal government. 
 
 A rigid press law was in force, public meetings were prohib- 
 ited, white men not Boers were denied the privilege of serving on 
 juries ; no Roman Catholic or Jew was allowed to hold any office 
 whatever, or to be enfranchised ; they might be expelled at any 
 time from the Republic without a trial, on the mere order of the 
 President, the use of English was prohibited in the only schools 
 which their children could attend, paid for by their own taxes ; any 
 representation in one branch of the Legislature was denied and the 
 courts were made, by special legislation of a dubious constitutional 
 validity, subject to the direct order of the Executive. 
 
 ROBBED OP THEIR RIGHTS. 
 
 No English-speaking white population ' in any part of the 
 world, and that in the Transvaal numbers now nearly 80,000, would 
 submit to such rule, and it was maintained at Johannesburg only 
 by depriving all but Dutch burghers of arms and commanding the 
 town with fortifications, whose guns are trained upon its dwellings. 
 No such step has been taken in a civilized State since there was a 
 Bourbon King at Naples. 
 
 In demanding a revision of this injustice the British Govern- 
 ment was undoubtedly within its rights. If a similar American 
 State had grown up in Mexico and was similarly treated, the United 
 States would undoubtedly act, first by remonstrance, and later by 
 direct interference. 
 
 This interference was also certain to lead to the subjugation 
 of the Transvaal to the English vote. War came, therefore, because 
 the Boers preferred war to the law of political supremacy. Political 
 
 UM 
 
 « 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 ,i h 
 
 r- ^<b. 
 
 mi^J^iiit'f 
 
220 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 i 
 
 
 and civil rights they would have retained with a majority British 
 vote in the Transvaal. They have preferred war. 
 
 One of our very prominent and influential journals makes the 
 following statement concerning the merits of the controversy be- 
 tween the English and Boers : 
 
 "The outbreak of the war in South Africa is from many points 
 of view greatly to be deplored. Such a conflict at some time, how- 
 ever, between the progressive Anglo-Saxon and the reactionary 
 Dutch elements could not be averted. It is only a matter of sur- 
 prise to men acquainted with the history of South Africa and with 
 the history of colonial movements in other parts of the world that 
 this encounter between the races has been so long delayed. 
 
 SETTLED ONLY BY THE SWORD. 
 
 " It was in the nature of an irrepressible conflict between pro- 
 gressive and unprogressive peoples, and, although the barbarity of 
 a war has been postponed for a longer time than it could have been 
 a hundred years ago, through the advance of civilization and the 
 spread of humane sentiments, it seemed impossible in the end to 
 suggest any method by which an amicable settlement could be 
 arrived at. It is true that England may have displayed a rather 
 unyielding spirit during the negotiations which preceded the 
 present war. But it must be remembered that the Boers have been 
 most obstinate on their side, giving nothing in the controversy, 
 while the trouble is one of very long standing and diplomacy has 
 failed to score anything throughout many years. 
 
 " At the last moment, without any special provocation for the 
 act, the Transvaal government issued an ultimatum to England 
 making most extraordinary demands and giving her only a few 
 hours in which to comply with them. Such a course, by such a 
 people, at such a time, as against a power which claimed suzer- 
 ainty over them is almost unheard of in the annals of ultimatums, 
 especially when the nature of the demands are taken into con- 
 sideration. 
 
 " President Kruger, for instance, insisted that Great Britain 
 should not land the troops which she then had on the high seas 
 
 anywhere 
 riia?le to i 
 troops if 
 with its c 
 hilation i 
 "W 
 the worlc 
 and were 
 until the 
 and the 
 deprive 
 capacitic 
 farmer ( 
 or indis] 
 Africa, 
 these I 
 admit t 
 few of 
 rights i 
 moveffl 
 
 of moi 
 
 ing to 
 
 most 
 
 period 
 
 archy 
 
 reseni 
 
 and 1 
 
 insist 
 
 agaii 
 must 
 is it] 
 Nat£ 
 
ty British 
 
 lakes tiie 
 )versy be- 
 
 ky points 
 [ime, how- 
 factioiiary 
 ^erofsur- 
 
 and with 
 i^orid that 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YKARS OLD. 
 
 221 
 
 een pro- 
 [rbarity of 
 ave been 
 and the 
 he end to 
 could be 
 a rather 
 eded the 
 ave been 
 troversy, 
 lacy has 
 
 I for the 
 England 
 7 a few 
 such a 
 suzer- 
 latums, 
 to con- 
 
 3ritaiu 
 h seas 
 
 anywhere in South Africa. No more absurd proposition ever was 
 rna'le to any power, large or small, that it should not disembark 
 troops if it chose at its own ports. A porcupine that conies at you 
 with its quills out in that fashion invites the overwhelming anni- 
 hilation it will receive in due season. 
 
 " We are told, of course, that there ought to be some place in 
 the world for these Dutch peasants, who settled first in the Cape 
 and were pushed farther and farther back by English colonists 
 until they at last began the * great trek ' up to the Orange Valley 
 and the Transvaal. That is very likely true. No one wishes to 
 deprive them of the place in the world to which their talents and 
 capacities entitle them. They are a more or less good type of 
 farmer of peasant antecedents. They are, however, simply unable 
 or indisposed to keep up with the pace which has been set in South 
 Africa. The English colonists have swept up around and into 
 these Boer States. Instead of trying to mend their ways and 
 admit the English and the Americans — for there are more than a 
 few of our own country-people in the Transvaal — to an equality of 
 rights and privileges, the Boers have stood out and resisted every 
 movement in that direction. 
 
 GREAT SUMS OP MONEY INVESTED. 
 
 " Thousands of Outlanders, who have invested enormous sums 
 of money there and made the country what it is, lfl,rgely contribu- 
 ing to the Boer Treasuries in taxes, have been treated with the 
 most scant consideration, if not with insult, throughout a long 
 period of years. The Dutchmen have maintained a virtual olig- 
 archy, and whenever they are invited to reform their policy they 
 resent the request as an unwarranted interference with their liberties, 
 and have now declared a war on Great Britain because of her 
 insistence that they should do so. 
 
 "This is not a v/ar of conquest which England is waging 
 against a weak and oppressed people, so far as we can see. It 
 must be remembered that South Africa is British to the core, and 
 is inhabited almost altogether by people of Anglo-Saxon blood. 
 Natal, which sticks its prong into the Boer country, and Rhodesia, 
 
 'i i 
 
 [>• 
 
 " ■» n -I Tirn~; 
 
 <a=i^j**i;^ 
 
If 
 
 14 
 
 1 
 
 222 
 
 CAUSES FOR WAR MANY YEARS OLD. 
 
 which rwns up behind it, are both British, not to speak of the 
 millions of dollars' worth of good foreign money and British bone 
 and sinew to look after it, that are actually inside the Transvaal. 
 In Africa it is the story of the colonization of the North American 
 continent over again. 
 
 " Anglo-Saxon ascendency was a result in the natural course 
 of things. It was a movement that nobody could resist. There is 
 no man in whom Anglo-Saxon blood flows who could be expected 
 to live happily under such a political dispensation as President 
 Kruger's. It is unfortunate, of course, that some result agreeable 
 to all the interests involved could not have been arrived at by arbi- 
 tration. But when neither or only one party desires to arbitrate 
 that system fails. England being now in the war, will give an 
 account of herself that will bring hostilities to an early close. The 
 result will be what the Boers might have better conceded long ago, 
 and South Africa will be more than ever British, with an * open 
 door ' to the traders of all countries." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 The Struggle for Equal Rights in the Transvaal. 
 
 [The following chapter, containing a masterly statement of the controversy between 
 the English and the Boers in South Africa, is from the gifted pen of Rev. Dr. Robert Wilson, 
 the well-known and eloquent divine of St. John, New Brunswick. In thus becoming one of 
 the contributors to this volume, Dr. Wilson handles the whole subject of the war in a very 
 clear and convincing manner, and what is here presented from his trenchant pen will be 
 read with eager interest.] 
 
 WHEN a country has become, or is likely to become, the 
 theatre of important changes, a very natural desire is 
 awakened in the public mind to obtain reliable information 
 concerning its history, position, resources and institutions, and the 
 manners, customs and characteristics of its people. Of this there 
 have been some striking illustrations, for the country has been 
 flooded with books and magazine articles on Cuba, Porto Rico and 
 the Philippine Islands. 
 
 South Africa is at present " the observed of all observers," on 
 account of the war between the British and the Boers, and many 
 are inquiring into the causes of the quarrel. To furnish the required 
 information is the purpose of the following pages, but to do this 
 intelligently it is necessary to know something of the early history 
 of the country. 
 
 During the wars of Napoleon the First the Government of 
 Holland, finding itself unable to prevent its falling into the hands 
 of the French, transferred all its rights, title and interest in and 
 to its South African possessions to Great Britain, and the cession 
 was confirmed bj^ the Treaty of Vienna. Although the flag of 
 Holland floated over these regions for about a century and a half, 
 not more than ten thousand Europeans, chiefly Dutch, had been 
 induced to settle there. Under the new order of things a brighter 
 era was inaugurated, representative institutions were introduced, 
 the people were accorded larger liberties than had been previously 
 enjoyed, and in process of time Cape Colony became self-governing. 
 
 223 
 
 '■w f^l 
 
 i ,. It 
 
 ':*^' 
 
 ml Tf->«iiiii»i ^HMJtf "iLjT^Vr.i' 
 
Il 
 
 y-j 1.^- 
 
 Iff? 
 
 Jl 
 
 III 
 
 224 
 
 •IHE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS 
 
 The British Government was specially considerate to the 
 Dutch, permitted the use of their language in the legislature, in 
 the courts and in the public schools, and between Dutch and 
 British no distinctions were allowed. And as new colonies were 
 established the same liberal course was pursued, and the same 
 rights and privileges granted alike to all. The first real difficulty 
 between the races grew out of the abolition of slavery. 
 
 A number of Boers, unwilling to give up their slaves and 
 dissatisfied with the compensation offered, retired from Cape 
 Colony, taking with them their various belongings, and settled 
 in an unoccupied region in what is now known as the province of 
 Natal. Like the Mormons who settled at Salt Lake, they sought 
 to place themselves beyond the reach of modern civilization, and 
 carry out their obsolete ideas without let or hindrance. 
 
 THE BOERS MOVE AGAIN. 
 
 But their cruelty to the natives was such that, in the interests 
 of humanity, the British authorities had to interfere. A province 
 was organized, law courts were established, and the necessary 
 measures were adopted for the protection of life and property. 
 This was just what the Boers did not desire, and again they 
 decided to seek fresh pastures and new fields in which to work 
 out their peculiar social and political views. The region chosen 
 lay beyond the Vaal and Orange rivers, and the exodus is usually 
 referred to as the great trek. '^ 
 
 Whether the territory in question did or did not belong to 
 Great Britain by the terms of the treaty already spoken of, or to 
 the native races, is a question not necessary to be discussed here ; 
 but, as the Boers did not obtain it by purchase, or by cession from 
 one tribe for assistance rendered against another, they were simply 
 adventurers and squatters, without the shadow of a claim to the 
 lands of v/hich they had thus possessed themselves. 
 
 They organized a government under the name and style of the 
 South African Republic, which in 1852 was formally recognized by 
 Great Britain in what is known as the Land River Convention, 
 subject, however, to certain limitations and restrictions. For a 
 
 ,V:i,*^= 
 
to the 
 lire, in 
 h and 
 were 
 same 
 iculty 
 
 terests 
 ovince 
 
 I 
 
 'essary 
 3perty. 
 I they 
 > work 
 :hosen 
 sually 
 
 •ng to 
 , or to 
 here; 
 I from 
 imply 
 o the 
 
 )f the 
 2d by 
 ition, 
 •"or a 
 
 TlIK S'lRUdCiU-: FOR K(^UAL RIGHTS. 
 
 L"2r> 
 
 quarter of century it had a precarious existence, for the people 
 were unwilling to bear the burdens inseparable from statehood. 
 The regular laws and ordinances were disregarded, taxes were 
 uncollected, the treasury was exhausted, the public credit was 
 gone, and their cruelty to the natives had arrayed against them the 
 Kaffirs and Zulus. Humanly speaking, their extermination seemed 
 to be inevitable. 
 
 In their day of danger they sought and secured British pro- 
 tection, and by their own act and deed became the subjects of the 
 British Queen. They were thus saved from destruction, the en- 
 raged native forces were driven back, peace was established, a few 
 British troops were stationed in the country for police purposes, 
 and the outlook was quite encouraging. 
 
 BRITISH BADLY DEFEATED. 
 
 But Paul Kruger and a few others who had opposed the an- 
 nexation began immediately to agitate for repeal. In this he suc- 
 ceeded all too well. A provisional government was formed, and in 
 December, 1880, the independence of the South African Republic 
 was again proclaimed. The Boers rose en masse, the British troops, 
 few and far between, were utterly unprepared to meet the emer- 
 gency, and were compelled to succumb to overwhelming numbers. 
 Several fierce engagements took place in which they were badly 
 beaten. 
 
 The most disastrous of these was one led by Sir George Colley 
 at Majuba Hill, ninety-seven officers and men being killed, and 
 two hundred wounded or taken prisoners. That humiliating defeat 
 has rankled in the hearts of Britons during all the intervening 
 years, and the desire of many a soldier has been the opportunity to 
 retrieve the loss and to wipe out the disgrace. Certain events can 
 never be recalled without arousing in the patriotic heart the deter- 
 mination to die if need be to vindicate the national honor, and 
 among these may be fairly classed the destruction of the Maine 
 and the battle of Majuba Hill. 
 
 Contrary to the advice of the British leaders in. South Africa, 
 who feared the effect upon the Boer and native mind of a peace 
 .15 
 
 f 
 
 11 
 
 
 1^1 
 
 .!„,«)! 
 
 <l 
 
 k. 
 
 ■ 'li. 
 
 
22»j 
 
 THE STRUGGLE F'OR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 concluded in the face of defeat, Mr. Gladstone, who was then the 
 British premier, entered into negotiation with the exultant victors, 
 the issue of which was the recognition of the South African Re- 
 public as at least a semi-independent power. 
 
 Experience has shown that however good were his intentions 
 Mr. Gladstone made a great mistake, for out of this have grown 
 all the troubles of the present. This is not the view taken merely 
 by his political opponents, but also by many who were his warmest 
 supporters. Lord Roseberry, who succeeded Mr. Gladstone in the 
 leadership of the Liberal Party, thus expresses himself: 
 
 POWER OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone had an overpowering conviction of the might 
 and power of England. He thought that Great Britain could 
 afford to do things, owing to that overpowering might and dominion, 
 which other nations could not afford to do without a risk of misun- 
 derstanding. And for that reason he endeavored, after what was 
 undoubtedly a reverse, to treat with the Boers as if no such reverse 
 had taken place. 
 
 " I cannot help looking back to it now and remembering how 
 completely the fears I felt at that time have been realized in the 
 result. So far from the Boers taking the magnanimity as it was 
 intended, they regarded it as a proof of weakness on which they 
 could encroach. And it was with a deliberate and constant encroach- 
 ment on the terms of the settlement that the Boers rewarded the 
 sublime magnanimity of Mr. Gladstone." 
 
 But even Mr. Gladstone did not grant the Boers the full status 
 of a nation, for the convention between Great Britain and the 
 Transvaal in 1881, states in the preamble that "complete self^ 
 government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs, 
 and successors, will be accorded to the inhabitants of the Transvaal 
 territory." 
 
 This treaty was revised in 1884, and in the revised document 
 there is no mention of the phrase, " the suzerainty of Tier Majesty," 
 but that " suzerainty " was not relinquished is clearly stated in 
 Article IV of the Treaty in the words : " The South African Re- 
 
 M0^ 
 
m the 
 [ictors, 
 in Re- 
 
 itions 
 
 ;rowii 
 
 lerely 
 
 frmest 
 
 in the 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 22; 
 
 public will conclude no treaty or engagement with any state or 
 nation, other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe 
 to the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has 
 been approved by Her Majesty the Queen." 
 
 By Article II of the said treaty the Boers were strictly con- 
 fined to their own territory, the precise words being : " The govern- 
 ment of the South African Republic will strictly adhere to the 
 boundaries defined in the first article of this convention, and will 
 do its utmost to prevent any of its inhabitants from making any 
 encroachments upon lands beyond the said boundaries. The gov- 
 ernment of the South African Republic will appoint commissioners, 
 whose duty will be strictly to guard against irregularities and all 
 trespassing beyond the boundaries. And Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment will, if necessary, appoint commissioners in the. native terri- 
 tories outside the eastern and western borders of the South African 
 Republic to maintain order and prevent encroachments." 
 
 EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL. 
 
 But other things were agreed upon between the goveniments 
 concerned, which may be classed under the general head of equal 
 rights ta all the white inhabitants of the country, irrespective of 
 race or creed, together with the protection of, and justice to, the 
 native tribes. Hon. David Mills, the Canadian Minister of Justice, 
 in a speech delivered in the Senate during the last session, thus 
 summarizes the manner in which the terms of the treaty have been 
 disregarded by the Boers : " As long," says Mr. Mills, " as the 
 Transvaal Government felt that they were not secure against the 
 native population they did not wish to quarrel with the British, but 
 when they felt that all danger from the natives was a thing of the 
 past they began to impose disabilities upon the Outlanders. 
 
 " They disregarded the state boundaries, drove back the natives 
 on the west, made war on those tribes, and undertook to extend 
 their authority beyond the boundaries stipulated for in the conven- 
 tion. Taxation became oppressive, for every man, woman, and 
 child of the Outlander population had to pay an average tax of 
 some eighty dollars. 
 
 i i 
 
 •!i,al 
 
 MJ 
 
 ^d^khi'i-t 
 
228 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 "Their government has been characterized by personal out- 
 rages, by pecuniary wrongs, by political disabilities, and by 
 insecurity for life, reputation, and property. While the Outlanders 
 constitute the majority of the white population and pay nineteen- 
 tM^entieths of the taxes, not one dollar of that money goes towards 
 the education of their own children in their own language." 
 
 The disabilities to which the Outlanders have been subjected 
 are thus spoken of by a New York journal : 
 
 "The constitution and laws of the Transvaal forbid any 
 Catholic to share in the law-making for the country. England 
 demands that this discrimination against Catholics cease. 
 
 " The Transvaal laws forbid any Jew to share the law making 
 power. England demands that this discrimination against the 
 Jews cease. 
 
 " There are two hundred and sixty thousand whites in the so- 
 called Roer Republic, but only sixty thousand are Boers. The 
 Boers declare that they are " merely asking the right to live." 
 What they really ask is the right of six men to tyrannize over 
 twenty, of sixty thousand to rule two hundred thousand, and rule 
 them unjustly. The Boer attitude is not a demand for freedom ; it 
 is strictly an attitude of denying freedom to others. 
 
 AN AUTOCRAT FOR PRESIDENT. 
 
 " Kruger has been an absolute ruler there for seventeen years. 
 All power is in his hands, and that of a council of seven. They 
 can and do ignore the laws and orders of even the Upper House of 
 Representatives. The land of the Boers is no Republic. It is a 
 mediaeval Dutch settlement, as great an anachronism as any in 
 existence. This is the question at is- le in the Transvaal." 
 
 Equally strong were the words of the Rev. Dr. Edgar, in a 
 sermon recently delivered by him in Saint Andrew's Church, 
 Montreal : " The history of the Boer in South Africa is to be written 
 in blood and tears. He has done nothing for the native races but 
 heap upon them insult, cruelty and wrong. 
 
 " Forty years ago. Dr. Livingstone, who had spent many years 
 among the Boers and native races, condemned in the very strongest 
 
 %^i^*^' 
 
 'Jaa 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 229 
 
 lal out- 
 
 md by 
 
 tlanders 
 
 ineteen- 
 
 Itowards 
 
 ibjected 
 
 >id any 
 England 
 
 making 
 nst the 
 
 the so. 
 The 
 o live." 
 ize over 
 nd rule 
 iom; it 
 
 ^ years. 
 They 
 3use of 
 It is a 
 any in 
 
 ", in a 
 lurch, 
 ritteu 
 s but 
 
 years 
 agest 
 
 terms the treatment of the natives by their Dutch oppressors. Here 
 are some of the charges he makes against them : * Though they 
 were the immigrants, who had seized the country, they treated the 
 natives as though they were the aggressors. They compelled them 
 to work for them without reward, in consideration of allowing theui 
 to live in their own country. To supply the lack of field and 
 domestic labor they shot down men and women in cold blood and 
 stole their children to make slaves of them. While claiming to be 
 Christians they treated the colored race as black propert}- , as crea- 
 tures of less real value commercially than their own. They justified 
 this outrageous injustice, claiming, that being the chosen people of 
 God, the heathen were given to them for an inheritance and that 
 they were the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the 
 Jews of old.' 
 
 WORDS OF A TRUSTWORTHY HISTORIAN. 
 
 " These are the .words of one who knew whereof he spoke, and 
 he is a trustworty historian. Forced labor, kidnapping children, 
 massacre of inoffensive men and women, absolute denial of the 
 rights of human beings — these are the crimes which an eye-witness 
 lays at the door of the ancestors of the Boers of the Transvaal. 
 The experience of British subjects from the descendants of Livings 
 stone's contemporaries within the last twenty years has not been a 
 whit lesss oppressive, the changed circumstances being considered. 
 Cruelty to the native races and injustice to the whites, go naturallj; 
 hand in hand. If the Boers could do it, neither would have au)/ 
 rights, and the future of South Africa would be in the hands of as 
 cruel, selfish and superstitious set of despots as modern historj/ 
 reveals. Verily the children are filling the measure of their father's 
 iniquities." 
 
 Such a condition of things could not possibly be continued in 
 this enlightened age, and the problem would have been solved with- 
 out the bullet if the ballot had been allowed. But that was a 
 weapon the Boer refused the use of to the Outlander, for while 
 every Dutch lad of sixteen years of age was a voter, all others had 
 to wait for years before they could obtain the rights of citizenship. 
 
 r^iiif 
 
 
 'kkJ-ji^i:^' r 
 
i 
 
 230 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 Owing to the gold discoveries a new order of things had been 
 brought about with which the Boers were unable to deal. Men of 
 broader minds and more liberal principles wonld have pursued a 
 different course, but they elected to act otherwise. 
 
 They hated the newcomers, were alarmed at their growing 
 influence, and undertook the hopeless task of shutting out the 
 rising tide of civilization and progress. In the words of the 
 London Spectator^ " their administration of the Transvaal was 
 arbitrary, narrow-minded, corrupt, and towards the great foreign 
 population conspicuously unfair." 
 
 APPEALS WERE DISREGARDED. 
 
 The Outlanders sought redress as redress is usually sought, 
 but their appeals were not only unheeded, but the burdens of which 
 they complained grev.^ heavier and heavier as the j/^ears went by. 
 Exasperated at the manner in which they were treated, they entered 
 into negotiation with their sympathyzers in the adjoining provinces, 
 and out of this came the unsuccessful Jameson Raid. 
 
 All that need be said here is that it was not the cause of the 
 Outlanders' troubles, but only an incident of it; but whatever it was 
 the British Government repudiated all connection with it. In a 
 length}; despatch from Mr. Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, under date of February 4, 1896, and addressed to the 
 British High Commissioner for South Africa, after going over the 
 several causes of discontent and unrest in the Transvaal, he thus 
 sums up the situation : 
 
 " The political situation is an anomalous one. The newcomers 
 are men who were accustomed to the fullest exercise of political 
 rights. In other communities where immigration has played an 
 importar t part in building up the population, it has been the policy 
 of the legislature to make liberal provision for admitting all new- 
 comers who desire naturalization, after a comparatively brief period 
 of probation, to the rights and duties of citizenship — a policy which 
 lias been fully justified by the event, for experience shows that the 
 naturalized alien soon vies with, if he does not outstrip, the natural- 
 born citizen in the fervor of his patriotism. 
 
 ^J>^- 
 
been 
 
 Ten of 
 
 sued a 
 
 jowing 
 
 (lit the 
 
 :>f the 
 
 il was 
 
 Foreign 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 ■^x.^^r 
 
 231 
 
 " In the South African Republic diflferent counsels have pre- 
 vailed ; for whereas in 1882 an Outlander could obtain full rights 
 of citizenship after a residence of five years, he can never hope to 
 obtain these rights in full, and their partial enjoyment is only con- 
 ceded after a term of probation so prolonged as to amount, for most 
 men, to a practical denial of the claim. If he omits to obtain any 
 kind of naturalization for himself, his children, though born on the 
 soil, remain aliens like himself 
 
 " The South African Republic, as regards its external rela 
 tions, is subject to the control of this country, in accordance with 
 the provisions of Article IV of the Convention of 1884, and Her 
 Majesty's Government intend to maintain them in their integrity. 
 As regards the internal affairs of the Republic, I may observe that, 
 independently of any rights of intervention in particular matters 
 which may arise out of the articles of the convention. Great Britain 
 is justified, in the interests of South Africa as a whole, as well as 
 of the peace and stability of the South African Republic, in ten- 
 dering its friendly counsels as regards the newcomers, who are 
 mainly British subjects." 
 
 TRIED TO STOP THE RAID. 
 
 In reference to the Raid, Mr. Chamberlain says : "As soon as 
 the Raid became known, every possible effort was made by the 
 British authorities to stay Dr. Jameson's advance ; a fast messenger 
 was sent to warn him and his officers of the position in which they 
 had placed themselves, and to direct their immediate return, and 
 proclamations were issued in which Her Majesty enjoined her sub- 
 jects in the South African Republic to abstain from aiding or coun- 
 tenancing Dr. Jameson or his force." 
 
 How long the resources of diplomacy would have been em- 
 ployed in the effort to secure the redress of the grievances com- 
 plained of it is impossible to say, for these were brought to a sudden 
 and unexpected termination by President Kruger's ultimatum, 
 which made demands that no self-respecting government could even 
 discuss. 
 
 These demands were that the (questions in dispute . V"ld be 
 
 ^t 
 
 \ ' . ! 
 
 i i 
 
232 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 r 
 
 submitted to arbitration; that no more British troops be sent to 
 South Africa ; that those on the way thither should not be allowed 
 to land ; that during the period of negotiation there should be no 
 strengthening of the frontier, and that compliance with these 
 demands be consented to within forty-eight hours. In the face of 
 such arrogant and unprecedented demands, however averse she was 
 to war, Great Britain had to meet the issue. 
 
 That war was not sought by Britain cannot be doubted by any 
 one who intelligently considers the whole situation. War deranges 
 business, interferes with trade, increases the burdens of the people, 
 and carries »uisery and woe into thousands of homes. Lord Salis- 
 bury is a man of peace, and by his firm but genial style of diplomacy 
 has more than once averted war where a less judicious but more 
 bellicose minister would have failed. 
 
 GREAT PATIENCE AND FORBEARANCE. 
 
 Even Mr. Chamberlain, who has been called the fighting ma.n 
 of the Cabinet, has shown wonderful patience and forbearance 
 during the years in which he had to deal with the Boers. And the 
 world has no need to be told that Queen Victoria has never con- 
 sented to war until peace had been rendered impossible, and this 
 has been strikingly shown in the present casa 
 
 In an address delivered. Lord Landsdowne, the Secretary for 
 War, speaking in the name and on behalf of the government, thus 
 presented the case : 
 
 " We are engaged in a serious enterprise ; we are face to face 
 with the terrible realities of war — realities which have been brought 
 home to us by important events. The government which would 
 face them without the support of the people of this country would 
 be indeed an object for pity^ We believe that we have that support; 
 we have spared no pains to carry the country with us and to con- 
 vince it at each step of the necessity of what we were doing. 
 
 " There have been no secrets and no reticences ; we have, indeed, 
 been reproached with not being reticent enough. I think the answer 
 to that is — that unless we had taken the public into our confidence, 
 our people would have failed amid the tangle of these diplomatic 
 
 Vij4S^^' 
 
i ,5' 
 
 y 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 ?33 
 
 ,- .,1 i«ues that are at stake. They have 
 controversies to detect the '^^^'l;^^"^^' „„ i^^ger ask what we are 
 ound out what those issues ar^^ They ^S ^^^ ^^^^.^^^^ ^„ ^^,, 
 
 fighting about. They know of co„e ^^^ ^^^^ ^ too 
 
 first place, because we have "f^" ^„„„,s Government showed its 
 tSl we w^re attacked ^e-use the Que-^J^ .^ ^^^^^ ^„, 
 
 ^termination to protect *^ |X/4a\wd be moulded upon 
 
 «If we keep these b-ad issues stead^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^.^ „j 
 disputes about the existence of A^ =" ^j,, J„rfi„g of documents 
 tie word, all the microscopic =<=»«* ^„,ds, but about 
 
 te^omes academical. We are fi|^«»f^^"°^^. u is the substance 
 S-about the S"bsmce ".nd not the^t^^^^^ ^^ ^^,,^ the Sou h 
 wWch we mean to retain^ It »^ '^^^^^^Uion to get rid, not on y 
 Ifrican Republic has «?-°^';^' %^aucted these negotiations, but 
 tythe manner in which t h-"^^^^^^ 
 by the extravagant military pr v 
 during the last few years ^ ^^^ ^^„,i„g i„ patience or 
 
 i„ considera^on I am ^^^.^^ ^^^ l^Sng and 
 
 Sf tol'erILd too paaently l^^^J:ll which, during 
 ^Itented colonies the hostile Pf^P^'^^™ . ;tself to the teeth with 
 r itt four or five years, l^^s bee" arming ^^^ ^^,,i,„g 
 
 field in South Africa the largest 10 
 
 of this island." ^^ i,3„es that the people rf the 
 
 \»» 
 
 ' i .'*i 
 
 
 i ^il 
 
I 
 
 1 
 
 234 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 kindly feeling may be attributed in part to affinities of language, 
 race, and political institutions, and in part to Britain's firm and 
 friendly attitude during the late war with Spain, but the great 
 reason is that her cause is felt to be a just one, and that she stands 
 for the defence of the oppressed, for the enfranchisement of the 
 down-trodden, and for the advancement of liberty, progress, and 
 civilization. 
 
 The following from The New York Independent very forcibly 
 voices this feeling : " The present crisis cannot be dissociated from 
 the whole history of Boer rule in South Africa. It commenced 
 with a brutal treatment of the natives unequalled in the relations 
 of civilized and uncivilized peoples. As fast as they found the 
 freedom for such treatment abridged, they withdrew from one place 
 to another until they established themselves in the Transvaal. 
 Still the same spirit dominated them, and they were in perpetual 
 strife. 
 
 " When they found that British rule was closing in around 
 them they commenced a series of negotiations with other European 
 powers, hoping thus to secure a counteri-nfluence in their behalf. 
 Then came intrigues among their kinsmen in the Free State and 
 Cape Colony, and the assertion that Boer funds supplied the 
 treasury of the Africander party is generally credited. 
 
 ABSOLUTE DENIAL OF JUSTICE. 
 
 " During all this time not once has the Transvaal Government 
 manifested any desire to do what the rest of the world has consid- 
 ered to be justice. It has made promise after promise, then with- 
 drawn, then advanced counter-propositions until it seemed impossible 
 to know just what the situation was. 
 
 " Sir Alfred Milner has shown a patience, as well as firmness, 
 deserving of all praise. He has been well supported, too, by Mr. 
 Chamberlain, who has kept in close line with Lord Salisbury. All 
 have realized that such a war as would follow would be terrible, 
 both in loss of life and in general disaster. They realize also that 
 there are things worse than war, and that to permit the development 
 of so reactionary a power as the Transvaal has shown itself to be, 
 
 %^t^ 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 235 
 
 (m and 
 great 
 [stands 
 'of the 
 Fs. and 
 
 •rcibly 
 from 
 ienced 
 Nations 
 id the 
 place 
 svaal. 
 [petual 
 
 round 
 opean 
 Jehalf. 
 
 te and 
 i the 
 
 ment 
 nsid- 
 ivith- 
 sible 
 
 ess, 
 
 Mr. 
 
 All 
 
 ble, 
 
 hat 
 
 ent 
 
 be, ' 
 
 means permanent injury to the whole of South Africa. Therefore, 
 that country must not be a continuous festering spot to the peace 
 of the entire continent." 
 
 The reasons which induced President Kruger to precipitate this 
 conflict are at least suggested in the foregoing quotation. He must 
 have known, he did know, that however brave and determined his 
 people were, and however well prepared for war they might be, and 
 that whatever successes they might win in the earlier stages of the 
 contest, defeat would be inevitable. It seems incredible that he 
 should have entered upon so unequal a struggle without assurances 
 of outside support, for it would not only mean his own personal 
 overthrow, but also the loss of whatever measure of independence 
 his people had enjoyed, for war annuls all treaties and abrogates all 
 conventions. 
 
 COUNTING ON SYMPATHY OF THE BOERS. 
 
 As there has always been a discontented class among the Dutch 
 in South Africa, he probably counted upon their practical sympathy 
 and co-operation in the event of trouble. That sympathy they had 
 rather effusively exhibited on various occasions, and under circum- 
 stances which left no room to doubt as to what they would do if the 
 opportunity were afforded. He may have expected something from 
 the evident unwillingness of the British people to have recourse to 
 extreme measures. j 
 
 But if so, he has been disappointed, for seldom, if ever, has the 
 nation given a government such united and hearty support as is 
 now being given to the government. And that support is not 
 confined to the Motherland, for from Australia, from New Zealand, 
 from India, and from the Dominion of Canada, thousands of brave 
 and brawny men have voluntarily enrolled themselves under the 
 common flag, and have thus proclaimed the unity and solidarity of 
 the Empire. 
 
 But his great hope undoubtedly was in the intervention of 
 some of the European powers, and in view of the somewhat strained 
 relations between them and Great Britain the hope was not an 
 unreasonable one. Russia's advance toward the Indian frontier has 
 
 
 mmmtiSiiUSm 
 
 fiiifiihJut.J.'"*-* 
 
M 
 
 \ 
 
 » 
 
 
 236 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 been continuous and steady, and especially since the Crimean War, 
 when she was made to understand she could not possess herself of 
 Constantinople. That advance has been v. dtched with the keenest 
 interest in Great Britain, and it is the all but universal opinion 
 that a collision between these two powers must take place at no 
 distant day. 
 
 Anything, therefore, that would engage her and require her 
 forces elsewhere would afford Russia an opportunity to seize 
 Persia, and perhaps establish herself in Afghanistan. But famine 
 and lack of funds have rendered this an inopportune time, and help 
 is not likely to come from that quarter. 
 
 NURSING HER WRATH. 
 
 France, checkmated in Egypt, humiliated at Fashoda, and 
 denounced by the pulpit and press of Britain for the way in which 
 Dreyfus was dealt with, would gladly have assailed her neighbor 
 across the channel if she could have secured an ally ; but failing 
 in this, and concluding that prudence in such a case was the better 
 part of valor, is contenting herself with merely " nursing her wrath 
 to keep it warm." 
 
 The press of Holland may be ultra-Boer in feeling, and the 
 rabble may shout, " Down with England!" but the government of 
 that country realizes that Holland exists as an independent power 
 because Britain has bound herself by treaty to see that that inde- 
 pendence is maintained. Therefore the Dutch in Europe can 
 furnish no substantial aid. The attitude of the German Emperor 
 at the time of the Jameson Raid may have led Mr. Kruger to look 
 for something practical from the Fatherland, but the hope has not 
 been realized ; the expectation has been but a dream, for Emperor 
 William has suddenly developed a strong affection for his r gust 
 grandmother and her people, and has warned his subjects to main- 
 tain the strictest neutrality. 
 
 Even republican America, as shown in the preceding pages, 
 withholds her sympathy, believing him to be the champion of a 
 cause that is bad in itself, and must end in failure. His only ally, 
 therefore, is the Orange Free State. 
 
m 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR F.QUM. RIGHTS. 
 
 231 
 
 - THE. O'l"." n • • 1 
 
 and the Boer wiB liave to fight •* «»» '^ ^ji^i.^u Banquet on 
 
 tadicated in Lord Salisbury's 21^<J\,^ * ords uttered with the 
 November 9th. In --f-l^^'tjZh suggest much „.ore than 
 
 i^«*.c«; of conscious stretigin, auvi 
 £ say-he thus defines the situat.on : ^ ^.^, ^^^^ 
 
 *'^'f have seen it suggested and. t^een^^ ^^^.^ ^^^^__^^^^ ^,,^ 
 
 tion, that the other powers ««*„ „, concerned i« it as to 
 in sUe way or other dictate to th«se J ^^^^^^ ^^.^^^ .^ ,^ ,„ ^^^t 
 what the upshot should be. Don t let . y ^^ ^^„y ,t 
 
 ;':«* the'confiict will ^^-^^^^^^^^Jjly^y else will have 
 
 through ourselves, and the interler 
 
 no effect upon it. scared 
 
 . I„ *e first Pl-. ^-r h:c\ret ::: clvU there is . 
 ferenee, and, iu the -^f/^^^' t^ut in the world. W.*m 
 no such idea iu the nnnd of any go ^^^ ^^^^_ „„oi,,„g 
 
 n,y recollection, there have ^^" f^" i^,,^ ^ut, except as provided 
 "n their close great terntorial ^^^^^ ^^^^^..^ ;„ none of these 
 for by treaties, and excep ^"^^^^e between the combatants " 
 lars has a third party ventured to interte ^^^.^^^^ ^^^^j 
 
 As to what was to »uie =Aer^^the , ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^,^ 
 only say: " What we desire sequaUig „ ^^,^ 
 
 and security for °«J^"°Xtout J left for events to determme^ 
 
 means this aim is to be ^o^^fJ>2 „\aid his lordship, " we sha 1 
 "Whenever we are v.ctonons sa.a ^^^ j^^ 
 
 consult the vast interests — ed^^^^^^^^^ ,,, „„iforn, tractions 
 npon us to perform; and, t^^ "g ^°^ ,„a equal justice to 
 
 „F colonial government and of * m ^^^^^^^^ ^^ 
 
 all races of men which 1 1^*^ bee. .^^^^^ ^^ ^,,,3 „fl,ct 
 
 I do not doubt we shall so arrange t .^ ^^^^^^ ^„^ g, 
 
 will confer good government on he a ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 the security, sorely "-f^^^'^f ^"^'^h future exertion for be 
 
 ^n 
 
 tW' 
 
 
 :| M 
 
 _^^jfc^,^^- 
 
|!l 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Gallant Canadian Troops Off for the War. 
 
 ©N October 25, 1899, the Governor-General of Canada received 
 at Ottawa this cablegram from the Sovereign of England ; 
 " Her Majesty the Queen desires to thank the people of her 
 Dominion of Canada for their striking manifestation of loyalty 
 and patriotism in their voluntary offer to send troops to co-operate 
 with Her Majesty's imperial forces in maintaining her position and 
 the rights of British subjects in South Africa. She wishes the 
 troops Godspeed and a safe return." 
 
 This city's contingent for the Transvaal left the same evening 
 for Quebec. Ten thousand people assembled at the armory to bid 
 them farewell, and escorted them to the station. Dispatches from 
 Montreal and Toronto stated that the departure of the local con- 
 tingents for Quebec evoked great enthusiasm. Thus Canada 
 promptly took up the cause of the mother country. Throughout 
 the Dominion there were rousing demonstrations of loyalty, and 
 the call for tropps to join the imperial army in South Africa met 
 with a quick and hearty response. 
 
 An unparalleled scene of enthusiasm attended the departure 
 of the Canadian contingent from London for the seat of war. In 
 the march from Victoria Park to the Grand Trunk station, the 
 departing troops had the appearance of a thin red line, piercing a 
 black mass of people, who surged from curb to curb, cheering and 
 waving hats and handkerchiefs. It was a roaring, cheering, tumult- 
 uous crowd, with here and there touches of sadness in the faces oi 
 those who were bidding good-bye to near and dear ones. There 
 were even some bonnets among the helmets ; mothers and sisters, 
 who walked in the ranks, so as to be with their boys and their 
 brothers every precious moment of the time. Over all shone a 
 brilliant sun, as if shedding a benediction on the departing heroes. 
 
 At the barracks before the contingent took up the line of march 
 238 . 
 
 for the s 
 
 handing 
 
 of the ci 
 
 with thi 
 
 and you 
 
 applause 
 
 Ma 
 
 honor 
 
 " The n 
 
 am con\ 
 
 endeavo 
 
 Su 
 at Woh 
 "\ 
 will do 
 the stu 
 bands 
 humilil 
 old sch 
 made 
 Trust 
 scrupu 
 of glo 
 God. 
 you. 
 unnec 
 appro 
 servai 
 campi 
 
 «0 I 
 
 thep 
 in de 
 and 
 
 Vv*.*.^^' 
 
 <v v^ii^Baami 
 
GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 239 
 
 for the station a sword was presented to Major Duncan Stuart. In 
 handing the gift to the Major, Alderman Graham said: " On behalf 
 of the citizens of London, I take great pleasure in presenting you 
 with this sword. May you wear it to the glory of your country 
 and your Queen in the cause you are going to defend." Loiil 
 applause followed. 
 
 Major Stuart made a graceful reply. He was grateful for the 
 honor done him. He would do the best he could to deserve it. 
 *' The men of B Company will do their part," he said. " Of tluit I 
 am convinced. It only remains with me to do mine, which I will 
 endeavor to do." The Major was heartily applauded. 
 
 PRIDE AND HOPE OF THEIR COUNTRY. 
 
 Subsequently B Company was again drawn up on the square 
 at Wolseley Barracks and Canon Dann addressed them as follows : 
 
 " We are all proud of you. We have every hope that you 
 will do credit to your country. When an enemy thinks to quell 
 the stubborn hearts of oak, and to chain with chains and bind with 
 bands the sons of Britain, he must be taught by force to learn 
 humility — like those men of Succoth, whom Gideon in the days of 
 old schooled with briars and the thorns of the wilderness. What 
 made your forefathers great soldiers will make you the same. 
 Trust in God, and faithfulness to duty. Do your duty earnestly, 
 scrupulously, and to the uttermost. The path of duty is the path 
 of glory. Never be untrue to yourselves, to your Queen or to your 
 God. If you have to fight, fight, knowing that God's eye is upon 
 you. Be magnanimous in all your actions. Never strike an 
 unnecessary blow. So that when all is over you will have the 
 approving voice of your Master, ' Well done, good and faithful 
 servants!' We wish you God-speed, a happy voyage, a brilliant 
 campaign, and a safe return." 
 
 With touching solemnity. Canon Dann then offered this prayer: 
 " O Eternal God, be pleased to receive in Thy Almighty protection 
 the persons of these Thy servants, about to proceed to South Africa 
 in defense of our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, 
 and of her dominions. Preserve them from the perils of travel, 
 
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 A 
 
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 240 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOl'S. 
 
 whether by laud or sea. Give to them true courage and endurance. 
 Protect them from the violence of the enemy. And be Thou ever 
 their defense and ready helper, that they may return again in safety 
 to enjoy the blessings of Thy goodness, with a thankful remem- 
 brance of Thy mercies to ever praise and glorify Thy Holy Name, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 Mayor Wilson addressed the company, expressing the pride 
 the city felt in her brave sons and wishing them, not only a brilliant 
 career in South Africa, but a safe return to their home and friends. 
 
 When the volunteers arrived at the station the crowd massed 
 on the platform was tremendous. Way was made for the Soutli 
 African contingent, who marched into position alongside their 
 special train. Then the crowd closed in on the ranks, and people 
 in the rear crushed forward for a last word with their friends. 
 Several women fainted, but no serious accident occurred. Progress 
 along the platform was impossible for several minutes. Sir Wilfrid 
 Laurier, premier of Canada, appeared on the platform of one of the 
 special cars, and cheer after cheer rent the air. 
 
 ADDRESS FROM THE PREMIER OF CANADA. 
 
 " Members of the South African contingent," he said, " I have 
 only one word to say, and it is not even necessary to say that. 
 That is, that we look to you to do your duty. You are going to 
 South Africa to give the people of that country the same liberty 
 which you here enjoy. May you do credit to your country." The 
 speech was greeted with loud cheers. 
 
 The train was profusely decorated. The cars were covered 
 with gaily-colored bunting, with flags and mottoes. The colors 
 were all red, white and blue. The banners extended the whole 
 length of the car, and in large letters had printed on them the 
 words " From London to South Africa," " B Company, Transvaal 
 Contingent," " For the Empire," and "No. i Military District." 
 One of each banner was on each side of the car. The train con- 
 sisted of a baggage and three passengers cars. The latter were 
 the best and most comfortable that are on the road. 
 
 The mighty cheer that went up when the train started to pull 
 
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BRITISH GARRISON OBEYING ORDER, "STAND TO ARMS"» 
 
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BOER PRISONERS ON THI WAV TO Pit / ERMARI r?y JRQ, 
 CAPITAL OF NATAL 
 
GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 241 
 
 out wan like the roll of thunder, and completely drowned the 
 strains of " God Save the Queen " by the band. Hats were thrown 
 in the air, and handkerchiefs were waved on all sides. Every 
 person was wildly enthusiastic as they shouted a last good-bye to 
 the soldier boys. Many of the ladies in the crowd carried small 
 Union Jacks, and waved them above their heads. The cheering 
 continued until the train had passed from view. 
 
 The decorations in many parts of the city were very elaborate, 
 especially in the business portion. Huge Union Jacks hung across 
 the streets in many places, and the stores and wholesale houses 
 were gaily decorated with flags and bunting. Many private resi- 
 dences were also tastily decorated with myriads of miniature flags. 
 
 GREAT POPULAR DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 The Toronto and London companies of the South African 
 regiment were given an enthusiastic farewell at the former city, 
 October 25th. Tens of thousands thronged the streets to see the 
 soldiers aepart. They were presented at the armories with purses 
 of gold on behalf of the city, and silver match-safes inscribed with 
 the motto, " What we have, we'll hold," referring, of course, to the 
 Empire. The officers were presented with expensive field-glasses. 
 A committee of citizens has arranged for life insurance on each, 
 and loaded them with all sorts of things and reading matter to 
 make the ocean voyage more comfortable. y 
 
 The South African contingent paraded the principal streets, 
 accompanied by four volunteer corps, each with a brass band. The 
 Mayor and aldermen, veteran soldiers, boys' brigades, and thou- 
 sands of public school lads carrying wooden guns, followed by the 
 students of Toronto University and various city colleges, who sang, 
 to the tune of " Sweet Bye-and-Bye," a refrain, " There's a Place 
 Where the Boers Ought to Go." Half a holiday was given at the 
 schools, and most of the city warehouses were closed to let the 
 citizens join in giving the soldiers a hearty send-off. 
 
 No such military ardor as that shown at Toronto had been 
 manifested since the Fenian raid in 1866, A prominent journal 
 commented on the event of the day as follows : 
 
 16 
 
 i 
 
. 
 
 242 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 " The Starting of the Cauadiaii contingent marks an epoch in 
 the history of the world. No snch a thing is recorded in history as 
 that colonists s)u^"ld jonrncy for more than a month and cover 
 almost half a circnit of the world in order to fight for the rights of 
 their fellow-citizens thonsands of miles away. It is a grand 
 climax of Imperial nnity, and Canada, with other portions of tli« 
 "Empire, lias come forward to join in the demonstration of it to the 
 world." Other journals were filled with similar comments. 
 
 AN OVATION FOR COLONEL OTTER. 
 
 A farewell, in some respects more inspiring and enthusiastic 
 than that which the Toronto company carried away with tliem in 
 the afternoon, was the lot of Lieutenant-Colonel Otter, who left for 
 the east in the evening. The Colonel arrived at the station shortly 
 after nine o'clock. He was accompanied by his staff, and proceeded 
 directly to his car, the last coach on the Grand Trunk express. 
 Then the Queen's Own Rifles marched into the huge waiting-room 
 and down to the t -^cks, forming in companies along the north wall 
 and behind the crowds on the platform. It was hard for them to 
 maintain their positions, but maintain them they did, and sang 
 while their old Colonel, who almost began his militia life I'pdcr 
 their colors, shook hands with them and returned the farewells of 
 the people who pressed about his car. The coach moved slowly 
 out, and Colonel Otter climbed on the rear steps, where, while the 
 great crowd cheered and the bands played, he stood with bowed 
 head until he was lost from view. 
 
 " The men are of magnificent physique," said one of the public 
 journals, " and the company is largely composed of business men. 
 The case of Private J. F. Ramsey is typical of many. He was a 
 .Captain of the Highlanders and is a member of the Ramsay-Cowan 
 Company, a big manufacturing concern of this city. He was the 
 western manager, and was in Utah when the call for volunteers 
 came. He travelled home post haste, found there was no opening 
 as an officer and he promptly enlisted as a private. His father is a 
 very wealthy man and a director of the Imixirial Bank. Another 
 private is a master at Upper Canada College. Several others are 
 
■■•♦. 
 
 GATJ.ANT CANADTANf TROOPS. 
 
 24:i 
 
 promising business men and officers who threw up their commissions 
 to go in iis privates." 
 
 In comnicntiug on the departure of the troops one of the news- 
 papers said: "During the past week, the various companies tliat 
 will comprise the Canadian contingent to tlie Transvaal have been 
 converging from all parts of the Dominion to the place of rendezvous 
 at Quebec, where they will embark in the stcamsliip vSardinian, for 
 South Africa. The gallant soldier-boys have received hearty ' send- 
 offs ' from their various towns peo])le, the good wishes being in 
 many cases coupled with handsome presents and useful articles for 
 the men who go forth in defence of the flag. 
 
 "FIGHT AS GOOD CANADIANS." 
 
 " The Montreal company left on schedule time. Before the men 
 were marched out of the Drill Plall, lyieut.-Col. Oordon addressed 
 them, pointing out the seriousness and responsibility of the step 
 they had undertaken. ' Canada is sending you forth,' he said, ' to 
 fight the battles of the Empire on a foreign field 1 He a credit to 
 your country; uphold her honor and traditions, and not lei it be 
 said of the Canadian contingent that they shirked their duty in any 
 respect. Be men and soldiers. If needs be, fight as good Canadians, 
 and bring glory to the flag. Canada will watch you ; Mcmtreal 
 will watch you. May you have a safe voyage and may you all 
 return. I wish you God-speed from the bottom of my lieart.' 
 
 " At tl'e dose of his remarks Col. Gordon called for three cheers 
 for the men, and these were given with a will, and a tiger was added 
 by those present. Cheers for the Queen and Empire followed, the 
 audience waxing enthusiastic. 
 
 "When the procession reached Bonaventure station it was 
 greeted with a solid mass of humanity, who had gathered to see the 
 'boys' off. The company found sc ne difficulty in getting through 
 the crowd, and the scenes they passed through were most affecting, 
 mothers, sisters, and sweethearts clinging to the loved ones to the 
 last, while fathers, brothers, and friends held their hands and 
 wished them God-speed. Soon, however, all were aboard the train. 
 There were faces at every window, smiling faces, too. The train 
 
 f 
 
 'Stl 
 
 
 i\ i 
 
244 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 moved, but very slowly at first. Not a sound of the ringing of a 
 bell nor the puffing of a locomotive could be heard. There was a 
 great buzzing sound, and the noise of many voices. Some of the 
 boys leaned out of the car windows, and grasped the hands of friends 
 as they passed. There was a waving of handkerchiefs, and * God 
 bless you' from the ladies. As the train increased in speed a mighty 
 thrill of enthusiastic loyalty went through the crowd. 
 
 " One by one the carriages rolled past. On the rear platform 
 stood a magnificent specimen of a Canadian soldier. His face glowed 
 and he took off his cap and waved it to the cheering spectators. On 
 a little stick at the rear of the train flapped cheerily a flag ; its color 
 was not white. 
 
 " Britain's_drum-beat in South Africa had been heard in far-off 
 Canada, and Montreal's sons were on the way to the front. A 
 number of the western companies passed through Montreal on their 
 way to Quebec, and all were given enthusiastic greetings and hearty 
 send-offs by a crowd numbering many thousands." 
 
 QUEBEC STIKRED WITH ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 The Canadian contingent left for the seat of war under com- 
 mand of Lieut.-Colonel Otter, of Toronto, with Lieut.-Colonel Buchan 
 as second in command, and Captain McDougall as adjutant. The 
 staff included Lieut.-Colonel Drury, Captain Forrester, Captain 
 Macdonnell and others well known in St. John. 
 
 From publish ports it would seem that all Quebec turned 
 
 out on the evening or October aStli to honor the gallant sons of 
 Canada who were going to take their share in fighting the battles of 
 the Empire. The dinner given by the Garrison Club to Colonel 
 Otter and his officers was a success, and was attended by all who 
 could get seats. The dining room had been tastefully decorated 
 with flags and festoons of flowers. On one side of the coat of arms 
 of the Empire was a British shield, and on the other the Dominion 
 shield, while the shields of the seven provinces were distributed 
 throughout the hall. 
 
 After discussing the menu Lieut.-Colonel White arose and 
 announced that the guests had been invited to join in the promenade 
 
 M ./■, 
 
 ,4Higii*&H>' 
 
GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 245 
 
 and smoking concert at the Drill Hall, where the citizens' committee 
 was entertaining the brave boys. He then proposed the toast of 
 " The Queen." Rarely, if ever, has this toast been received in any 
 part of the country with such ehthusiasm as it was on this occasion, 
 and every man present sang the National Anthem in a manner that 
 would have convinced even the most critical observer that all felt 
 the particular solemnity of the moment. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel White then proposed the toast of " Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Otter," and the officers of the contingent. It was 
 particularly fitting that Quebec, which was surrounded by battle- 
 fields, where brave men had struggled on both sides, should repre- 
 sent the whole of Canada in bidding God-speed to the men who 
 were bravely going forth to distant lands to prove the unity of the 
 
 Empire and the loyalty of all Canadians of all races and creeds. 
 
 *. 
 
 HONORED IN REPRESENTING CANADA. 
 
 Colonel Otter was unable to speak for five minutes, so enthu- 
 siastic and prolonged was the cheering which greeted him. When 
 the applause subsided, the commander of the Royal Canadian regi- 
 ment expressed the pleasure it gave him to be once more in Quebec, 
 as a guest of the Garrison Club, which -vas known all over Canada 
 for its hospitality, especially to military men. He would like to 
 assure his hearers on behalf of himself and his officers of the pride 
 they all felt in the duty which they were doing. They were highly 
 honored in having been chosen to represent Canada in aid of the 
 Empire. "^ 
 
 He had been struck by the enthusiam displayed from one end 
 of the country to the other ; it 'was reaP almost mo-;e than a man 
 could bear. All classes vied with eacl; other to honor, cheer and 
 assist in every possible way the officers and soldiers These sincere 
 actions and expressions touched them very much, ;:.nd they felt they 
 had in every way the sympathy of the whole country. Feeling 
 this, while their task may be physically hard, It would be easy in 
 every other respect. This universal sympath} would help them to 
 give up their homes and endure the hardship.5 of South Africa, if 
 thereby they could gain glory for Canada and the Empire. 
 
 ■^jl^ 
 
i 
 
 1 
 
 m- ' 
 
 / 
 
 246 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN T OOPS. 
 
 It will be seen that a patriotic spirit animated the Dominion 
 from one end to the other. Especially notable was the promptness 
 with which the military preparations were despatched. Canada did 
 more than send her soldiers away with a cheer that rang from the 
 Pacific to the Atlantic, and will forever echo to the nations of the 
 world the stern message, " Britain's quarrels are the quarrels of her 
 children, and Britain's sons will be defended by their brothers." 
 She showed by the despatch with which the contingent was enrolled, 
 and by the promptness with which it was fitted out, that the militia 
 department of this young country is an organization to be proud of, 
 and that in an emergency it can do good work for the Empire. 
 
 A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT. 
 
 The fact that, without conscription, it was possible to get to- 
 gether in the short space of a fortnight a thousand men, represent- 
 ing every section of this vast domain, and send them away on their 
 long ocean journey, properly equipped and provisioned, was as much 
 an eye-opener to the nations of the world as was the enthusiasm of 
 the people over the opportunity to show even in this small way their 
 devotion to the causes of the Empire and their willingness to make 
 its quarrels their own. The object lesson was expected to make an 
 impression on the world. The knowledge that from the uttermost 
 parts of the earth would come thousands upon thousands of English 
 colonists at the call to arms will not soon be forgotten by those who 
 in the past have considered that the nation's only arm was her navy, 
 and that her people would not voluntarily seek military service. 
 
 Military men of all countries most favorably commented on the 
 despatch of the Canadian volunteers, while those in Canada who 
 had an intimate acquaintance with the workings of the militia de- 
 partment, and who knew the difficulties that had to be met and sur- 
 mounted, spoke most enthusiastically, aud one and all praised the 
 Minister of Militia, Hon. F. W. Borden, and the officers of his staff, 
 particularly the Quartermaster-General, Colonel Foster, for the 
 highly creditable manner in which the work was done. The fact 
 that the Minister, Hon. Mr. Borden, was himself a militia officer of 
 thirty years' standing, and that under his rule many important re- 
 
GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 247 
 
 union 
 
 fptness 
 
 ida did 
 
 )m the 
 
 of the 
 
 of her 
 
 khers." 
 
 irolled, 
 
 militia 
 
 fond of, 
 
 re. 
 
 get to- 
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 forms had been inaugurated, no doubt helped in a very great meas- 
 ure to make possible the wonderful undertaking, which, as has 
 already been said, called forth praise even from the regular army 
 departments of the old world. 
 
 Canada fitted out its soldiers with everything of the very best, and 
 sent them away with quarters that were pronounced far superior to 
 those usually provided on a troop ship. When the call for volun- 
 teers was made the militia department had not even uniforms for the 
 raen, but the tailors of Canada were equal to the occasion, and they 
 delivered at Quebec before the steamer sailed the splendid uniforms 
 that were expected to prove both serviceable and comfortable. The 
 Canadian soldiers were uniformed as a rifle regiment, and had a 
 khaki serge service uniform, with jackets with four pockets, and 
 short breeches. They wore the Oliver equipment, and all their belts 
 and straps were of brown leather. In addition to this equipment, 
 each man received both summer and winter underclothing and other 
 necessaries, so that as regards clothing they were as well provided 
 as if fitted out by the best army service in the world. 
 
 SUPERB DRESS PARADE. 
 
 One of the newspapers contained the following account of the 
 Canadian contingent : " The Royal Canadian Infantry, looo strong, 
 had a magnificent ovation in the ancient city of Quebec while on its 
 way to the wharf and upon its embarkation on the steamer " Sardin- 
 ian" for the voyage to Cape Town. In the morning the regiment 
 gave a dress parade in Dufferin Terrace in the presence of 20,000 
 spectators. Addresses were made to them by Lord Minto and Sir 
 Wilfrid Laurier, in which the soldiers were highly complimented. 
 In the afternoon the regiment boarded the vessel that was to carry 
 them to Africa amid scenes of the wildest enthusiasm. Quebec 
 never witnessed anything near so impressive or enthusiastic as this 
 demonstration. 
 
 "The command is made up of eight companies raised in 
 different parts of the Dominion in which is represented Manitoba, 
 the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New 
 Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, 
 
 s| 
 
 
 \m 
 
 
248 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 Ottawa, London and Kingston. The regiment is finely officered 
 and the rank an file are men of higli intelligence and courage and 
 physically in splendid form. We mistake if they do not measure 
 up equally with the celebrated crack regiments of the British army 
 whom they fight along side of in the battles of the Transvaal. 
 
 "The inhabitants of the Dominion are justly proud of the 
 contingent they are sending to Africa and everywhere the infantry- 
 men were made to feel the popular heart was with them in this 
 expedition. French and English vied with each other in cheering 
 them on and bidding them God-speed and safe return to their homes." 
 
 PATRIOTISM OF THE DOMINION. 
 
 It would prove as difficult for one who did not witness the 
 leave-taking of the Canadian contingent to realize the depth of 
 sentiment, the loyalty and the unity of the Canadian people which 
 the farewell brought out as it would be for one who saw and took 
 part in the demonstration to ever forget it. To Quebec came the 
 picked men of the volunteers from every portion of the Dominion, 
 fresh from the plaudits and the decorations of their own friends, 
 thinking, perhaps, that the last good-byes had been said, that they 
 were among a strange people, that the journey to South Africa had 
 commenced in earnest. The contingent had been arriving by com- 
 panies for almost a week, but Quebec, anxious to prove that none 
 could surpass her in her devotion to the Canadian contingent or 
 the cause in which that contingent was to serve, waited until the 
 departure of the troops, and then the great wave of enthusiasm 
 swept over all restraint, and the greatest popular demonstration 
 which the country ever saw resulted. 
 
 The officers and men of the Second Royal Canadian Regiment 
 marched through the flag-decked streets of the city under great 
 welcoming arches in the midst of a cheering throng, with men and 
 women catching their hands as they passed, and wishing them, in 
 a language which they could not understand, her Majesty's wish, 
 "God-speed and a safe return." They were told by the Mayor of 
 the city that they wer the united descenaants of two races whicli 
 had met in bitter conflict upon the ground on which they stood, 
 
 %%tV 
 
icered 
 fge and 
 leasure 
 army 
 il. 
 
 of the 
 Ifantry- 
 |in this 
 leering 
 lomes." 
 
 2SS the 
 :pth of 
 5 .which 
 id took 
 Lme the 
 ninion, 
 friends, 
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 rent or 
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 tisiasm 
 tration 
 
 fiment 
 great 
 
 :n and 
 
 am, in 
 wish, 
 
 yor of 
 
 wrhicli 
 
 stood, 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 249 
 
 and fciiai they were now the representatives of one people whose 
 hearts they carried with them. But the last farewell was from 
 40,000 people of Quebec, who from the wharves and the hills of the 
 city sang the National Anthem as their transport steamed down the 
 broad St. Lawrence. 
 
 The Sardinian began her voyage to the Cape at ten minutes 
 past four o'clock on Monday afternoon, October 30th, within four- 
 teen days after the order for the mobilization of the troops came to 
 the Canadian Government. The members of the Cabinet and the 
 officers of the Canadian militia, who saw her leave her wharf car- 
 ryiug a regiment of Canadian soldiers fully prepared for the voyage 
 and equipped for the battlefield, heard with pleasure the following 
 cablegram received by the Governor-General of Canada : 
 
 PRAISE FROM THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 
 
 " London, October 30, 1899. — Her Majesty's Government offer 
 hearty congratulations to Canadian Government and military 
 authorities for rapid organization and embarkation of contingent. 
 Enthusiasm displayed by people of Dominion a source of much 
 gratification here. (Signed), Chamberlain." 
 
 The pleasure of the recognition of Canada's ability to meet an 
 emergency was unbounded, but the satisfaction at the completion 
 of an almost overwhelming task was to those who made the embark- 
 ation of a Canadian contingent possible at such an early date the 
 greatest reward. 
 
 The great Allan liner, which sailed under sealed orders, never 
 carried such a cargo before. The privates of the contingent swarmed 
 everjnvhere over the boat, and shouted and cheered and sang inter- 
 mittently. The people of the city filled every dock on the water- 
 front. They were dotted over the palisades ; they lined the great 
 walls of the Citadel and from every coign of vantage answered 
 cheer and hurrah and sang with the soldiers. 
 
 When the time of the final leave-taking came tie soldiers were 
 on the upper deck and high in the rigging of the vessel. One of 
 Captain Barker's men had climbed to the top of the first mast, and 
 hanging there swung his cap to those on shore. Below him was a 
 
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 sea of white helmets and dark tunics, and as the first gun from the 
 Citadel roared out the vast multitude took up the strain of " God Save 
 the Queen," and the cannon of the Citadel marked the time. Then 
 the whistles of the river craft drowned all else, and the Sardinian, 
 escorted by a fleet of gaily-decorated tugs and pleasure boats, was 
 
 lost to sight. — . 
 
 The day began with the marshaling of the troops at the Citadel, 
 and here they were viewed by thousands of visitors who had traveled 
 from their homes to bid their own good-bye. There were many 
 presentations by civic deputations. Toronto sent as its representa- 
 tives City Treasurer Coady, Messrs. Joseph Thompson, acting Sec- 
 retary, Alderman Graham and James Somers, and the grants made 
 to the volunteers were handed over, the funds being delivered in 
 gold coin, which was duly placed in safe keeping on the Sardinian. 
 Mr. Coady made the presentations, and Alderman Graham delivered 
 the silver match-safes to those who had failed to receive them in 
 Toronto. . 
 
 PRESENTS FOR THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 Montreal sent the largest deputation, which included a number 
 of students of McGill University, and the members of the contin- 
 gent from that city received the warmest reception of the day. The 
 Mayor of Montreal and a committee presented field glasses to the 
 ofiicers and funds to the men. Sir Mackenzie Bowell was at the 
 head of a large party from Belleville, which city was also represented 
 by Mayor J. W. Johnson, Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Ponton, Major 
 W. W. Pope, Captain Marsh, Captain Stewart, Lieutenant Morden 
 and Lieutenant McGinnis. They carried with them $5cx), being 
 the municipal and private subscriptions to the fourteen soldiers who 
 joined the contingent from Belleville. 
 
 The crowd of visitors and residents of the city at the Citadel 
 was very large, but it was insignificant when compared with the 
 tremendous gathering which waited on every side of the Esplanade 
 for the appearance of the troops there. The streets leading from 
 the Citadel were so congested with people that the regiment had 
 difficulty in passing through, and it was some time after the hour 
 
 

 he 
 We 
 ^en 
 m, 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 251 
 
 announced for the commencement of the ceremonies that it made 
 its appearance. A temporary stand had been erected on the Esplan- 
 ade, and on this were gathered prominent visitors from all parts of 
 the Dominion. 
 
 The troops were formed up in review order, and the precision 
 shown by each company in taking its position was repeatedly 
 cheered. Finally the grand review began, and his Excellency Lord 
 Minto and General Hutton inspected the long lines of soldiers. 
 They were accompanied by the following staff, and made a brilliant 
 military picture : Lieutenant-Colonel Irwin, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Evanturel, Lieutenant-Colonel Sherwood, Hon. A. D. and Captain 
 Graham, in waiting. General Hutton appeared particularly im- 
 pressed with the splendid physical and soldierly bearing of the men, 
 and complimented several of the officers. He said to Captain Bar- 
 ker after reviewing that officer's company : " You have a splendid 
 company — steady men. When you're away remember that you 
 must always call it the ' Toronto Company.' " 
 
 HEARTY FAREWELL FROM THE PREMIER. 
 
 After his Excellency and General Hutton's review, the playing 
 of " God Save the Queen " by the regimental bands announced the 
 coming of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The Premier was accompanied by 
 Hon. Messrs. Fielding, Borden, Dobell, Fitzpatrick and Sutherland, 
 and was met by the staff of officers mentioned, and he, with the 
 members of his Cabinet, also made a careful inspection of the differ- 
 ent companies, giving a kindly farewell to all those with whom he 
 was personally acquainted. 
 
 After the formal review the regiment was formed into three 
 sides of a square in close order, and his Excellency, addressing 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Otter, his officers and men, said : " I congratu- 
 late you upon the splendid appearance of your regiment upon 
 parade. Canada may justly be proud of her representative troops." 
 But the force which Colonel Otter commands, continued his Excel- 
 lency, represented a great deal more than a serviceable regiment 
 on parade, and they were standing upon historic ground, under the 
 ramparts of the old City of Quebec, surrounded by celebrated 
 
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252 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 battlefields and in an atmosphere full of glorious traditions of two 
 nations, who, while respecting each other's manlike qualities, shown 
 in many a hard-fought battlefield, had now joined hands in common 
 loyalty to their Queen-Empress. 
 
 The companies of the regiment had been gathered from British 
 Columbia to the Atlantic Coast, from the settlers in the Rocky 
 Mountains and in the far west, from Ontario and the Maritime 
 Provinces, and from the old French families of Quebec. They 
 represented the manhood of the Dominion from west to east, and 
 above all represented the spontaneous offer of the people of Canada, 
 British-born and French-Canadians, to the mother country. The 
 people of Canada had shown that they had no inclination to discuss 
 the quibbles of colonial responsibility. They had unmistakably 
 asked that their loyal offers be made known, and rejoiced in their 
 gracious acceptance. 
 
 PRIVATIONS AND GLORIES OF THE ARMY. 
 
 In so doing, surely they had opened a new chapter in the his- 
 tory of our empire. They freely made their military gift to the 
 Imperial cause, to share the privations and dangers and glories of 
 the Imperial army. They had insisted on giving vent to an expres- 
 sion of sentimental Imperial unity, which might perhaps hereafter 
 prove more binding than any written Imperial constitution. 
 
 Then, addreesing Colonel Otter again, his Excellency said: 
 " The embarkation of your force to-day will mark a memorable 
 epoch in the history of Canada and the empire. Of the success of 
 your force we have no doubt. We shall watch your departure with 
 very full hearts, and will follow your movements with eager enthu- 
 siasm. All Canada will long to see the Maple Leaf well to the 
 front, and will give her contingent a glorious welcome when it 
 comes home again. And now, as the representative of her Majesty, 
 I wish you God-speed and every success." 
 
 His Excellency, whose address was repeatedly applauded, 
 closed by asking Colonel Otter that his regiment give three cheers 
 for the Queen, and in this outburst the thousand of spectators 
 joined, the bands playing " Rule Britannia." 
 
I!t: 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 9fi& 
 
 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who followed, was received with another 
 burst of applause, and the throng so pressed about the stand that 
 unfortunately few persons were able to hear all of his address. " In 
 wishing you God-speed," he said, " I pray that God may accom- 
 pany you, direct you and protect you, on the noble mission which 
 you have undertaken. Upon this occasion it is not so much the 
 God of battle as the God of justice whom we invoke. It is inspir- 
 ing to reflect that the cause for which you men of Canada are going 
 to fight is the cause of justice, the cause of humanity, of civil rights 
 and religious liberty. 
 
 " This war is not a war of conquest or subjugation. It is not 
 to oppress the race whose courage we admire, but it is to put an 
 end to the oppression imposed upon subjects of her Majesty in 
 South Africa by a tyrannical people. The object is not to rush out 
 the Dutch population, but to establish in that land, of which her 
 Majesty is suzerain, British sovereign law, to assure to all men of 
 that country an equal share of liberty. This is a unique occasion 
 in the history of the world ; it is a spectacle which ought to make 
 every Canadian feel proud of his country. 
 
 HAPPY ILLUSTRATION OF UNITY. 
 
 " Who could have believed a few years ago that from this city, 
 which had been the theatre of a bitter conflict between the two 
 proudest races of the world, their descendants, who to-day were 
 a happily united people, would go forth to help carry the blessings 
 of their own institutions to a far distant land ? Who could have 
 believed thirty-two years ago that the scattered Provinces of British 
 North America would have reached such a point of development to- 
 day that they would be able and willing, and cheerfully willing, to 
 cement with their blood the unity of the empire in its most distant 
 part? 
 
 " Men of the Canadian contingent," continued the Premier, 
 " I have no recommendation or request to make to you, but if I had 
 it would simply be to do your duty. More than this we cannot 
 ask ; more than this you cannot do. If you do your duty, and I 
 know you will, you take your place side by side with the Dublin 
 
254 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 Fusileers, the Gordon Highlanders and the Lancashires, who only 
 last week carried the colors of England to the topmost heights of 
 Glencoe, Dundee and Elandslaagte. 
 
 " If you do your duty your proud countrymen will share your 
 glory. Should any one of you unfortunately lose his life or limb 
 your country will feel that you have fully discharged the duty under 
 which you place her this day by this sacrifice to Canada's glory, 
 the glory of the empire, and above all, to the cause of justice, 
 humanity and liberty." 
 
 , y ELOQUENT SPEECH OF THE MAYOR. 
 
 ' The address from the citizens of Quebec was then delivered 
 by his Worship Hon. S. N. Parent, Mayor of the city. He said : 
 " The citizens of Quebec offer you the most cordial welcome in this 
 old fortress, so often stormed by war and tempest, whose inhabit- 
 ants from their earliest years have been accustomed to the music 
 of military bands, to the smell of powder and the smoke of battles. 
 We are proud of the honor that has been done our city in its selec- 
 tion as the scene of the mobilization of this select regiment which 
 the Canadian people send to the assistance of our mother country. 
 It was no vain appeal that was made to our valor and our loyalty, 
 for along the way from Victoria to Halifax a thousand picked men, 
 representing the youth, physical strength, the discipline and the 
 courageous daring of our people, freely volunteered to serve under 
 the British flag. 
 
 " The people of various origin and different religious creeds 
 that go to make up the population of this country are represented 
 in your regiment, and now that we are for the time being assem- 
 bled within the walls of the most French city of the new world let 
 us claim for the French-Canadian element a large share of the 
 warm and spontaneous outburst of sentiments of loyalty to England 
 which marked your triumphant passage from your homes to Quebec. 
 
 " No matter how diverse may be our origin and the language 
 that we speak, who is there that will dare to affirm that we have 
 not all the qualities necessary for the making of a real nation ? 
 Who dare say, upon such an occasion as the present, that we are 
 
 m^ 
 
GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 255 
 
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 lb 
 
 ler 
 
 not all sincerely nnited and loyal towards the Canadian Dominion 
 and loyal to England, which has given us so complete a measure 
 of liberty ? We French-Canadians have loyally accepted the new 
 destinies that Providence provided for us on the battlefields of 1759. 
 Is it possible that anybody can have forgotten 1775 and 181 2 ? 
 
 "On the summit of this proud rock of Quebec, rendered 
 illustrious by Jacques Cartier and Champlain, behold, but a few 
 steps from this place, the superb monument erected by an English 
 Governor to the memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. Why may we 
 not make it the emblem and the symbol of our national unity ? 
 
 ROSE, THISTLE AND SHAMROCK. 
 
 " Let us leave to each individual amongst us the privilege to 
 retain as a sweet souvenir, worthy of a noble heart, the rose, the 
 thistle, th^ Jleur-de-lts or the shamrock, and even the pot of earth 
 that the Irish immigrant brings with him from under distant skies, 
 and let us be united for the great and holy cause that we have in 
 hand, the foundation of a great nation and the development of the 
 boundless resources of a rich and immense country. Our best 
 wishes accompany you in the long journey, at the end of which 
 you v/ill no doubt fipd glory as well as suflferings, privations, and 
 perhaps even heroic sacrifices. 
 
 " When you will be under the burning sun of Africa you may 
 be sure that our hearts will follow you everywhere, and that in our 
 long winter evenings you will be the principal object of our fireside 
 talk and solicitude. Be quite sure, too, that this Canada of ours 
 will watch with a maternal care over the loved ones that you leave 
 behind you, and who, in parting with you, are making so great and 
 so generous a sacrifice. May the God of battles crown your efforts, 
 may He preserve you in the midst of danger, and may He bring 
 you back safe and sound to the beloved shores of your fatherland." 
 
 Following the delivery of this address, which was also received 
 with great enthusiasm, the regiment formed fours and marched past 
 the reviewing stand, where each company received hearty cheers. 
 The procession was headed by the musicians of the Royal Canadian 
 Artillery and by oflBcers of different battalions. 
 
 y 
 
 '»• !u 
 
256 
 
 GALLANT CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 The regiment marched through the streets of both the Upper 
 and Lower Town, and, although the line of route was lengthy, the 
 cheering was continuous and the troops were followed by one of the 
 largest crowds Quebec has ever experienced. Great throngs were 
 congregated at the wharf, but admission could be gained only by 
 ticket, and the companies of the local militia closely guarded all the 
 approaches. 
 
 Great promptness was observed in the handling of the troops, 
 and when shortly before 3 o'clock his Excellency arrived, the em- 
 barkation was almost completed and the Governor-General went 
 on board and examined the men's quarters, spending some little 
 time on the boat. Just as the lines were about to be cast off Gen- 
 eral Hutton summoned the officers of the regiment to the wharf and 
 read to them the message from Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, given 
 above. He then bade the officers good-bye, and called for cheers for 
 each, concluding with cheers for the Queen. 
 
 At 4.10 o'clock the great liner slowly moved away from her 
 dock, and the greatest cheer of the day went up. The Canadian 
 contingent had started for the Transvaal, 
 

 ■^■^m 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 First Clash of Arms Between the British and Boers. 
 
 N October 9, 1899, the British Government received the Boer 
 ultimatum, demanding that points in dispute be referred to 
 arbitration; that all British troops on the border of the 
 Transvaal be instantly withdrawn; that reinforcements sent to 
 South Africa since June ist be removed ; that no more troops be 
 landed in South Africa, and that Great Britain answer before 
 5 o'clock P.M., October nth. On the same date the Gordon High- 
 landers and troops from India were ordered to Ladysmith. 
 
 Great Britain, on the loth, replied that conditions demanded 
 by the Transvaal were such as could not be discussed. The British 
 agent was instructed to apply for his passport, which meant that 
 war was an assured fact, and communication between the two 
 governments was at an end. 
 
 The time for acceptance of the ultimatum expired at 5 o'clock, 
 P.M., October nth. Conyngham Greene, the British agent at Pre- 
 toria, paid his farewell visits to President Kruger and the Boer 
 of&cials. General Prinsloo was appointed commander-in-chief of the 
 Orange Free State forces ; headquarters at Albertina. The Boers 
 occupied Laing's Nek and the British hurried troops to the western 
 border. 
 
 On October 12th Free State burghers occupied Philipstown, 
 Cape Colony, and Orange Free State troops entered Natal through 
 Tintwa and Van Reenen's passes. The Natal reserves were called 
 out. France was notified by the Transvaal that a state of war 
 existed. Transvaal Boers occupied Laing's Nek and Ingogo Heights. 
 A Transvaal manifesto was issued, calling on all Afrikanders in 
 South Africa to rise against the British. Marshal law was pro- 
 claimed at Bloemfontein, capital of Orange Free State. A British 
 armored train under command of Captain Nesbitt carrying guns to 
 Mafeking was destroyed by Boers at Kraalpan. There were only 
 
 17 ^ 267 
 
258 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 three armored trains in the British array in South Africa, and the 
 loss, therefore, was serious to the English army. The armored traiu 
 is a prominent feature of the Transvaal war, owing to the position 
 of the contestants and the long, unprotected border of the boundary 
 line. The destroyed train was a hastily constructed affair, consist- 
 ing of a locomotive and two cars. The engine was in the centre of 
 the train. 
 
 The box cars and the locomotive were covered by boiler plating 
 three-quarters of an inch thick, as firmly riveted as time would 
 allow. The train was constructed at Mafeking, where there are 
 several railway shops, the town being on the new main line from the 
 Cape to Bulawayo. 
 
 A RAPID-FIRING RAILWAY TRAIN. 
 
 The locomotive was the only part of the train that did not 
 carry guns, the steel casing being solely to protect the mechanism 
 of the engine from the shot of the enemy. The remainder of the 
 armor, however, was thickly perforated with port-holes, through 
 which guns of varying calibre peeped, the Maxim, Nordenfelt and 
 Gatling being the most serviceable weapons for this kind of work. 
 The smaller holes were for the rifles of the marksmen, and usually 
 the deadliest in a regiment were selected for the position. It takes 
 an expert marksman to shoot with satisfactory results from a quick- 
 ly-moving train. As usual, the train was supplied with a powerful 
 searchlight, in view of a possible night attack. 
 
 Of course, the boiler tubing can offer no resistance to artillery. 
 In fact, rifle shots fired at short range will sometimes penetrate the 
 plates, and to meet such a possibility sand-bags were provided, 
 as was the case in the Egyptian campaign, when the armored train 
 was found of g r-eat service. 
 
 But in spite of all protection, the Boers conquered. They had 
 their artillery stationed along the hills beside the tracks. It was a 
 verita1)le trap. The track ahead was blocked. The Englishmen 
 had failed to accompany their train with the usual cavalry advance 
 guard, which experience in this kind of fighting had taught was 
 absolutely necessary. Unaware of the true state of affairs, the 
 
 IP 
 
FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 259 
 
 d the 
 . train 
 sitioii 
 ndar}' 
 ansist- 
 itre of 
 
 doomed train steamed to the obstruction and became derailed. The 
 men sallied forth and worked like beavers to put the wheels back on 
 the track and remove the obstruction. Then the Boers opened fire 
 with their cannon. 
 
 At the first report the troops flew back into their iron battery. 
 They worked their guns for all that was in them, but their force 
 was small and the firing necessarily slow. The cannon fire of the 
 Boers was rapid and accurate. The thin sheet-iron protection 
 against bullet shots was an ideal bursting ground for the larger 
 shells. The armored train was soon a total wreck and most of the 
 crew dead or badly wounded. In that condition the Englishmen 
 surrendered, and the arms, ammunition and big guns so badly 
 needed by Colonel Baden-Powell at Mafeking never reached their 
 destination, but went into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 ^ AMERICAN ARMORED TRAINS. 
 
 Armored trains, however, do not always fall so easily into the 
 hands of the enemy. Armored trains mounting field-pieces and 
 machine guns were extensively utilized by the American troops en- 
 gaged in the conquest of the Filipinos, and it will be remembered 
 that the successful issue of the fight at Columpit was attributed to 
 the opportune arrival of just such a flying battery. During the 
 Cuban rebellion there were numerous accounts wafted to the United 
 States of the use of armored trains by the Spaniards. The question 
 now arises, where did this mode of fighting originate ? 
 
 Although it is impossible to obtain any reliable details, it is 
 certain that the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 was the first campaign 
 witnessing the use of protected trains and locomotives on the field of 
 battle. In their sorties from Paris the French troops were frequently 
 backed up by the fire of light field-pieces carried in this manner, 
 and when the Communists were holding the capital against the 
 Versaillese an armored train operated upon the railway in the direc- 
 tion of Chateau Brecon, and is said to have achieved its object in 
 silencing the batteries which the regular troops were endeavoring to 
 establish in that position. ^ 
 
 It is this experience, perhaps, that has given rise to the belief 
 
 ■»4^_;^,i!''./ 
 
260 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 that the French were the original adapters of the idea for the utiliza- 
 tion of permanent lines of railway for the transport of artillery, 
 capable of being brought into action upon the metals themselves. 
 Shortly after the war of 1870 an Englishman, Mr. Evelyn Liardet, 
 took out a patent for an armored train, which was nullified by the 
 discovery in the Patent Office of Mr. Anderson's prior scheme. Mr. 
 James Anderson, of Edinburgh, in 1847, prepared and patented a 
 series of plans, and further submitted a working model of his de- 
 fensive rolling stock for the inspection of some distinguished engi- 
 neer and artillery officers. ' 
 
 BLUE-JACKETS THROWING SHELLS. 
 
 As far as the British army is concerned. Captain Fisher's 
 armor-clad train, used during the first stages of the campaign 
 against Arabi, was the first and only active example of its type. 
 The train was constructed at Alexandria by a party of blue-jackets, 
 and was composed of a locomotive and a number of trucks protected 
 by iron rails, iron plates and sand-bags. The engine was placed in 
 the middle of the train, while a Nordenfelt machine gun was mounted 
 on the leading protected truck, and a 40-pounder on the next. The 
 latter, by means of a small crane carried with the train, could be 
 quickly mounted and dismounted, one minute sufficing from* the 
 halting of the train to remount and fire the gun. 
 
 The vehicles behind the engine conveyed a detachment of 
 skirmishers, while it was found expedient to attach one or two empty 
 trucks in front of the working portion carrying the guns, so as to 
 minimize any danger from the explosion of mines laid under the 
 permanent railway by the enemy. Unfortunately, Captain Fisher 
 had but few opportunities of bringing his train into, action, but 
 during a smart skirmish on the Mahmoudiyeh Canal it came steam-' 
 ing iup from Gabarrie, and by throwing some well-directed shells 
 into the very centre of the enemy compelled him to retire with con- 
 siderable loss. 
 
 The main objection raised against the practicability of armored 
 trains is the suggestion that the enemy, with a few men carrying 
 small parcels of dynamite, could easily destroy the permanent way. 
 
 CO 
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 r 
 
 v 
 
FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 261 
 
 iliza- 
 pery, 
 lives, 
 (rdet, 
 the 
 Mr. 
 ted a 
 Ks de- 
 engi- 
 
 Doubtless they could do so, if the defender's cavalry stood idly 
 while they advanced for this purpose ; hence it must be a sine qua 
 non that armored trains are always accompanied by a strong force of 
 cavalry. 
 
 Again, to guard against the compulsory abandonment of the 
 guns if the train is derailed. Captain Fisher's precaution of including 
 a crane in the equipment should be followed. Machine guns or only 
 very light field-pieces, were the only armament of the train which 
 the Boers captured. Trucks carrying these should certainly have 
 the gun detachments protected by bullet-proof mantlets, but any 
 very high plating, with the idea of keeping out shells, has proven 
 a mistake. 
 
 Continuing the record of the war, we find that on October 13th 
 the British occupied a position near Ladysmith. On the same date 
 the United States were notified by Great Britain that a state of war 
 existed in South Africa. The Boers occupied Spitzkop and New- 
 castle. Fighting was begun at Mafeking next day, and the Boers 
 destroyed another armored train carrying telegraph operators. The 
 train engaged 500 Boers, who lost heavily. General Sir Redvers 
 Buller and staff left London for South Africa on the same date. 
 
 \ li 
 
 * '■■», 
 
 SHARP FIGHTING AROUND KIMBERLEY. 
 
 The day following the Boers laid siege to Kimberley, where the 
 famous diamond mines are located, and were defeated in an engage- 
 ment at Spruitfontein, ten miles south of Kimberley. On the i6tli 
 a Boer commando with an estimated force of 2000 men and 16 field 
 guns arrived at Dannhauser, northeast of Dundee. Orange Free 
 State troops cut the telegraph wires and destroyed railroad tracks at 
 Norvals Pont. Marshal law was proclaimed at Newcastle, Dundee, 
 Klip River, Unsiga and Upper Tugila division of the colony. Gen- 
 eral Joubert, commander of the Boer army, arrived at Newcastle, 
 Natal, and the Boers opposite Glencoe camp received reinforce- 
 ments. 
 
 Three battles in Natal marked the opening of the war — Glen- 
 coe, Elandslaagte and Rietfontein. The first, the battle of Glen- 
 coe, was fought on October 20th by the advanced British force, under 
 
 ■*..!?. :,l. 
 
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 vH'v^*^' 
 
 ni 
 
 i62 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 .he late General Sir William Symons, and the other two by the 
 larger army of Sir George White from its base at Lady smith, the 
 [permanent camp of the British in Natal. The first shock of the 
 Boer invasion at Natal was borne by Sir William Symcns at Glen- 
 coe, his position on the Glencoe-Dundee line having been attacked 
 on October 20th by the Boer columns invading Natal Jirom the north 
 by way of Laihg's Nek and the drifts, or fords, over the Buffalo River. 
 The intention of the Boers was to attack Symons with three 
 columns, aggregating about 9000 men. The first, under General 
 Erasmus, advanced from the north; the second, under Lucas Meyer, 
 made a long detour along the Buffalo River, crossed that stream, 
 and moved due west upon Glencoe, and the third, having got to the 
 south, at Waschbank, was to destroy the railway communication 
 and head off Symons in that direction. 
 
 FIRST BATTLE OF THE WAR. 
 
 Whether from defective mobilization, or for other reasons, the 
 Boer ^lan did not succeed, and Sir William Symons was able to 
 attack and defeat the second column advancing from the east, under 
 Lucas Meyer, without having to engage the other two, having only 
 to keep the advance of the northern column in check by detaching 
 a battery of artillery and one regiment. Thus was won the victory 
 of Glencoe, the first battle of the war, which proved to the Boers 
 that British troops could fight them in their own way, scale difficult 
 heights and drive their defenders down the opposite slope. 
 
 It was, as an eye-witness stated, Majuba with the positions re- 
 versed. The moral effect of the battle in which Symons and many 
 of his gallant officers and men lost their lives was tremendous. It 
 struck, so to speak, at once the keynote of the war, namely, that the 
 British d'.'fc.:ce would be an offensive defence. Not only the Boers, 
 but all Europe, were astounded at the result of the brilliant opening * 
 of the campaign by the great soldier whose remains were buried — for 
 a while — in the " enemy's country." 
 
 The following is an account of the engagement by an eye- 
 witness who was with the British troops: "The first battle has 
 been fought, and the Boers have sustained a blow which may give 
 
FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 thtm serious pause in their advance southward. In the British 
 camp last night it was the general expectation that to-day would 
 not pass without some hard fighting. The enemy had been reported 
 advancing in force, and this rumor had been confirmed by a squadron 
 of Hussars, which had been sent out to reconnoitre. 
 
 " When dawn broke this morning it was discovered that the 
 Boers during the night had occupied a strong position on Dundee 
 Hill, about three miles east and overlooking the camp and the town. 
 They had placed several guns in position. Almost precisely at 6 
 o'clock came the boom of their first shot, and within a few minutes 
 they had developed a heavy fire. Their practice was, however, 
 poor, and their shots did no damage. 
 
 SPLENDID FIRING BY THE ARTILLERY. 
 
 " In the meantime our own guns had taken up the challenge. 
 It soon became apparent that whatever might be the issue of the 
 fight, our artillery would not be in fault. Our fire was magnificent. 
 Within fifteen minutes after our first shot the Boer guns were 
 silenced. By this time the enemy could be seen swarming over 
 the hill outside of Dundee and making towards the south. Their 
 intention evidently was to turn our position. 
 
 "An advance was at once ordered of infantry and cavalry. 
 Both moved out, and soon the battle was raging in the valley 
 outside of the town. A hot rifle fire was kept up by our men, no 
 advantage offered by the nature of the ground being neglected. 
 The advancing force was effectually covered by our guns, which 
 continued to play upon the enemy's position. The fire of the 
 Boers at this point was decidedly weak. It seemed as if their 
 ineffective artillery work might have taken the heart out of them. 
 
 " Our men continued steadily to advance in the face of their 
 fire, and reached the foot of the hill in fine fornr. The Boers, 
 seeing themselves worsted, fell back and retired toward the east ' 
 Our losses have been heavy. The final dash up the hill was a 
 brilliant affair. The Dublin Fusileers did fine work. Nothing at 
 this time can be said of the enemy's losses, but they must have 
 been very serious." 
 
264 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 It appears that dui ing the night, as already stated, the Boer 
 artillery occupied a hill commanding the British camp and began 
 dropping shells at daybreak in the direction of the British forces. 
 
 The latter, under General Sir William Peun Symons, promptly 
 accepted the challenge, and moved to meet the invaders under cover 
 of the British artillery, which appears to have worked with such 
 advantage as to quickly silence the enemy's batteries, enabling the 
 infantry to carry the Boer position with a rush, in which the Dublin 
 Fusileers and the King's Royal Rifles specially distinguished 
 themselves, the Fusileers capturing the first guns of the enemy 
 taken in the campaign. 
 
 GENERAL SYMONS MORTALLY WOUNDED. 
 
 Fortunately for the British, they were apparently strong enough 
 to withstand a Boer force nearly double their own, as, in 'view of 
 the fact that the railway was cut at Elandslaagte, evidently in 
 anticipation of an early attack, it would have been impossible to 
 send reinforcements quickly from Ladysmith. General Symons 
 was in the thick of the fight. 
 
 A further account of the engagement states that after eight 
 hours of continuous fighting Talana Hill v/as carried by the Dublin 
 Fusileers and the King's Rifles, under cover of a well-served artil- 
 lery fire by the Thirteenth and Sixty-ninth Batteries. The Boers 
 who threatened the British rear then retired. 
 
 The War Office in London received the appended despatch 
 from Ladysmith, filed at 10.45 ^- ^- ^^ ^^^^ ^^y ^^ ^^^ battle : 
 "The following advices from Glencoe Camp just at hand: The 
 King's Royal Rifles and the Dublin Fusileers are attacking a hill 
 occupied by Boer artillery. They are within 300 yards of the 
 position, and are advancing under cover of our artillery, at about 
 2000 yards range. Scouts report that 9CXK) Boers are advancing 
 on liarting Spruit. The Fifteenth Battery and Leicester regiment 
 have gone to meet them." 
 
 Sir William Symons was wounded through the thigh and 
 General Yule assumed command. 
 
 General Sir William Penn Symons, Knight Commander of the 
 
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FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 265 
 
 Bath, whose death resulted from the wound he received at Gleucoe, 
 entered the British army in 1863 and served against Galekas in 
 1877-78, in the Zulu war, the Burmese expedition and several other 
 campaigns. He commanded the Second Brigade in the Tochi field 
 force, and the First Division of the Tirah expeditionary force in 
 1897-98. Sir William was decorated a Knight Commander of the 
 Bath for services with the latter. He was the second in command 
 under Major-General Sir George Stewart White, commander of the 
 British forces in Natal. 
 
 NARROW ESCAPE OF BRITISH TROOPS. 
 
 It appears from authentic accounts of the fight at Glencoe that 
 the carbineers and border-mounted riflemen who had been in action 
 with the enemy nearly all day, returned in the evening, falling 
 back fighting, in the face of some 2000 Boers. They were several 
 times almost cut off, but a Maxim gun held the Boers in check. 
 Several times the Boers came within 400 yards range, but their 
 shooting was bad, and the Maxims rendered signal service in 
 stopping their rushes. The Boers had a large wagon train and 
 artillery. 
 
 The absence of details regarding the British losses in the 
 engagement at Glencoe Camp caused the deepest anxiety in London, 
 and the War Office was besieged by relatives and friends of those 
 making up the forces that took part in the fight. 
 
 The War Office received another official despatch from Lady- 
 smith filed at half-past 3 in the afternoon, from Glencoe: "We 
 were attacked this morning at daylight by a Boer force, 
 roughly estimated at 4CXD0. They had placed four or five guns in 
 position on a hill, 5400 yards east of our camp, and they fired 
 plugged shells. Their artillery did no damage. Our infantry 
 formed for attack, and we got our guns into position. After tl|e 
 position of the enemy had been shelled our infantry advanced to 
 the attack, and, after a hard fight, lasting until 1.30 p. M.,an almost 
 inaccessible position was taken, the enemy retiring eastward. All 
 the Boer guns have been captured. Our cavalry and artillery are 
 still out. Our losses are heavy." 
 
 il 
 
266 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 
 
 The British artillery practice iu the early part of the day 
 decided the battle. The seizure of Dundee Hill by the Boers was 
 a surprise, for, although the pickets had been exchanging shots all 
 night, it was not until a shell boomed over the town into the camp 
 that their presence was discovered. Then the shells came fast. 
 The hill was positively alive with the swarming Boers, still the 
 British artillery got to work with magnificent energy and precision. 
 
 The batteries from the camp took up positions to the south of 
 the town, and after a quarter of an hour's heavy firing silenced the 
 guns on the hills. Shells dropped among the Boers with remark- 
 able accuracy, doing tremendous execution, for the enemy were 
 present in very large numbers and in places considerably exposed. 
 By this time the enemy held the whole of the hill behind Smith's 
 farm and the Dundeekopje, right away to the south, in which 
 direction the British infantry and cavalry moved at once. 
 
 SPLENDID CHARGE OF INFANTRY. 
 
 The fighting raged particularly hot at the valley outside the 
 town. Directly the Boer guns ceased firing, General Symons 
 ordered the infantry to move on the position. The infantry charge 
 was magnificent. The way the King's Royal Rifles and the Dublin 
 Fusileers stormed the position was one of the most splendid sights 
 tver seen. The firing of the Boers was not so deadly as might 
 have been expected from troops occupying such an excellent 
 position, but the infantry lost heavily going up the hill, and only 
 the consummately brilliant way in which General Symons had 
 trained them to fighting of the kind saved them from being" 
 swept away. 
 
 Indeed, the hill was almost inaccessible to the storming party, 
 and any hesitation would have lost the day. The enemy's guns 
 were all abandoned, for the Boers had no time to remove them. A 
 stream of fugitives poured down the hillside into the valley, where 
 the battle went on with no abatement. 
 
 General Symons was wounded early in the action, and the 
 command then devolved on General Yule. The enemy as they 
 fled were followed by the cavalry, mounted infantry and artillery. 
 
 .^- 
 
FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 267 
 
 The direction taken was to the eastward. The British losses were 
 very severe, but those of the Boers were much heavier. The final 
 rush was made with a triumphant 5'ell, and as the British troops 
 charged to close quarters the enemy turned and fled, leaving 
 all their impedimenta and guns behind them in their precipitate 
 flight. 
 
 While this was going on one battery of artillery, the Eighteenth 
 Hussars and the mounted infantry, with a part of the Leicester 
 Regiment, got on the enemy's flank, and, as the Boers streamed 
 wildly down the hills, making for the main road, they found their 
 retreat had been cut off, but they rallied for awhile, and there was 
 severe fighting, with considerable loss to each side. Many of the 
 enemy surrendered. A rough estimate placed the British loss at 
 250 killed or wounded, and that of the Boers at 800 
 
 DEFEAT WAS DECISIVE. 
 
 The Boers seemed to be nonplussed by the tactics of the 
 imperial troops, especially of the well-drilled, swift-moving horse- 
 men. The enemy were still, as of old, a mob. They were without 
 horses and forage, and many of them relied for food upon what 
 they could obtain by looting. Their animals were mostly in a 
 wretched condition. ~ 
 
 Some of the particulars of the battle at Glencoe indicated that 
 defeat of the Boers was in reality a rout. The victory of the 
 English forces was doubly significant, for in three important 
 particulars the South Africans had decidedly the advantage. The 
 Boers seem to have outnumbered their foe, they had the best 
 position and they caught the English unawares. With respect to 
 courage, the combatants were supposed to be equal, but the English 
 forces were seasoned, disciplined troops, while those of the Boers 
 were without much military training. It was undoubtedly this - 
 superior discipline and a greater knowledge on the part of the 1 
 ofiicers of the art of war that gave the victory to the English. 
 
 The evident purpose of General Joubert in making the attack 
 on the forces under General Symons was to drive a wedge between 
 Ladysmith and Glencoe, and divide the two divisions of the English 
 
 
 1 
 
268 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 army at these points. Had lie succeeded he would have completely 
 isolated Dundee, and gained, besides, a great advantage, whicli 
 might have operated as an encouragement to an immediate revolt in 
 Natal and Cape Colony. 
 
 The victory of the English forces at Glencoe, while seemingly 
 decisive, was only won at the cost of many precious lives. As 
 nearly as could be ascertained, about ore in every twenty men 
 engaged was either killed or wounded. This circumstance must 
 dispose of any thought that the Boers since their last war with 
 England have become less accurate in their shooting. A note- 
 worthy feature in connection with the casualities reported was the 
 disproportionately large number of officers killed or wounded. 
 
 MANY OFFICERS KILLED OR WOUNDED. 
 
 According to the despatches General Synions was mortally 
 wounded, two colonels, three captains and five lieutenants were 
 killed, two colonels, three majors, six captains and eleven lieuten- 
 ants were wounded, while only thirty non-commissioned officers and 
 men were killed and 152 were wounded. Thus the first battle in 
 the war grimly gave endorsement to the prediction of German offi- 
 cers made just before hostilities began that great numbers of valuable 
 English officers would be sacrificed because, while leading and com- 
 pelling their men to take advantage of shelter, the officers would not 
 seek shelter themselves, as they regarded it as unbecoming in a 
 British officer to do so. 
 
 Too offset to some extent the seriousness of the defeat of the 
 Boers at Glencoe was the fact of their capture of Vryburg, the 
 capital of Bechuanaland. In one respect this was almost as great 
 a disaster to the English as the defeat in the other instance was to 
 the South Africans. The significance of the capture of Vryburg 
 was not that it was particularly an important town, but rather 
 because it was the headquarters of the Bechuanaland border police, 
 a body of men which is, in fact, mounted infantry accustomed to 
 rapid movements and of tried courage. That the place was captured 
 without serious bloodshed indicates that this force had been with- 
 drawn to assist in the defence of Mafeking. 
 
FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 269 
 
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 A leading New England journal commented on the outbreak 
 of the war in South Africa as follows : 
 
 " The art of war is becoming interesting. It is perfecting it- 
 self in certain directions to a point that may yet shock tlie civilized 
 world into its abolition and compel arbitration from a sense of com- 
 mon humanity. The Boers are said to have protested against the 
 use of an explosive used by the English and known as lyddite. 
 These brave and honest fighters seem to be hardly a A^are of what 
 civilized nations are doing in the way of perfecting high explosives. 
 They have fancied that their skill with the rifle and their superior 
 earnestness and science in a war carried on in their own territory 
 would carry them through. ' God will direct our bullets,' exclaims 
 good old Oom Kruger. 
 
 DESTRUCTIVE WORK OF SHRAPNEL SHELLS. 
 
 " But let us see what this means in practice. The British took 
 with them to South Africa certain rapid-firing guns that fire shrapnel 
 shells, each of which scatters 260 bullets over a space of twenty- 
 four square yards. These guns will deliver twelve aimed shots per 
 minute; that is, 3120 bullets per minute for each gun, rendering a 
 space of 288 square yards perfectly fatal to life. A battery of six- 
 inch guns would devastate an area of 1728 square yards every 
 minute, or an acre every three minutes. 
 
 " Every gun of this type can fire as many bullets per round 
 as could 260 soldiers using rifles, firing them as fast and several 
 times as far. The eighteen British rapid-firing guns used at Glen- 
 coe were therefore equivalent to a reinforcement of 5000 men. Is 
 it any wonder, then, that the British artillery is said to have been 
 * superb?' 
 
 " But this is not all. Every one of the powers is using high 
 explosives. The British use lyddite, the French melinite and the 
 Germans a similar explosive. At Santiago our soldiers had to hurl 
 their bare breasts against the Spanish entrenchments, for we had 
 nothing but an old type of slow-fire weapon, and evtn that we did 
 not use. ' 
 
 " Since then we have been experimenting with a new explosive 
 
 mLjM -^ 
 
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 'f i 
 
 270 
 
 FIRST CLASH OF ARMS. 
 
 to be used against the Filipinos. It is called ' thorite,' and is the 
 invention of a Western man. The War Department has ordered 
 Lieutenant Parker to go to the Philippines and superintend its 
 manufacture. It would seem that we have been obliged to join the 
 procession of nations using high explosives, for The Hague Peace 
 conference, while it went on record as against dum-dum bullets, did 
 not touch the matter of high explosives. 
 
 FEARFUL EXECUTION OF LYDDITE. 
 
 " While lyddite is something similar to gunpowder, its effects 
 are far more terrific. It was this awful stuff that the British used in 
 the Soudan. When the dervishes charged down on the British lines 
 at Omdurman and at the Atbara the lyddite shells mowed down 
 entire battalions. It is pretty evident that the ' superb' artillery 
 practice of the British at Glencoe was largely the work of lyddite 
 shells. At any rate the British propose to use them, and the reports 
 of military experts say that they accomplish fearful execution. 
 Whether thorite will prove equally destructive upon the Filipinos 
 remains to be seen. 
 
 " The Boers will probably protest in vain against the use of 
 lyddite, for all the leading nations are using that or something 
 similar. When applied to rapid-firing guns its effectiveness is some- 
 thing appalling. The nation that does not carry this awful machin- 
 ery has only the jaggedness of its territory and the superior heroism 
 and skill of its soldiers and generals on its side. As was shown by 
 Kitchener at the gates of Khartoum, the enemy caught in the open 
 is mowed down like grass, and no amount of personal valor can 
 save it. Lyddite is said to demoralize the nerves of the enemy. The 
 Boers, in their manliness, probably object to it on this ground. 
 
 " Such are the terrific instrumentalities used in modem war- 
 fare. In a level country they would count heavily against the 
 Boers. But in the Transvaal their effectiveness ,may be balanced 
 by superior alertness and generalship." 
 
 The terrific slaughter effected by the rapid-fire shrapnel guns 
 at Glencoe was the marvel of the military world. These guns, 
 more than any other arm of the service in the field, were responsible 
 
 ^' 
 
FIRST CLASH OV ARMS. 
 
 271 
 
 is the 
 Irdered 
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 Mn the 
 
 Peace 
 [ts, did 
 
 for the British triumph. The battle was half won by the deadly 
 hail of shrapnel before the infantry had advanced. The terrified 
 Boers, who never expected any such form of attack as this, were 
 glad enough to get out of their hiding places in the rocks and do 
 the best they could with their formidable enemy in open fight. 
 Nothing like it has ever before been known in warfare. 
 
 FULL OF RETREATS AND PITFALLS. 
 
 Something — quite enough to excite curiosity — was heard about 
 the now famous shrapnel guns when Lord Kitchener used them 
 with some effect among the enemy at Omdurman. But the fight- 
 ing there was open and there was nothing to do but let the infantry 
 go straight ahead. In Boerland it is very different. The country 
 is wild and mountainous, full of hidden retreats for the burghers 
 and pitfalls for the British. It is something like the conditions our 
 own troops had to face while chasing Indians through the Black 
 Hills in Dakota. 
 
 A word to the uninitiated about the precise meaning of the 
 word shrapnel. It is a shell, so named from its inventor. General 
 Shrapnel, and consists of a spherical cone filled with musket balls 
 and containing a bursting charge of powder. Extensive experi- 
 ments are being made with shrapnel guns in the armies of all the 
 powers of Europe. France, Germany and Russia are doing a great 
 deal with them, though they are keeping their experiments largely 
 to themselves. The Boer war forced England's hand and, in the 
 opinion of experts, shows that she is easily in the lead. The work 
 of all her field batteries, but more particularly the shrapnel, has 
 very much astonished experienced ordnance officers at Washington 
 and all over the country, aijd has incidentally uncovered some glar- 
 ing defects in our own equipment. 
 
 The latest and most deadly creation of the British gun-maker 
 employs a shrapnel projectile weighing about fifteen pounds. This 
 projectile consists of steel tubing, filled with about two hundred small 
 balls. These balls are of hardened lead and weigh almost one-third 
 of an ounce each. Each shell contains a light bursting charge, and, 
 so far as results show, may be timed with absolute accuracy. 
 
 : .V 
 
 H 
 
 mjM 
 
272 
 
 FIRST CI.ASII OF' ARMS. 
 
 In firing the gun a time fuse is fitted into the head of the pro- 
 jectile. In the hands of experienced gunners it may be cut so as 
 to cause the bursting of a shell as close as one-third of a second 
 after firing the gun. Or, on the other hand, the missile may be 
 given a flight of twelve seconds before bursting. The gunners aim 
 to burst the shrapnel about thirty yards short of the enemy's posi- 
 tion. At a range of looo yards all the shrapnel balls will be pro- 
 jected within a circle on the ground for about twenty-five feet in 
 diameter. The dispersion is greater according to the length of the 
 range. 
 
 The ordnance branch of the British army is not niggardly in 
 furnishing its gunners ammunition for target practice with its field 
 pieces, and particularly with any new piece. The wisdom of this 
 generosity is apparent in the accuracy with which a deadly down- 
 pour of bullets has been hurled into the hiding places of the Boers 
 among their native rocks in Natal. To have driven them from 
 their strongholds with infantry without first bringing the shrapnel 
 into play would surely have involved a shocking loss of life to the 
 British. 
 
 At Glencoe, or rather in the hills of Talana, just back of it, the 
 British gunners employed shrapnel with sweeping accuracy at a 
 distance of 3500 yards. Scarcely a shot was wasted, and the poor 
 Boers, brave as they showed themselves to be in open battle, were 
 terrified beyond description. 
 
 COULD NOT ESCAPE THE FIERY BLAST. 
 
 What was this ? Had the heavens espoused the British cause 
 and opened up a hail of lead that beat them down like so much 
 grain ? They had heard of the English rapid-fire guns, and had a 
 vague idea of shrapnel, but they were not prepared for such a de- 
 vastating fire from above as descended upon them and sought out 
 every nook and corner of shelter. In vain they shifted position 
 from one part of the pass to another. Those awful shrapnel 
 followed them everywhere and pelted them with a merciless rain of 
 fire. Bullets that fell from the skies by thousands and swept the 
 earth like hail were as mortal as though fired from a rifle. 
 
FIRST CLASH Ol- ARMS. 
 
 27.{ 
 
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 Brave burghers saw their companioiis fall round them like 
 sheep and there was no enemy in sight. They did not know how 
 to strike back. Long before the infantry came up the victory was 
 won and the hardy Boers, whose valor and dcterminarion in the face 
 of such tremendous odds won world-wide admiration, were compelled 
 to bite the dust in 'defeat. 
 
 English firing shells are loaded with lyddite. Lyddite is one of 
 the picric acid compounds known in this country as emcnsite and in 
 France as melinite. It is loaded in the shell like gun-cotton, the 
 shell having an explosive fuse at either end, but generally in the 
 front or striking end. 
 
 The explosive force of lyddite is tremendous. A small charge 
 of it fired against solid stone masonry has wrecked it as if it was so 
 much paper, and great holes have been dug in the ground from the 
 concussion. In the Soudan campaign lyddite shells were fired from 
 5.4-10 inch howitzers into the fanatical Dervishes as they came 
 charging down on the British lines. The results were appalling. 
 Scores and hundreds of men were literally blown to pieces, scattered 
 into fragments, as much as they would have been had they been 
 sitting over a barrel of gunpowder when the match was applied. 
 
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 CHAPTER XVIII 
 Fierce Fighting in Natal. 
 
 N the afternoon of October 2 2d, the War Office in London 
 
 received intelligence of another bloody battle. The despatch 
 was from the General commanding in Natal, Sir George 
 Stewart White, regarding the engagement of the 21st at Blands- 
 laagte, between Glencoe and Ladysmith, when the British under 
 General French routed the Transvaal forces under General Jan H. 
 M. Kock, second in command in the Transvaal army, who was 
 himself wounded and captured, and afterward died. 
 
 General White was present in person, but did not assume 
 direction of the fight, which was left in the hands of General 
 French. Although desultory fighting took place earlier in the 
 day, while reinforcements sent out later on ascertaining the enemy's 
 strength were arriving from Ladysmith, the real action did not 
 begin until 3.30 p. m. At that hour the Boers held a position of 
 very exceptional strength, consisting of a rock hill about a mile 
 and a half southeast of Blandslaagte Station. 
 
 At 3.30 p. M. the British guns took a position on a ridge 4100 
 yards from the Boers, whose guns at once opened fire. This fire 
 was generally well directed, but somewhat high. Contrary to pre- 
 vious experiences, their shells burst well. The Imperial Light 
 Horse moved towards the left of the enemy's position, and two 
 squadrons of the Fifth Lancers toward his right. During the 
 artillery duel mounted Boers pushed out from their left and 
 .engaged the Imperial Light Horse. 
 
 In a few minutes the enemy's guns ceased firing, and the 
 British artillery- was turned on the mounted Boers who opposed the 
 Imperial Light Horse. The latter at once fell back. After the 
 artillery preparations the British infantry advanced to the attack, 
 supported by guns in the second position. The Devonshires held 
 
 274 
 
 4- 
 
 y 
 
 J 
 
FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 275 
 
 the enemy in front, while the Manchester Regiment and the Gordon 
 Highlanders turned his left flank. 
 
 The Boer guns, although often temporarily silenced, invariably 
 opened fire again on the slightest opportunity, and were served 
 with great courage. After severe fighting the British infantry 
 carried the position. At 6.30 p. m. this was accomplished, the 
 I enemy standing his ground to the last with courage and tenacity. 
 The Fifth Lancers and a squadron of the Fifth Dragoon Guards 
 charged three times through the retreating Boers in the dark, doing 
 considerable execution. 
 
 CAPTURE OF THE BOER CAMP. 
 
 The Boer camp was captured, with tents, wagons, horses and 
 also two guns. The Boer losses were very considerable including 
 a number of wounded and unwounded prisoners. Among the 
 former was Piet Joubert, nephew of Commanding General Joubert, 
 who was prominent in the fight. One goods train, with supplies for 
 Glencoe Camp, and nine English prisoners, were recovered. The 
 British loss was heavy. It was roughly computed at 150 killed 
 and wounded. 
 
 A despatch from Cape Town, October 22d, 6.30 P. M., said: 
 The following additional details from ofi&cial sources are at hand 
 regarding the battle at Elandslaagte : 
 
 " The Boers, although driven from their guns, returned again 
 and again, whenever an opportunity offered. The high ground 
 near the left of the enemy's position was occupied at the com- 
 mencement of the action, the British creeping along the crest and 
 making a wide circuit. 
 
 "The infantry attack was directed against the right of the 
 memy's position, the British coming quickly into contact with the 
 Boers, who at that point occupied a strong footing, which they held 
 resolutely until a flank attack was made by our troops, who 
 advanced with great dash, and, in spite of heavy losses, carried the 
 main position with a rush, just as the light was failing. 
 
 " The ground traversed by our troops was rough and stony, 
 and the capture of the position was a fine feat of arms. The 
 
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 111 
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 276 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 cavalry lapped well around and inflicted severe loss on the 
 enemy. 
 
 "It was highly important to strike a severe blow, as the Orange 
 Free State forces are known to be concentrated northwest of Lady- 
 smith in considerable strength. The flank attack was gallantly 
 delivered by the Manchester Regiment, the Gordon Highlanders 
 and the Imperial Light Horse. The front attack was done with 
 splendid spirit by the Devonshire Regiment. The wounded are 
 being attended in the principal church at Ladysmith, which has 
 been converted into a hospital." 
 
 BRILLIANT VICTORY FOR THE BRITISH. 
 
 The capture of Blandslaagte was a brilliant feat of arms. The 
 Boers were strongly entrenched, and fought with their wonted 
 bravery. They se'^ed every opportunity of coming into action, 
 and ran to serve their guns whenever they could get a chance. 
 The British wounded were taken to Ladysmith. Every care and 
 attention was also given to the Boer wounded, who were despatched 
 down the country. Schiel, a former German officer, who was 
 leading a section of the Boers in the engagement at Blandslaagte, 
 was taken prisoner. 
 
 Further details of the engagement showed the desperate char- 
 acter of the battle. Realizing that the first attack on Glencoe was 
 part of a general combined attack by three columns, and that the 
 situation was still serious so long as the Boers held the railway at 
 Blandslaagte, severing connection b'^tween Ladysmith and Dundee, 
 Sir George Stewart White resol^'ed to give battle, with a view of 
 recapturing Blandslaagte. 
 
 On the morning of the 20t/\ all the mounted troops, supported 
 by two battalions of infantry i\nd two batteries of artillery, recon- 
 noitered some twelve miles along the Newcastle road, an open, roll- 
 ing country, very suitable %r cavalry operations, although the going 
 was heavy after the recent rains. 
 
 After approaching within three miles or so of the break in the 
 railway line, the British saw the Boer outposts falling back, appar- 
 ently m x\o ^Tcat force. Four were captured who had mistaken the 
 
 vVli^fc^ 
 
FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 277 
 
 British for Boers until too near for them to get away. Then the 
 British returned, and, late at night. General White determined to 
 advance in force on Elandslaagte at an early hour the following 
 morning. 
 
 It was imperative to dislodge the Boers from Elandslaagte, as 
 it had been learned that the Orange Free State burghers were 
 descending from their positions on the slopes of the Drakenberg, 
 from Tintwa and other western passes, to co-operaie with those 
 already posted at Elandslaagte. At an early hour the British 
 moved out by road and rail. It was computed that there were about 
 1 200 Boers, with big guns and Maxims covering their front, and 
 occupying a well-chosen position at the base of a hill, some little 
 distance south of Elandslaagte. On both flanks were strong kopjes, 
 or hills, on which were three big guns strongly posted and com- 
 manding a wide sweep on all sides, leaving an opening for retreat. 
 
 ARMORED TRAIN SHELLED BY BOERS. 
 
 A British armored train, supported by two trainloads of infantry, 
 immediately on approaching the enemy's position was shelled by 
 the Boers. Artillery v/as at once brought up and drove the Boers 
 from their guns, making a series of brilliant dashes into the valley 
 and up the successive heights to get nearer the Boer position. 
 Thrice were the Boer batteries on the way silenced by artillery, 
 although the Boers fought with great pluck and determination, 
 returning each time the guns moved and raining shrapnel and 
 Maxim bullets against the British advance. 
 
 At 4 o'clock a tremendous artillery duel was in progress. Two 
 Boer guns, splendidly placed, were stubbornly fought for two hours 
 and a quarter, while mounted Boers endeavored to come into contact 
 with the enemy on the left and on the right. 
 
 Then, at 6.15 p.m., the Devonshire Regiment, half the Gordon 
 Highlanders, half the Manchester Regiment and the Imperial Light 
 Horse advanced on the position and stormed the enemy's front. A 
 bayonet charge was sounded as the roar of artillery on both sides 
 suddenly ceased, and the British, the Devonshires leading, made a 
 superb dash against the main body of the Boers, undaunted by 
 
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 278 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 facing a fearful fire. Twice were they checked by the terrible fusil- 
 lade. Once the advance quivered for a moment, but then, with 
 ringing, roaring cheers, the whole force hurled itself forward like an 
 avalanche and swept the kopjes, bayoneting the broken enemy in all 
 directions. 
 
 The Boers were overwhelmed and astounded. They paused, 
 then retreated, then raised the white flag and surrendered. Two or/ 
 three hundred broke and ran, pursued by the Fifth Lancers, who 
 charged through and through them. It was quite dark by this 
 time, but the slaugher was great. The Boer loss was heavy. The 
 best estimates place it at 400 killed. 
 
 CAPTURE OF FLAGS BY THE DEVONSHIRES. 
 
 One of the captured Boers said that if he had known English 
 soldiers could shoot as they did he would never have come. Another 
 Boer said he knew he was fighting for a lost cause. A third ex- 
 pressed surprise that he had to shoot at men wearing khaki. He 
 was terribly dejected. He had been told to shoot at men with red 
 coats and white collars, and he saw none. His impression seemed 
 to be that the men who fought against him were not Englishmen. 
 
 A heavy rain fell immediately after the battle, making a piteous 
 scene on the battlefield, where many wounded were lying. 
 
 The Devonshire Regiment captured thirty-eight Boer flags. 
 Ccmmandant de Mellion, of Johannesburg, was taken prisoner. A 
 bugler boy of the Fifth Lancers, only fourteen years of age, shot 
 three boys with his revolver. On returning after the fight he was 
 carried shoulder high around the camp. 
 
 Everybody testified to the splendid fighting and stubborn 
 bravery of the Boers, but this tribute required some qualification, 
 for, while the Gordon Highlanders were bringing in the wounded, 
 a sharp fire was opened upon them by some Boer parties in hiding. 
 British losses, considering the desperate nature of the engagement, 
 were regarded as light. 
 
 Toward the close of the fight the British batteries ceased their 
 murderous fire, and the infantry charged up the rocky heights still 
 separating them from the enemy, and reached the summit of both 
 
FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 279 
 
 
 lie fusil- 
 
 In, with 
 
 like an 
 
 h in all 
 
 [paused, 
 
 Two or/ 
 
 brs, who 
 
 (by this 
 
 The 
 
 English 
 Another 
 lird ex- 
 ki. He 
 «^ith red 
 I seemed 
 jhmen. 
 L piteous 
 
 ;r flags. 
 
 ner. A 
 
 ge, shot 
 
 he was 
 
 iubborn 
 ication, 
 )unded, 
 hiding, 
 ^eraent, 
 
 id their 
 Its still 
 )f both 
 
 peaks of Smith's Hill and of the Nek between without a check 
 or halt. It was gallant work on both sides, and scores of men fell 
 within a distance of a couple of hundred yards, but the situation soon 
 became too hot for the Boers, who broke and fled for their horses, 
 which they had left at the foot of the hills on the northeast. There, 
 however, they were received with a fusillade from the Hussars, who 
 had captured or stampeded all the horses. 
 
 IN HOT PURSUIT OF THE ENEMY. ' 
 
 The enemy swerved in their line of retreat. Some surrendered 
 there and then, others made for Hatting Spruit, v/hile some moved 
 towards Landman's Drift. All who fled were closely pursued by 
 cavalry and a field battery. When the main fight was drawing to a 
 close, part, at least, of the Dannhauser contingent, under Com- 
 mandant Erasmus, came upon the ground, as well as a detachment 
 from a Free State contingent, which had made a forced march from 
 the south. The chief portion of the Free State troops, however, 
 remained in a strong position at Biggarsberg. All the Hussar 
 squadrons except one returned, and the whereabouts of that one 
 was known, so that there was no cause for anxiety. Severe punish- 
 ment was inflicted upon the retreating Boers. 
 
 Mr. Bennett Burleigh, the special correspondent of the Lon- 
 don Daily Telegraph in Natal, cabled the following account of the 
 battle of Elandslaagte : 
 
 " A reconnoissance having failed to draw the Boers out 
 from their defences at Elandslaagte, General French advanced 
 against them with a small force. The troops were conveyed in 
 ar< armored train to Elandslaagte and reached a position 700 
 yards from the station. The Boer main force was posted upon an 
 extremely rough and rocky range of hills, running at right angles 
 to the railway, over a mile further north. This chain of hills, 
 which is several hundred feet high above the swelling plain, has a 
 conical hill rising from a wide dip in the range. This left two nar- 
 row necks on either side of the base of this conical hill, where the 
 Boers had their camp wagons and tents. Half way up the necks 
 their guns were in position, two of them in the last neck. 
 
 jft.t; 
 
 -MLLUJ-^ y; 
 
280 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 i 
 
 i I'll 
 
 5 i? 
 
 
 . 4 
 
 ll\ 
 
 I I' 
 
 i,Vik^v*«*' 
 
 « n. 
 
 General French began tlie action about half-past 6 o'clock 
 in the morning by sending a shell from a 7-pourder into the 
 station shed, while the mounted volunteers began firing at the 
 Boers, who were irunning to take up their positions. The enemy 
 had only just finished their colonial matutinal coffee when they were 
 surprised. Nearly all of our prisoners were caught in the vicinity, 
 including the train which was recently captured, and its passengers. 
 " The Manchester Regiment in the early attack was at first 
 slightly leading. With the characteristic hardihood of British 
 infantry, all of .them marched straight-backed at the enemy, too 
 often careless about taking cover, despite the rattling and hissing 
 and spitting of the Mauser bullets. * Tommy Atkins ' says in fact, 
 'What! Hide from yokels? Let 'em shoot.' Discipline has its 
 drawbacks as well as its advantages. Our soldiers know they are 
 capable of readjusting the mistakes of the past. With a wide 
 sweep the Imperial Light Horse drove the Boers from the hills, 
 while the dismounted troopers and the Lancers clipped in smartly. 
 Upon .their left the Boers had their pointed stakes. 
 
 ADVANCE ALL ALONG THE LINE. 
 
 " Meanwhile, under a hot fire, ruled out in long lines, our 
 infantry marched along the low and heavy ground toward Elands- 
 laagte. About half-past 4 o'clock the Manchester Regiment and 
 the Gordon Highlanders swung round at * left shoulders ' to gain 
 the hills, but the Devonshire Regiment held on. The Dragoon 
 Guards forged ahead to the extreme left, threatening the railway 
 station, clearing that flank and menacing the line of Boer retreat. 
 General French, aided by his able chief of stafl^. Colonel Douglas 
 Haig, handled his men beautifully, timing and keeping the whole 
 operations well in hand. 
 
 " Our 15-pounders galloped up into a position whence they 
 could shell the left of the Boer position, thus greatly assisting this 
 infantry. Methodically and steadily the enemy were forced to give 
 ground. Bit by bit the Manchester Regiment and the Gordons 
 climbed the hill, and and then swinging at ' right shoulders ' up the 
 slope, began driving the Boers. As the artillery and infantry drew 
 
FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 281 
 
 o'clock 
 |into the 
 at the 
 enemy 
 ey were 
 Ivicinity, 
 Isengers. 
 at first 
 British 
 
 :my, too 
 hissing 
 in fact, 
 has its 
 
 they are 
 a wide 
 
 le hills, 
 
 smartly. 
 
 les, our 
 Elands- 
 ent and 
 to gain 
 >ragoon 
 railway 
 retreat. 
 >ouglas 
 ! whole 
 
 s they 
 ig this 
 :o give 
 3rdons 
 ip the 
 '■ drew 
 
 closer the Boer guns were directed against them. I had even the 
 honor of drawing much of their fire with my four-in-hand cape 
 coat. 
 
 -" General Sir George Stewart White came up by a special train 
 and witnessed the operations about an hour, until our success was 
 assured, when he returned to Ladysmith. The weather still re- 
 mained clear until after 4 o'clock. Nothing could have been 
 finer than the advance of our troops. In fact, it might have been a 
 glorious Aldershot field day, so stately and deliberate were our 
 mevements. 
 
 " The panorama was heightened and colored by the red war 
 hue of the gun flashes. Shells tore roaring through the air like an 
 express in a tunnel, bursting noisily and spouting flame and lead 
 and steel, which hissed like a hot iron dropped into water. The 
 places of explosion were marked by clods of earth, with a nimbus 
 of white smoke. 
 
 DESTRUCTIVE RIFLES AND ARTILLERY. 
 
 " The enemy bobbed about over the rocks like jacks-in-the-box, 
 firing heavily at us, with a fair accuracy for a magazine gun. The 
 Mauser rifle is a terrible weapon, although it inflicts clean wounds, 
 but many of the enemy used explosive bullets besides Martinis. 
 The Boer shells were mostly percussion, and threw up volcanoes of 
 mud and stones. They, however, destroyed the limber field artillery, 
 and inflicted damage on our infantry. Our gunners should note 
 especially that upon rocky ground percusion shells give better 
 results than high bursting shrapnel. 
 
 " Forced back down upon the conical hill and their camp, the 
 Boers struggled desperately, and soon found their retreat menaced. 
 Their leaders strove to encourage them while reinforcements came 
 rushing hot foot from r.earby in order to check the retreat by suc- 
 cessive rushes, the wxtn cheering. While the Manchesters and 
 Gordons bore forward along the crests of the hills their officers 
 everywhere were marked for death, but the Tommies made it their 
 fight also. Colonel Chisholm, of the Imperial Light Horse, courted 
 disaster by waving a scarf to give encouragement to his men, who 
 
 •. 1', U' 
 
 %,^jW;» 
 
^%^.iM^' 
 
 282 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 really needed none. He, like others of our splendidly brave fel- 
 lows, were killed. 
 
 "A driving rain, accompanied by darkness, now set in, but the 
 battle continued to rage until 6 o'clock in the evening, by which 
 time the Boers were scuttling off in numbers, many of them rising 
 and throwing down their arms, while others, bolting, were hunted 
 and batted by our shrapnel and Lee-Medford bullets. Somebody .. 
 showed a white flag, and Colonel Hamilton tried to stop the firing, / 
 but the Boers, ensconced on the conical hill, and caring nothing 
 about their comrades, took advantage of the lull to deliver a heavy 
 fire. 
 
 " The Gordons and Manchesters, rendered more savage than 
 ever by this, redoubled their energies, for the Boers in the hollows 
 were delivering a flanking fire. At ten minutes to 6 the Devon- 
 shire Regiment, who had crept in upon a face position, each man 
 getting to cover behind numerous anthills, whose domes were from 
 two to three feet high, rose and ran forward to the assault. Our 
 guns ceased their showers of shell, but the Boers resumed firing in 
 the growing darkness. 
 
 LOUD CHEERS FOR THE VICTORY. 
 
 ** There was pandemonium, lasting about a quarter of an hour, 
 above all of which loud British cheers rang. Our three regiments 
 raced for the Boers and their guns. The Devonshires, favored by 
 their position, got in first in a body, and took them, but the others 
 above came down over the rocks. Our victory was secure, but still 
 a spattering fire went on till half-past 6 o'clock. 
 
 " Now it only remains to count the gains and the cost. One 
 hour more of daylight would have given us the whole force as 
 prisoners, but in the thick darkness which now came on the 
 unscathed and slightly wounded ran for it. A squadron each of 
 Dragoon Guards and Lancers rode at them, and struck them, t 
 cutting and thrusting, and probably killed sixty in all. The 
 enemy's guns, their abundant stores, hundreds of saddles and 
 horses, a quantity of personal baggage, many of their war flags 
 and much ammunition fell into our hands. 
 
rave fel- 
 
 but tlie 
 which 
 rising 
 hunted 
 »niebody , 
 firing, / 
 [nothing 
 [a heavy 
 
 ?e than 
 hollows 
 Devon- 
 ch man 
 re from 
 
 t. Our 
 
 iring in 
 
 n hour, 
 rinients 
 )red by 
 ■ others 
 •ut still 
 
 One 
 
 )rce as 
 
 )n the 
 
 ach of 
 
 them, f 
 
 The 
 
 s and 
 
 flags 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 iv,m 
 
 283 
 
 " I estimate their strength at just under 2000. Ours was about 
 the same, but the Boers position was an almost impregnable one. 
 The enemy's killed and wounded numbered some 300. All has 
 been done for the whole of the wounded that is possible, and the 
 Boers to-day expressed gratitude for their treatment. About forty 
 of them were allowed to go into their own hospital, a mile and 
 a half to the north, for treatment. Our * Tommies ' got wonderful 
 quantities of loot, from silk hats and frock coats to beaded KafEr 
 loin-cloths. It was a sight to-day to see them loaded with their 
 booty. 
 
 "Although we gave the prisoners the best seats around the 
 camp-fires, many of the poor wounded had to lie out on the bare 
 hillsides, where they spent a terrible night, crying, ' For God's 
 sake; give me water!' * Get a doctor for me, out here !' 'Are the 
 British Boers ?' One man fired round after round from his rifle to 
 attract attention to his whereabouts, for the field of battle covered 
 miles. 
 
 IRON BRIDGE DESTROYED BY THE BOERS. 
 
 " To-day our force returned to Ladysmith, where they received 
 a great welcome. The enemy have destroyed the iron bridge at 
 Waschbank, so that train service" to Dundee cannot be resumed. 
 The Gordon Highlanders say that the Elandslaagte action was 
 a very severe one, Dargai a fool to it. Our prisoners number 
 fully 300. I saw eight dead Gordon Highlanders lying in one 
 heap. Boers declare the kilts made the men conspicuous, but 
 that the khaki is difiicult to locate. The enemy ask where our red 
 coats are. 
 
 " Reports which have been obtained from Boer sources say 
 that out of one commando only 250 men are left, the hospitals are 
 full, and their losses are perhaps 1000. All of our wounded and 
 prisoners have been brought to Ladysmith, where there are ample 
 hospital accommodations for them. Electric lights have been fitted 
 up, also Roentgen ray apparatus. All day long the streets have 
 resounded with cheering as our troops return. Bands of prisoners 
 also continue to arrive. " 
 
 iv^^'; 
 
 i, <f 
 
 i i\- 
 
 t'V 1 
 
 mm 
 
 M 
 
284 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 i I 
 
 
 m \^ 
 
 !l 
 
 i: .; 
 
 The following description of the battle of Elandslaagte is from 
 the pen of a war correspondent who witnessed the engagement : 
 
 "The battle was a brilliant, complete success. The Boers 
 numbered from 1200 to 20CX), and probably had about 100 killed 
 and 150 wounded. The fight itself was like a practical illustration 
 of handbook tactics, each arm represented doing its proper work to 
 perfection. The Gordon Highlanders in their attack advanced in 
 magnificent order. They were immediately saluted with a heavy 
 fire, which told from the first. 
 
 WOUNDED OFFICER LIGHTS HIS PIPE. 
 
 " Their Major fell with a bullet in his leg, but as he lay where 
 he fell he lit a pipe and smoked placidly while the advance con- 
 tinued. As man after man dropped, supports were rushed into the 
 firing line, our men darting from cover to cover, splendidly led and 
 ever advancing. Yet, as ridge after ridge was won, the Highlanders 
 still found a new ridge confronting them, and thus they fought their 
 bleeding way until the final ridge was neared, with nearly every 
 officer down. 
 
 " Then rushing every available man into the firing line, Man- 
 chesters, Devons and Light Horse all mixed, with bugles chanting 
 the advance, bagpipes shrieking and the battle a confused surge, 
 our men swept yelling forward, and the position was won. Mean- 
 while squadrons of Lancers and Dragoons lapped round the Boer 
 left flank, catching the enemy as they retired in disorder, goring 
 and stamping them to pieces. And the commando was not." 
 
 General French thanked the troops on the field, especially men- 
 tioning Colonel Ian Hamilton's splendid work. The British bivou- 
 acked on the captured position on the night of the 21st. Colonel 
 Scott-Chisholm, the only British officer killed, was formerly attached 
 to the Ninth Lancers. He served with distinction in the Afghan 
 war, and organized the Imperial Light Horse, a majority of whom 
 were refugees from the borders of the Transvaal. 
 
 The death of General Viljoen was a severe blow to the Boers, 
 and the death of General Kock and the capture of General Preto- 
 rius hindered the further movements of this column. 
 
 ■^iJ*^^' 
 
FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL 
 
 285 
 
 is from 
 nit : 
 
 Boers 
 
 killed 
 
 itratiou 
 
 Kork to 
 
 iced in 
 
 heavy 
 
 ^ where 
 ce coii- 
 uto the 
 ed and 
 anders 
 It their 
 every 
 
 i, Man- 
 lanting 
 surge, 
 Mean- 
 e Boer 
 goring 
 
 ^ men- 
 
 bivou- 
 
 alouel 
 
 ached 
 
 fghan 
 
 vhom 
 
 ioers, 
 Veto- 
 
 Further information concerning the battle of Glencoe, an 
 account of which has already been furnished, was contained in the 
 following graphic description of the fight by an eye-witness among 
 the English troops : 
 
 " It was after the battle was renewed, following the lull that 
 ensued upon the sharp canoiiading of the British, which silenced 
 the guns of the Boers on Smith's Hill, that our casualties began. 
 The Indian Hospital Corps of coolies, under Major Donegan, of 
 the Eighteenth Hussars, ran out, keeping in the rear of the advanc- 
 ing infantry and artillery that had galloped from the second position 
 through the town amid the cheers of the citizens. 
 
 SHRAPNEL DID FEARFUL DAMAGE. 
 
 "At this point the Boers became erratic. Our artillery was 
 firing on the hill where the Boers were stationed in great numbers, 
 but the return fire did little damage. The enen:y kept up an inces- 
 sant shooting, but our shrapnel began to tell its tale, with the result 
 that the Boer fire visibly slackened. From a ceaseless rattle the 
 rifle fire dwindled to straggling shots. 
 
 " The artillery in front was shelling the hill, and the King's 
 Royal Rifles on the right front were busy with the Maxims, making 
 the Boers anxious about their position. Their artillery had been 
 silenced by the splendid strvice of ours. Meanwhile a squadron 
 of the Eighteenth Hussars and a mounted company of the Dublin 
 Fusileers were creeping around on the enemy's left flank, while 
 another squadron of the Hussars and a mounted company of the 
 King's Royal Rifles deployed to the right flank, at the cornfields. 
 
 " The artillery continued to play on Smith's Hill, with a range 
 of nearly 3000 yards. Under its cover the Dublin Fusileers and 
 the King's Royal Rifles pressed forward. It was in the execution 
 of this manoeuvre that the casualties to our infantry occurred, several 
 men being killed or wounded. 
 
 *' The firing now eased off" on our side, and only a solitary shot 
 was returned now and then. General Symons taking advantage of 
 this lull, rode forward with his staff" in front of the guns, taking 
 cover at the rear of the plantation, near the base of the hill. All 
 
 I 
 
 1! / 
 
 I 
 
 iii 
 
 ^J 
 
 f'' . :^ii 
 
 *:'5 
 
 iPf^ 
 
 fl 
 
 'm 
 
 % 
 
286 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 H: 
 
 this time our infantry, in extended formation, had gradually pressed 
 forward, .'atching the Boers from the rear of the artillery and 
 massing on the extreme left of the hill. 
 
 " I saw three shells in quick succession cut some to pieces and 
 and drive others away. The Boer fighting was becoming hot, but 
 the First Battalion of the King's Royal Rifles and the Irish 
 Fusileers, led respectively by Colonel Gunning and Colonel Carlton, 
 continued to mount the hill. Gradually they extended along the 
 ridge, and at lo o'clock, after four and a half hours of artillery 
 firing to screen them, they managed to reach a wall, running par- 
 allel with the ridge, about 6cx) yards from the summit. 
 
 BEATEN BACK AGAIN AND AGAIN. 
 
 " This position was gained under cover of some magnificent 
 shooting by our artillerymen, who placed shells at points where 
 the Boers were massed with amazing accuracy, compelling them to 
 retire. But not for long. On again the determined enemy would 
 come, only to be beaten back again by the excellent shooting of 
 the Thirteenth and Sixty-ninth Batteries, under Major Dawkins 
 and Major King. 
 
 "At 1145 A. M. the firing had almost ceased, and our infantry 
 were over the wall in a twinkling and rushing toward the plateau 
 at the base of the top or secondary ridge. The defence made by 
 the Boers was most determined, the enemy again and again pouring 
 a long fusillade fire into the British ranks, which was hotly returned 
 in well-directed volleys by the slowly advancing Dublin Fusileers 
 and King's Royal Rifles. 
 
 "A large body of Boers, driven from Smith's Hill, took refuge 
 in a cattle kraal, intending a cross fire. The Thirteenth Battery 
 oprned fire, how^ever, and poured in such a hail of bullets as caused 
 them speedily to shift the position. 
 
 "Thus far the enemy have displayed undoubted courage, 
 perhaps unequaled by the best European troops. They had 
 stood up to our scattering artillery fire with the greatest deter- 
 mination, and then, on Talana Ridge, standing clearly out on 
 the sky line, they still appeared unbeaten and defiant. The 
 
 ■^*^ 
 
FIERCE I'IGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 287 
 
 \^-ff^ 
 
 >ressed 
 ^y and 
 
 battle had now raged six and a half hours, when the Sixty-ninth 
 Battery was ordered to limber up and advance. The battery gal- 
 loped into a new position in splendid form, and was in action at 
 the front in a moment. " 
 
 *' So effective was the apparent result of this close range firing 
 that the Thirteenth Battery was at once ordered up, and after two 
 rounds from each battery perfect silence reigned over the enemy's 
 front, broken only by the whirring of the Maxims, served by the 
 Dublin Fusiliers, who had secured an excellent position to the right. 
 During a momentary cessation the Boers had taken up a position 
 on a hill to the right of the road leading to Maima colliery, but the 
 Thirteenth Battery soon opened fire on them and compelled them to 
 retire. 
 
 " Meanwhile the two infantry battalions continued to climb the 
 hill, and at 1.30 p.m., after eight hours of desperate fighting, the 
 position was carried, the Boers having precipitately evacuated the 
 hill. Thus what had commenced with a battle at Dundee ended in 
 a glorious victory for British arms at what must be known as the 
 battle of Talana Hill or Glencoe." 
 
 LONG HOURS OF HARD FIGHTING. 
 
 The earliest information regarding the battle conveyed the im- 
 pression that the whole affair v^s over in a couple of hours, the 
 British artillery silencing the Boer guns and infantry, and then 
 simply charging right over the hill. According to the later advices, 
 however, the battle lasted eight hours, and nearly seven hours 
 elapsed before the last Boer gun was put out of action. 
 
 The Irish Fusileers and the King's Rifles meanwhile had 
 advanced to the assault and were shooting their way up the hill, 
 driving the Boers back from shelter to shelter, until the final rush 
 of the British carried them to the summit. It was a bright, clear 
 morning, which enabled the operations to be followed by the staff 
 officers without difficulty. A curious fact was that several times a 
 lull occurred in the firing on both sides, the British infantry appar- 
 ently taking breathing space iu the stiff climb and the Boers hold- 
 ing back their fire. 
 
 

 288 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 The magnificent practice of the British guns was an immense 
 help, and the success of the assault was greatly due thereto. Au 
 enormous quantity of ammunition was expended. Once the Brit- 
 ish bayonets showed on top of a hill the Boers retreated, and when, 
 on the other side, they found a British battery and British cavalry 
 outflanking them, the retreat became a rout. The British guns 
 followed, and, unlimbering, from time to time threw shells among 
 the flying foe. 
 
 The latter did not wait to try conclusions with the Hussars and 
 mounted infantry, who apparently seldom got near enough to de- 
 liver efiective volleys. The pursuit was continued until dusk, 
 when the Boers were completely demoralized. A heavy rain began 
 to fall late in the afternoon, which naturally impeded artillery work. 
 It was a striking coincidence that the date of the battle was the sec- 
 ond anniversary of a similar feat of British arms in India, when 
 the Gordon Highlanders stormed Dargai Heights. 
 
 TERRIBLE SUSPENSE IN LONDON. 
 
 On Sunday, October 2 2d, the vicinity of the War Office, London, 
 was crowded all day by anxious enquirers for the latest information. 
 The greatest anxiety and suspense existed regarding the losses at 
 Elandslaagte, and as to the fate of the Hussars who pursued the 
 Boers from Glencoe. Type-written copies of the reports of General 
 Sir George Stewart White were posted on bulletin boards or read to 
 the crowds amid much enthusiasm, while the additions to the list of 
 killed and wounded at Glencoe were received with manifestations 
 of personal bereavement. 
 
 The stream of callers y.t the War Office showed little diminu- 
 tion as the evening advanced. Everybody was gratified to read the 
 kindly message from the Queen, and disappointed at the absence of 
 news from Glencoe, many arguing that communication must be cut 
 off, as otherwise there would be at least some further intelligence as 
 to the condition of General Symons, who, according to an uncon- 
 firmed report, died of his wounds. This report proved afterward 
 to be true, as stated in preceding pages. The losses in killed 
 and wounded were the subject of pulpit references in all the 
 
 \vi*^^ 
 
FIERCE FIGHTING IN NATAL. 
 
 289 
 
 immense 
 |eto. An 
 Ithe Brit- 
 |nd when, 
 cavalry 
 ish guns 
 IS among 
 
 3sars and 
 fh to de- 
 til dusk, 
 in began 
 iry work, 
 the sec- 
 ia, when 
 
 , London, 
 Jrmation. 
 losses at 
 sued the 
 General 
 r read to 
 le list of 
 ^stations 
 
 diminii- 
 read the 
 sence of 
 t be cut 
 ence as 
 uncon- 
 ierward 
 killed 
 all the 
 
 cliurches, especially the Catholic churches, owing to the disasters 
 that befell the Irish Fusileers. 
 
 The message from the Queen, above referred to, was addressed 
 to the Secretary of State for War, the Marquis of Laudsdowne, 
 and was as follows : " My heart bleeds for these dreadful losses 
 again to-day. It is a great success, but, I fear, very dearly bought. 
 Would you convey my warmest and heartfelt sympathy with the 
 near relatives of the fallen and wounded and my admiration of the 
 conduct of those they have lost ?" 
 
 Yet the patriotic spirit shown by the English people every- 
 where was most resolute and self-sacrificing. One of the members 
 of the Royal Canadian Special Service Regiment, which sailed for 
 Cape Town, to strive for the honor of the British Empire, had a 
 mother who wrote him as follows : 
 
 "My Dear Son: I was never more surprised than when I 
 received your letter informing me of your intention to be a soldier 
 and go to the battlefield at once. No matter, dear boy, how this 
 affects me, I will not be guilty of making you feel sad or taking the 
 courage out of your heart at this moment — the courage you need so 
 much to keep you manly and brave. You are only following in the 
 footsteps of your forefathers — they were all British to the core. 
 Your great-grandfather, both your grandfathers and your father 
 all were true to their king and country. Now, dear boy, you have 
 
 been well brought up -^ ; but I will say, be a good and obedient 
 
 soldier, and respect your commanding officers, no matter who they 
 are. We all here will pray for you, and may oUr dear Lord keep 
 you and bring you back safe to us. 
 
 " Good-bye, and may God bless and protect you from danger, 
 with lov'ic. Your very affectionate Mother." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '9 
 
 
( !■? 
 
 
 1 5 * 
 
 iill 
 
 f 
 
 !i|i 
 
 l.*'^^'^ 
 
 & 
 
 \, • ■*- 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Thunder oi Artillery Around Ladysmith. 
 
 OTH the glory and the horror of the struggle between the 
 English and Boers was shown in vivid colors by the battle of 
 Blandslaagte. Beginning in sunshine at 7 in the morning 
 and ending in rain and darkness after a fierce fight of nearly ten 
 hours' duration, it was marked by a dogged courage on the one 
 hand and such irresistible valor as will make it the wonder of future 
 generations. 
 
 In view of the victory of the British in carrying such aii 
 almost impregnable position, it was perhaps not surprising that re- 
 ports found their way from Cape Town to London that President 
 Kruger was ready to surrender. 
 
 Tlie slowness of the Boer movements after they entered Natal 
 was a surprise to many. Within forty-eight hours after the ulti- 
 matum expired the Boer forces had crossed the border. Natal, 
 which is a small colony little more than a fourth of the area of the 
 State of New York, is in its northern portion shaped like a wedge 
 driven in between the Orange Free State on the west and Transvaal 
 territory on the east, the eastern boundary being the Buffalo River, 
 while the western frontier is the Drakensberg range of mountains. 
 
 Near where the river and the mountains meet on the north, to 
 form the point of the wedge, is Charlestown. The railway running 
 south, down the middle of the wedge to Ladysmith — distant little 
 7iiore than sixty miles as the crow flies — traverses all the important 
 points mentioned in the exciting news frcm the seat of war, and a 
 glance at their location made clear the tardiness of the Boer move- 
 ment, since, on the second day after the ultimatum, the force under 
 command of General Joubert was reported as moving down from 
 Charlestown. 
 
 They sent word to Newcastle, about twenty miles south, that 
 they would hoist their flag there on the following Saturday ; that 
 290 
 
THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 291 
 
 tliey would pay for anything that they should take, and said they 
 wanted opportunity to slaughter cattle. The place was evacuated 
 by the British before the Boers reached it. Now it is little more 
 than twenty miles further south to Glencoe, near which the Boers 
 made their attack, with such disastrous results to themselves, on 
 October 20th. A spur from the railway runs east three or four 
 miles to Dundee, where the coal mines are, and the permanent 
 British camp was located between the two towns. In the hint about 
 slaughtering cattle probably lies the secret of the Boer's slowness — 
 a defective commissariat. 
 
 such an 
 that re- 
 resident 
 
 d Natal 
 he ulti- 
 Natal, 
 a of the 
 a wedge 
 ansvaal 
 ) River, 
 lutains. 
 orth, to 
 unning 
 t little 
 3ortant 
 , and a 
 move- 
 under 
 L from 
 
 1, that 
 ; that 
 
 DEFICIENT IN ARTILLERY PRACTICE. 
 
 Although well armed and admirable in the speed with which 
 they mobilized, it was anticipated that the Boers would be deficient 
 in artillery practice and that in an open fight men who had just 
 dropped the farmer's utensils would be inferior in evolution to those 
 whose life is devoted to scientific warfare. On the other hand, the 
 undaunted courage to which the victors in the battles paid unstinted 
 tribute, their power of endurance and their skill as sharpshooters 
 made them foeman to be feared in the sort of semi-guerilla warfare 
 in which their past successes were achieved. 
 
 Now, however, they had thousands in the field where in the 
 past they had but hundreds, and the handling and feeding of large 
 bodies of troops in the camp and on the march presented problems 
 with which they had never before been confronted. After the 
 defeat it was found they had only one surgeon and a primitive staff 
 to cope with hundreds of wounded. 
 
 The campaign appeared to have been well planned to strike a 
 telling blow at the British before their tremendous reinforcements 
 arrived, and by these preliminary victories to inspire the Dutch 
 population of the entire country to rise. While General Joubert 
 invaded Natal from the north. Free State troops simultaneously 
 entered it through the mountain passes tv^enty-five miles west of 
 Lady smith. The purpose, apparently, was to cut off communica- 
 tion between Ladysmith and the garrison, twenty-five miles north of 
 it, at Glencoe and Dundee, and when this had been defeated to make 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
m 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 -.V^.-.M*^ 
 
 292 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 a simultaneous attack from the north and west on Sir George Stew- 
 art White at Ladysmith. 
 
 The preliminary attack on Glencoe was planned to be made by 
 three columns — one from the north under General Erasmi.s, one 
 from the south under Commandant Viljeon, and the one under 
 General Meyer, which took up its position on Smith's hill and 
 opened the battle on the morning of the 20th. 
 
 Telegraphic communication between the three commands had 
 been lost, and when the fight began the others were far away, and 
 General Meyer after a stubborn contest was routed. While his men 
 were still flying before the British cavalry a portion of Sir George 
 Stewart White's command sallied forth from Ladysmith and won 
 the thrilling victory at Elandslaagte. 
 
 MASTERLY RETREAT OF GENERAL YULE. 
 
 After Sir William Symons had been wounded the command of 
 the Dundee force devolved upon General Yule. Elandslaagte was 
 fought on the day after the battle of Dundee, or Glencoe, and 
 then there came a mysterious lull which caused some uneasiness. 
 After the defeat of General Meyer's column, General Yule found 
 himself threatened by the northern column under Erasmus and 
 Joubert, and was unable to hold his own under a largely outnum- 
 bering force of the undefeated enemy. Yule received orders to fall 
 back, and so, on the night of October 2 2d, he quietly evacuated the 
 position, and retired southward by the road which leads by Beith 
 through the mountains. 
 
 He had to leave his wounded behind. Sir William Symons 
 among them, in the field hospital, and there a few days later the 
 gallant general breathed his last. On October 25th Yule accom- 
 plished his junction with Sir George White, and the two British 
 forces, the main body at Ladysmith and the advanced force at 
 Dundee, became one force concentrated and ready for battle at 
 Ladysmith. 
 
 The retreat of Yule from Dundee to the base at Ladysmith 
 A'ill rank high in military annals as a skillful operation carried out 
 inder great difficulties. The retiring force abandoned everything 
 
 \. ''"^ I '1 p I i. I. . ..I n -rTTriuBM 
 
 
re St 
 
 evv- 
 
 lade by 
 fUcri, one 
 |e under 
 P"1I and 
 
 ids had 
 ^3.y, and 
 [his men 
 
 George 
 nd won 
 
 mand of 
 igte was 
 oe, and 
 easiness, 
 e found 
 lus and 
 mtnum- 
 s to fall 
 ited the 
 y Beith 
 
 >ymons 
 ter the 
 acconi- 
 British 
 )rce at 
 ttle at 
 
 ^smith 
 id out 
 'thing 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 293 
 
 that could in the least impede its rapid movements, and the weather 
 was very rainy. The retirement was effected without loss, the 
 enemy having been kept in check by Sir George White's timely 
 help from Ladysmith. Knowing that Yule was retiring towards 
 him, he sent out a reconnoisance along the Ladysmith-Dundee line, 
 and finding the Boers in force near the road prepared to attack them. 
 The Boers, as usual, had taken up a strong position on a ridge 
 with a kop, or abrupt mountain top, for a keep or main stronghold. 
 Under a heavy fire of shrapnel the Boers were shaken, and finally, 
 by an advance of infantry, driven from their commanding position 
 over the road, and this being the object Sir George White had in 
 view, the British column returned to Ladysmith. The way had 
 been opened for Yule. In all the three actions the Boer losses must 
 have been very heavy, probably twice those of the British. 
 
 HOW "LADYSMITH" OBTAINED ITS NAME. 
 
 As the name " Ladysmith" is prominently connected with 
 military operations in Natal, a word may be said of the lady after 
 whom the town is named. It was so named in honor of the wife of 
 Sir Harry Smith, who was once Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. 
 But who was the wife of Sir Harry Smith ? To answer that ques- 
 tion it is necessary to go back to the time of the Peninsular war in 
 the early part of the century. 
 
 Sir Harry Smith was in that war, and was present at the 
 storming of Badajoz, in the spring of 1812. According to a vera- 
 cious chronicler, on the day after the assault two handsome Spanish 
 ladies, one the wife of a Spanish officer, serving in a distant part of 
 Spain, and the other her sister, a girl fourteen years of age, Juana 
 Maria de los Delores de Leon, claimed the protection of Smith and 
 a brother officer, representing that they had fled to the camp from 
 Badajoz, where they had suffered violence from the infuriated 
 soldiery, having had their earrings brutally torn from their ears. 
 They were conveyed by Smith and his friend to a place of safety. 
 Within two years Juana Maria de Leon became the wife of Smith, 
 she being then sixteen and her husband twenty-six years of age. 
 
 General Sir Har* y Smith (in whose honor the towu of Harris- 
 
 
 ilii 
 
 2 "1^, if 43 
 
 w ?• 
 
 'm 
 
 k^' 
 
294 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 smith is named), died October 12, i860. The handsome Spanish 
 girl who became his wife forty-six years previously survived him 
 twelve years, and died October 10, 1872. It may be noted as a co- 
 incidence that on the twenty-seventh anniversary of her death 
 President Kruger sent his ultimatum, and on the thirty-ninth 
 anniversary of her husband's death the Boers invaded Natal and 
 surrounded Ladysmith. 
 
 It will help to a clear understanding of the military situation 
 at this period of the war to glance over the field of operations and 
 get some idea of the strength of the opposing forces, together with 
 the plan of campaign on each side. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE BOER ARMY. 
 
 The ultimatum of the Boers, presented October loth, not having 
 been accepted, they at once declared war against Great Britain. As 
 one of the things they demanded was the withdrawal from Natal of 
 all British troops sent there since the preceding June, it will be seen 
 that war had been imminent for some time, and both sides had made 
 great preparations. At the beginning of hostilities there were in 
 Natal nearly 15,000 troops, under the command of Sir George 
 Steward White. Along the Western border there were 2000 troops, 
 principally volunteers and Cape Mounted Police, under the com- 
 mand of Colonel Baden-Powell. 
 
 The military organization of the Boers is unique. Their per- 
 manent army consists of but a few hundred artillerymen. They 
 form, however, a nation in arms. Orders had been sent throughout 
 their territory for the burghers to turn out, each man to bring to 
 the rendezvous his horse, accoutrements, arms and ammunition. 
 Every able-bodied male, from eighteen to sixty years of age, is 
 liable to be called out. 
 
 No accurate information as to the strength of the Boer force at 
 this time was available. A moderate estimate is 18,000 in the South 
 African Republic and 14,000 in the Orange Free State. To these 
 might be added some of the Afrikanders in the adjoining British 
 territory. 
 
 These troops assembled at Harrismith, Volksrust, Vryheld and 
 
 ^04.A^'*^^ 
 
THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 29ff 
 
 I Spanisli 
 ''ed him 
 as a co- 
 
 (ty-ninth 
 ItaJ and 
 
 [ituation 
 fons and 
 ler with 
 
 : having 
 lin. As 
 ^J■atal of 
 be seen 
 id made 
 were in 
 George 
 troops, 
 le com- 
 
 eir per- 
 They 
 ighout 
 ing to 
 aition. 
 ge, is 
 
 rceat 
 South 
 these 
 ritish 
 
 land 
 
 Bremersdorp, forming a cordon around the apex of Natal. On the 
 morning of October 12th the Boers crossed the frontier at Botha's 
 Pass on the west, Laing's Nek at the apex, and from Wakkers- 
 troom on the east. General Joubert being with the central, column. 
 The Free State forces came from the west — one column through 
 Van Reenan's Pass toward Bester's Station, and another through 
 Tintwa Pass toward Acton Homes. 
 
 The northern column advanced to Newcastle and occupied it 
 on October 14th, the British, previous to the opening of hostilities, 
 having withdrawn from the extreme northern part of Natal, and 
 having their main position at Ladysmith, with a small force at 
 Glencoe and Dundee. The object of the Boers seemed to be to keep 
 the British forces at Ladysmith and Dundee occupied while parties 
 of Boers could slip by to the south, cut the railway and telegraph 
 lines, destroy bridges and cut off the British from their base at 
 Durban on the coast and their advanced base at Pietermaritzburg. 
 
 SHARP ATTACK BY THE BOERS. 
 
 War being declared, the Boers immediately assumed the offen- 
 sive, their northern column attacking the British forces near Glencoe 
 on October 19th. The Boers, as we have seen, commenced their 
 attack with artillery from a hill about 5000 yards from the British 
 camp. The British artillery opened in reply, and, after an artil- 
 lery duel, the attack on the hill began, the infantry in front, 
 the cavalry on the flanks. After eight hours of stubborn fighting 
 the position was taken, the Boers being driven eastward and losing 
 their guns. 
 
 The advance of the Boers had cut off communication between 
 Ladysmith and Glencoe, and it was a military necessity to dislodge 
 the Boers from their position before they were joined by the burgh- 
 ers from the Orange Free State. Consequently, Sir George White 
 sent a column from Ladysmith along the Newcastle road. The 
 enemy was found in a strong position on hilly ground, about a mile 
 and a half east of Klandslaagte. After a long and stubborn fight 
 the Boer camp was captured, with their transportation, camp equip- 
 age and two guns. 
 
 li'- 
 
 
 m 
 
 i 
 
 
 mj^M 
 
296 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 The way was now clear to a junction between the main forci: 
 at Lady smith, and the withdrawal of the force near Glencoe was 
 considered advisable, as otherwise the British would have had two 
 separate bodies of troops, each of which was smaller than the Boer 
 force confronting it. While these operations were going on between 
 Ladysmith and Dundee, the burghers from the Orange Free State 
 were on their way to the theatre of operations, and on October 17th 
 they were seen descending from the western passes, and later came 
 in contact with the British outposts near Bester's Station and Acton 
 Homes. No serious engagement took place there, however, and this 
 column of Boers seems to have stopped in its advance. 
 
 As the contingents from the South African Republic and the 
 Orange Free State were now within forty miles of each other, it 
 was essential that a junction should be effected between the forces 
 of General White and General Yule with the least possible delay, 
 so that the combined British forces might be in a position to act 
 upon either one or the other of the hostile columns before they 
 effected a junction. 
 
 THE TWO FORCES UNITE. 
 
 This was not easy, as reconnoissance showed that the Boers 
 still held a strong position between Ladysmith and Dundee, and it 
 was necessary for General Yule's force to make a detour at once to 
 reach the main force at Ladysmith. General White had sent out 
 some troops to meet him, and this force joined hands with General 
 Yule's command and the junction of the British troops was effected. 
 
 Meanwhile the towns on the southern and western borders had 
 been menaced by small armed bodies of Boers, those along the 
 Orange River frontier being almost entirely unprotected. Along 
 the western border the railroad runs nearly north, parallel to the 
 border and but a few miles from it. It passes through Kimberley, 
 Vryburg and Mafeking. The forces along this line, as before stated, 
 consisted of about 2000 men, principally volunteers and Cape 
 mounted police, with a few regulars, under the command of Colonel 
 Baden-Powell. 
 
 The Boers opened operations along this line by capturing and 
 
 i 
 
^'.-'ij 
 
 m force 
 coe was 
 had two 
 he Boer 
 between 
 -e State 
 >er 17th 
 er came 
 Acton 
 ind this 
 
 ^nd the 
 )ther, it 
 ■ forces 
 2 delay, 
 1 to act 
 re they 
 
 ' Boers 
 , and it 
 once to 
 snt out 
 reneral 
 Jected. 
 rs had 
 ig the 
 Along 
 to the 
 >erley, 
 Jtated, 
 Cape 
 Lionel 
 
 r ana 
 
 tP 
 
 % 
 
 1 I! 
 
 
 1^9 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 i ^ 
 
 %■■'■■ 
 
 fo 
 
 RECONNOISSANCE IN FORCE OF BRITISH CAVALRY. 
 
destroyi 
 isli and 
 garrison 
 except 
 south. 
 
 Kii 
 uoiterin 
 attacke( 
 were d( 
 tlie larj 
 conside 
 place b 
 siderab 
 
 In 
 shown 
 great t 
 1881. 
 to hav 
 in soli 
 impre! 
 Redve 
 
 ually 
 
 Their 
 
 seque 
 
 natur 
 
 ] 
 
 centr 
 
 was ' 
 
 hold 
 
 easil; 
 
 occu] 
 
 trooj 
 
 been 
 
 atta<: 
 
THl-^NDKR OF AKTlLLliRY AROUND LADYSMI'lH. 
 
 297 
 
 destroying an armored train. Vryburg was abandoned by the Brit- 
 ish and taken possession of by the Boers. It had a very small 
 garrison, probably police, and was of small importance in itself, 
 except that its possession by the Boers cut the British line to the 
 south. 
 
 Kimberley at this time was in a state of siege, and a recon- 
 noitering party of about 300 volunteers and mounted police was 
 attacked near that place by the Boers. After a hot fight the Boers 
 were defeated and their leader killed. Colonel Baden-Powell, with 
 the larger part of his force, was in the vicinity of Mafeking, where 
 considerable fighting occurred. On October 15th, an attack on this 
 place by the Boers was reported, the Boers being repulsed with con- 
 siderable loss. 
 
 \ GREAT BRAVERY ON BOTH SIDES. 
 
 In the fighting so far great bravery and stubbornness were 
 shown on both sides. The English would seem to have made a 
 great tactical advance since their operations on the same ground in 
 1 88 1. They made a very effective use of their artillery, and seemed 
 to have, to some extent, overcome their historical tendency to fight 
 in solid masses. The necessity of fighting in extended order was 
 impressed upon them by no one more emphatically than by Sir 
 Redvers BuUer. It is a question whether the Boers were individ- 
 ually as expert with the rifle as they were twenty years before. 
 Their country was more settled, there was much less game and con- 
 sequently much less attention to hunting than formerly. The 
 natural result would be decreased efficiency as soldiers. 
 
 It was, perhaps, unfortunate for British prestige that the con- 
 centration at Ladysmith did not take place at an earlier date. It 
 was considered from the outset that it would be impracticable to 
 hold such an exposed point as Laing's Nek, as it could be turned so 
 easily through the mountain passes to the south, and the force 
 occupying it entirely cut off from its base. The withdrawal of the 
 troops from Glencoe after the declaration of war, ar.d after they had 
 been attacked by the Boers, although they were the victors in the 
 attack, could not but detract from their prestige, strengthen the 
 
 
 Hh 
 
 m 
 
 K> ^i. (♦!,:■> 
 
208 
 
 11 1 UNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 I 1 
 
 ii 
 
 / :> 
 
 I ^'^ 
 
 iiionilc of the Boers and have a great effect upon the Afrikanders, 
 heretofore neutral, who secretly sympathized with the Boers. 
 
 The strategy of the Boers seems to have been good. They 
 were prepared to take the field the moment their ultimatum was 
 rejected by the British government. Each contingent was called 
 out in its own territory and had Natal for a common objective. If 
 they could cut off the British force in Natal, which their great 
 numerical superiority in the field (probably nearly three to one) 
 would lead them to expect, they would not only achieve a great 
 military success, but the moral effect might also be to add to their 
 strength by the accession of Afrikanders scattered through all the 
 British possessions in South Africa, and they might also hope for 
 an uprising in their favor by some of the native tribes. 
 
 SITUATION FAVORABLE TO THE BOERS. 
 
 They enjoyed the great advantage of a central position, the 
 border forming roughly the letter " U," and were thus enabled to 
 move on interior lines within the'ir own territory. They could move 
 against Natal, or, making a feint in that direction, could throw their 
 main force against the British possessions on their western border. 
 The advantage- of the possession of interior lines in the case of the 
 Boers, however, was much lessened by the fact that on account 
 of the lack of railway facilities in an easterly and westerly direction 
 their troops would have to move across the country by marching. 
 
 On October 30th the military situation in South Africa is 
 described by a London journal with exceptional sources of informa- 
 tion as follows : " For some days, if not, indeed, some weeks, the 
 main interest in the military situation will be centred at Lady- 
 smith. The Boer forces arj gradually working their way round the 
 town, entrenching themselves as if they were playing a waiting 
 game. This, however, will probably be only a temporary measure. 
 It is clear that they have withdrawn men from other points which, 
 for the moment, they consider less important, and are concentrating 
 for a supreme effort against Ladysmith. 
 
 " This town, which is third in importance in Natal, is situated 
 on the Klip river, just to the east of the railway. As the town is 
 
 'Vi-L^fc*^' 
 
THUNDER OF ARTIIXKRY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 2\)\) 
 
 zanders, 
 
 Thcy 
 
 um was 
 
 Is called 
 
 ive. If 
 
 r great 
 to one) 
 a great 
 to their 
 all the 
 lope for 
 
 'on, the 
 ibled to 
 Id move 
 ow their 
 
 border, 
 e of the 
 account 
 irection 
 hing. 
 frica is 
 iforma- 
 ks, the 
 
 Lady- 
 nd the 
 i^aiting 
 iasure. 
 which, 
 rating 
 
 tuated 
 >wn is 
 
 approached from the south there is a high, rocky ridge of hills, the 
 summits of which are clothed with mimosa trees. The town, shel- 
 tered by a semi-circle of hills, is of importance, from the fact that 
 there are large railway workshops there. The most important posi- 
 tion to the northeast of the town is Lombard's Kop, at a distance of 
 about five miles. It is in this direction that a strong force moved 
 on the 27th. It met a reconnoissance of the enemy. The Hoers 
 withdrew early next day. 
 
 " News regarding the cutting off of the water supply is some- 
 what surprising, and seems to show that the British camp has been 
 shifted, and that the Boers are closer to the town than was generally 
 supposed, for since Ladysmith was made a military station in 1897 
 the troops have been stationed near the water works, about two miles 
 from the town. 
 
 QUICK MILITARY OPERATIONS. 
 
 " The Boers, too, are exhibiting a certain amount of daring, 
 which argues great confidence. They have managed to snap up a 
 patrol of non-commissioned officers, carry off a thousand mules 
 and seize the municipal slaughter-houses, with supplies of both 
 meat and slaughtered stock. This, with the ease with which they 
 have reorganized the German Corps, so severe a sufferer at Elands- 
 laagte, and the column commanded by General Meyer, which was 
 shattered at Talana Hill, shows that they have great recuperative 
 powers, and by no means consider themselves beaten men. 
 
 " Indeed, they have, throughout the campaign, shown great 
 fertility of resource and dogged perseverance, with which they 
 have managed to transport heavy guns and post them in command- 
 ing positions worthy all admiration. 
 
 " It is, of course, practically impossible to forecast what Sir 
 George White will do. His chief difficulty will be to induce the 
 enemy to attack him on ground of his own choosing. There would 
 be no doubt of the result, if this could be brought about. The in- 
 dications, however, are that there will be on both sides an indulgence 
 in Fabian tactics, but these will be all in favor of the British." 
 
 On the 30th of October a battle raged around Ladysmith a 
 
 
 V^ 
 
 j 
 
 1 ' 
 
 m 
 
 
 'I 
 
I 
 
 1 
 
 li^tr' 
 
 iiH'< 
 
 800 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 large part of the day and proved to be a stubborn contest. The 
 British advance was made at dawn with the object of shelling the 
 Boers from the position where they had mounted a number of guns. 
 On reaching the spot it was found they had evacuated the position. 
 The British continued to advance and the movement developed 
 into an reconnoissance in force. The enemy were posted on a range 
 of hills having a frontage of about sixteen miles. The British 
 force was disposed in the following order: On the right, three 
 regiments of cavalry, four batteries of the Royal Field Artillery 
 and five battalions of infantry ; in the centre, three batteries of the 
 Royal Field Artillery, two regiments of cavalry and four infantry 
 battalions, and on the left, the Royal Irish Fusileers, the Gloucester- 
 shire Regiment and the Tenth Mountain Battery. 
 
 PLAN FAILED OF EXECUTION. 
 
 This force had been detailed to guard the British left flank at 
 a late hour. General White's plan of operations was that, as the 
 movement developed, the force constituting the centre, which was 
 disposed under cover of a hill, about three miles from the town, 
 should throw itself upon the enemy, while the left flank was being 
 held by the Fusileers and the Gloucesters. The scheme was well 
 devised, but failed in execution, owing to the fact that the Boer 
 position, which formed the objective, was evacuated. 
 
 The British artillery quickly reduced the volume of the 
 enemy's fire, but the attack delivered on the right flank was the 
 principal one, and the column was compelled to change. The Boer 
 attack had been silenced for a time, and the British infantry 
 advanced covered by cavalry. 
 
 The enemy now began to develop a heavy counter-attack, and 
 as they were in great numerical superiority, General White gave 
 orders for the infantry to be gradually withdrawn. The movement 
 was carried out with great steadiness and deliberation, under cover 
 of the guns, v/hich did good execution. Some shells were thrown 
 into the town from the enemy's forty pounders at a range of over 
 6000 yards, but no damage was done. The engagement lasted 
 several hours, and resulted in serious losses on both sides. 
 
 ■vci,,'W^^ 
 
THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 801 
 
 '^'fc^n^f^f: 
 
 1st. The 
 Ming the 
 of guns, 
 [position. 
 |eveIoped 
 a range 
 British 
 (ht, three 
 artillery 
 -s of the 
 ' infantry 
 loucester- 
 
 flank at 
 t, as the 
 lich was 
 le town, 
 as being 
 vas well 
 he Boer 
 
 of the 
 was the 
 he Boer 
 nfantry 
 
 :k, and 
 e gave 
 cement 
 r cover 
 hrown 
 f over 
 lasted 
 
 The attack was admirably delivered by tlie British right, and 
 the Boers were fairly driven out of one of their strongholds down 
 near Lombard's Kop. It was not possible, however, to push the 
 success much further, as below that point lay a long broken ridge, 
 affording every kind of natural cover. Of this the enemy took 
 the fullest advantage. 
 
 The shells failed to dislodge the Boers, and as the infantry 
 moved forward in extended order they came under a heavy and well- 
 directed rifle fire, the effect of which was soon apparent. General 
 White, who was with the centre, seeing that the troops were some- 
 what pressed, sent to their assistance the whole centre column with 
 the exception of the Devonshire Regiment. 
 
 TERRIFIC ARTILLERY DUEL. 
 
 The battle had then lasted four hours, during which the artil- 
 lery fire on both sides had been almost incessant. The naval 
 brigade which landed at Durban arrived on the scene toward the 
 end of the fight, and immediately brought their heavy guns into 
 play. Their practice was magnificent. At the fourth shot the 
 enemy's forty-pounders had been knocked out of action. Through- 
 out the engagement the Boers held their ground with courage 
 and tenacity, and suffered severely. 
 
 The engagement at Lady smith, which, despite the rather heavy 
 losses, was regarded rather as an extended reconnoisance or skir- 
 mish than a battle, made little change in the actual positions. It 
 was disappointing to the British public as again revealing tactical 
 skill of an unexpectedly high order on the side of the Boers. In 
 addition to the possession of a number of heavy guns, the transport 
 of which caused wonderment, they showed marvelous ability. Un- 
 less commanded by skillful European officers, it was hardly con- 
 sidered probable that Boer soldiers would have assumed a feigned 
 position, as they evidently did, in front of the right column, with 
 the intention of retreating from it to their real line of defence, and 
 of inducing the British to attack over a fire-swept zone. 
 
 The special despatches describing the engagement again failed 
 to confirm General White's official account that the Boers were 
 
 f. '« 
 
 
 ^-'^Jkjl« 
 
i. M: 
 
 
 i! 
 
 ' a. 
 
 ■ li t , 
 
 302 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 ptisbed back several miles. The fightiug began with a frontal 
 attack on the main Boer position, which, however, was found evacu- 
 ated. The enemy having retired, now made a change of front 
 and developed a heavy attack on Colonel Grimwood's brigade. To 
 meet this the British artillery, which had beiu shelling the evacu- 
 ated position, also changed front. 
 
 Grimwood's brigade was promptly reinforced, but soon was 
 obliged to fall back rapidly, with consequences which might have 
 been serious had not the Fifty-third Field Battery pluckily covered 
 the movement at considerable loss to itself. It is quite certain that 
 General White failed to accomplish the object he intended, and the 
 day's proceedings were an instructive example of the difficulty of 
 operations when the enemy holds an e;s:tended position from which 
 he is able to make sudden and unexpected developments and 
 changes of front. 
 
 SURROUNDED AND FORCED TO SURRENDER. 
 
 Under date of October 30th the following from General White 
 was received at the London War Office : "I have to report a disas- 
 ter to the column sent by me to take a position on a hill to guard 
 the left flank of the troops. In these ^operations to-day the Royal 
 Irish Fusileers, No. 10 Mountain Battery and the Gloucestershire 
 Regiment were surrounded on the hills, and after losing heavily 
 had to capitulate. The casualities have not yet been ascertained. 
 
 " A man of the Fusileers employed as a hospital orderly came 
 in under a flag of truce with a letter from the survivors of the col- 
 umn, who asked for assistance to bury the dead. I fear there is no 
 doubt of the truth of the report. I formed a plan, in the carrying 
 out of which the disaster occurred, an-' I am alone responsible for 
 the plan. There is no blame whatevei. on the troops, as the posi- 
 tion was untenable." 
 
 The next day telegraphed as follows : "I took out from Lady- 
 smith a brigade of mounted troops, two brigade divisions of the 
 Royal Artillery, the Natal Field Battery and two brigades of infan- 
 try, to reconnoitre in force the enemy's main position to the north, 
 and, if the opportunity should offer, to capture the hill behind 
 
fttf^f^'': 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 303 
 
 frontal 
 
 id evacu- 
 
 (of front 
 
 ide. To 
 
 ►e eyacn- 
 
 ioon was 
 ht have 
 covered 
 :ain that 
 and the 
 iculty of 
 m which 
 !nts and 
 
 I. 
 
 1 White 
 a disas- 
 to guard 
 e Royal 
 Jtershire 
 heavily 
 ained. 
 ly came 
 the col- 
 re is no 
 arrying 
 ible for 
 e posi- 
 
 i t,ady- 
 of the 
 "infan- 
 north, 
 behind 
 
 Farquhar's Farm, which had, on the previous day, been held in 
 strength by the enemy. In connection with this advance a column, 
 consisting of the Tenth Mountain Artillery, four half companies of 
 of the Gloucesters and six companies of the Royal Irish Fusileers, 
 the whole under Lieutenant-Colonel Carlton and Major Adye, 
 Deputy Assisiant Adjutant-General, was despatched, at ii p.m. on 
 the 29th, to march by night up Bells-Spruit and seize Nicholson's 
 Nek, or some position near Nicholson's Nek, thus turning the 
 enemy's right flank. 
 
 ARTILLERY CAUSES HEAVY LOSS. 
 
 " The main advance was successfully carried out, the objective 
 of the attack being found evacuated, and an artillery duel between 
 our field batteries and the enemy's guns of the position and Max- 
 ims is understood to have caused heavy loss to the enemy. The 
 reconnoissance forced the enemy to fully disclose his position, and, 
 after a strong-counter attack on our right, the infantry brigade and 
 cavalry had been repulsed, the troops were slowly withdrawn to 
 camp, pickets being left on observation. 
 
 " Late in the engagement the naval contingent, under Captain 
 Lambton, of Her Majesty's Ship Powerful, came into action, and 
 silenced, with their extremely accurate fire, the enemy's guns of 
 position. 
 
 " The circumstances which attended the movements of Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Carlton's column are not yet fully known, but from 
 reports received the column appears to have carried out the night 
 march unmolested, until within two miles of Nicholson's Nek. At 
 this point two boulders rolled from the hill and a few rifle shots 
 stampeded the infantry ammunition mules. The stampede spread 
 to the battery mules, which broke loose from their leaders, and got 
 away with practically the whole of the gun equipment and the 
 greater portion of the small-arm ammunition. The reserve was 
 similarly lost. 
 
 " The infantry battalions, however, fixed bayonets, and accom- 
 panied by the personnel of the artillery, seized a hill on the left of 
 of the road, two miles from the Nek, with but little opposition. 
 
 . ''4 
 
 
 s». , 
 
, It 
 
 ' 
 
 i: 
 
 304 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 There they remained unmolested till dawn, the time being occupied 
 in organizing the defence of the hill and constructing stone sangers 
 and walls as cover from fire. 
 
 "At dawn a skirmishing attack on our position was commenced 
 by the enemy, but made no way until 9.30 a.m., when strong rein- 
 forcements enabled them to rush to the attack with great energy. 
 Their fire became very searching, and two companies of the Glou- 
 cesters,. in an advance position, were ordered to fall back. The 
 enemy then pressed to short range, the losses on our side becoming 
 very numerous. 
 
 " At 3 p. M. our ammunition was practically exhausted, the 
 position was captured and the survivors of the column fell into the 
 enemy's hands. The enemy treated our wounded with humanity, 
 General Joubert at once despatching a letter me, offering a safe 
 conduct to doctors and ambulances to remove the wounded. A 
 medical officer and parties to render first aid to the wounded were 
 despatched to the scene of action from Ladysmith last night, and the 
 ambulances at dawn this morning. 
 
 THE MULES RUN AWAY. 
 
 " The want of success of the column was due to the misfortune 
 of the mules stampeding and the consequent loss of the guns and 
 small-arm ammunition reserve. The official list of casualties and 
 prisoners will be reported shortly. The latter are understood to 
 have been sent by rail to Pretoria. The security of Ladysmith is 
 in no way affected." 
 
 The battle at Ladysmith was disappointing to the British, as 
 the object, which was to roll back the Free Staters, was not achieved. 
 Yet the soldiers, individually, showed themselves fully a match for 
 the Boers both in shooting ability and pluck, although they were 
 faced by double their own numbers, posted upon rough ground 
 which had previously been prepared for defence and to resist a 
 cannonade. 
 
 The Boers had been drawing their coils closer around on the 
 west, north and east sides of the town, their forces being composed 
 of the Free Staters, General Joubert's column and that of General 
 
 MB 
 
THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 305 
 
 -cupied 
 saugers 
 
 nenced 
 
 fg rein- 
 
 mergy. 
 
 Gloii- 
 
 The 
 
 i^omiug 
 
 fortune 
 ns and 
 es and 
 ood to 
 iiitli is 
 
 sh, as 
 ieved. 
 cli for 
 were 
 round 
 Jist a 
 
 a the 
 )osed 
 leral 
 
 Meyer. General White's plan included fighting three simultaneous 
 actions. On the night of the 30th, before daybreak, the, British 
 troops marched out a distance of several miles from camp, and 
 succeeded in securing several points unseen by the enemy, the 
 advantage being thus on our side. Considering the nature of the 
 subsequent contests, the losses must be regarded as relatively light. 
 The Boers began battle at 10 minutes past 5 o'clock in the 
 morning by firing their 40-pounder guns from a ridge, situated 
 about four miles out, east of the railway, and dropping shells into the 
 town. The missiles luckily proved almost harmless. The action 
 soon became general, and the British left, centre and right engaged 
 the Boer positions. At first the batteries seemed unable to quite 
 silence the Boer artillery, which fought with indomitable energy 
 and pluck, the British gunners having to contend with the difficulty 
 of being on low ground. 
 
 ATTACKED WITH GREAT VIGOR. 
 
 General White's right and centre gained some initial successes, 
 but the enemy arrived in great force, and the right and left were 
 attacked with tremendous vigor. The left became partially hemmed 
 in, and the right was driven in steadily. General retirement began 
 at about 11 in the forenoon, and was executed everywhere \vith 
 coolness. 
 
 It was a serious misfortune to the British that the Powerful's 
 bluejackets, with their big guns, were not summoned sooner, as the 
 result of the engagement might have been different. Their third 
 shot with a 12-pounder, fired at i o'clock in the afternoon, silenced 
 the Boer 40-pounder. 
 
 Scouting operations which were carried out disclosed the fact 
 that several of the Boer's encampments, including that of General 
 Lucas Meyer's column, from Dundee, lay behind Lombards and 
 Bulwan Kops to the number of 7000 men, with two batteries. 
 
 At daybreak General French, with 4cxx) men, prepared to 
 
 assault these positions with bayonet and lance, but was recalled. 
 
 The Free Staters and Joubert's forces had joined hands to the south 
 
 of Modners Spruit and west of the railway. Their central position 
 20 
 
 SSw-^fc'5 
 
 j\iL 
 
 mi 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 1 
 
 ! ''':ulv;; 
 
 \m 
 
 
.%6 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMlTH. 
 
 ! f 
 
 
 was well selected from a tactical point of view, being upon rougli 
 hills, south of Matawan's Hook. 
 
 The Boers advanced in lines over a wide circuit of more than 
 ten miles, extending from west of Acton Homes to east of Bui wan. 
 General White detailed Major Adye with a mountain battery of 
 y-pounders and part of the Royal Irish Fusileers and the Glouces- 
 tershire Regiment to hold the neck of hills north of the old camp, 
 thus menacing the Free Staters' line of retreat, and securing Lady- 
 smith from a westerly attack. 
 
 General Sir Archibald Hunter, with Colonel Grimwood, two 
 batteries of artillery, the Leistershire and Liverpool Regiments and 
 the First and Second Battalions of the Rifie Brigade, were sent to 
 operate against General Meyer. 
 
 Itt passing beyond Lombard's and Bui wan Kops, unluckily one 
 battery and the Liverpools lost their direction in advancing. They 
 retraced their steps, but were not able to render assistance in the 
 action until late. 
 
 HURRIED MANCEUVRES OF TROOPS. 
 
 The remaining infantry brigades. Colonel Ian Hamilton's, 
 comprising the Gordon Highlanders, the Devonshire Regiment, the 
 Manchester Regiment and the Fourth Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, 
 and Colonel Howard's, consisting of the First and Second Battal- 
 ions of the King's Royal Rifles, the Dublin Fusileers and six field 
 batteries, were sent to the centre on the Newcastle roadway. 
 
 Colonel Howard's brigde, being on the right, halted in the 
 darkness behind a low kopje to the right of the roadway, about two 
 and a half miles out, the guns of Howard's men making a detour 
 by the right in order to turn what was thought to be the Boers' left. 
 General White sought to thrust forward his centre, while Major 
 fAdye, on the left, and Colonel Grimwood, on the right, held the 
 opposed commandoes in check. 
 
 Major Adye, going on along Walker's Hook road, found a big 
 force of Free Staters. The fighting soon grew desperate. An 
 exposed kopje, which was occupied, was at an early hour assailed 
 on all sides, and their ammunition mules, with the Kaffir drivers, 
 
 \vi^.«.'^" 
 
THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 307 
 
 \ ■-' 
 
 stampeded. This was followed by the disaster reported in General 
 White's despatches, which gave a profound shock to the British peo- 
 ple, who appeared to be looking for an uninterrupted series of 
 successes against the Boers. 
 
 The first shock of consternation over, the British Nation settled 
 down to regard the situation in a calmer mood, and to this they 
 were helped by the action of the government and all directly con- 
 cerned. Fully recognizing and appreciating the disaster the War 
 Office, without waiting for the meeting of the Cabinet Council, 
 issued orders for the mobilization of three battalions of infantry 
 and a mounted battery, which were to be sent to South Africa as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 FAULT OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL. 
 
 General White, whose magnanimous assumption of the entire 
 responsibility in his first dispatch commanded universal admiration, 
 sent a further dispatch, as we have seen, telling the tale in simple 
 but somewhat reticent language. This in a measure relieved the 
 gloom, and in two respects gave a brighter view of the catastrophe. 
 It now seemed that the full battalions were not engaged, thus 
 materially reducing the first estimate of the number of British pris- 
 oners captured by the Boers. 
 
 Is is also pointed out that the disaster was not altogether the 
 consequence of a tactical blunder, but was partly due to the unfore- 
 seen misfortune of the stampeding of the mules, which not only 
 deprived the colums of their battery guns, but lost to the reserves 
 a quantity of arms and ammunition. 
 
 It was known that the British made a brave and stubborn 
 resistance to a foe overwhelmingly their numerical superior. When 
 their last cartridge was fired capitulation became a necessity. It 
 was the almost incredible fact of a British regiment capitulating 
 while under fire which outraged public sentiment and made the 
 catastrophe a harder one to bear. One day the British public was 
 in the depth of despondency; the next the people are comforting 
 themselves in the belief that the Gloucesters and the Royal Irish 
 Fusileers maintained their regimental traditions by exhibiting 
 a courage and tenacity very rarely read of. 
 
 II ) I 
 
 % 
 
 ' 1 i 
 
 ''..'if i 
 
II 
 
 308 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 III) 
 
 :i 
 
 Military experts here were unable to comprehend why Colonel 
 Carlton's command was unable to communicate in such a sore 
 strait with the headquarters of General White, who was well pro- 
 vided with cavalry and mounted infantry. There were abundant 
 signalers, and it is regarded as inexplicable that arrangements were 
 not riade for keeping up communication between the detachments 
 sent into an intricate and dangerous country and the main body. It 
 is generally hoped that the lesson of Boer tactics would not be 
 thrown away, and that the public would not hear of other wild turn- 
 ing movements attempted by small forces through such a country. 
 
 SHOCKED BY THE NEWS. 
 
 Yet the first news produced an appalling effect, in part for the 
 reason that it was entirely unexpected. " Awful British disaster!" 
 yelled the newsboys, and all London stayed its hurrying course and 
 read the urchins' proffered wares. It was the hour when shoppers 
 crowded Regent and Oxford streets and Piccadilly. Women stopped 
 their carriages in midstreet and hailed the hoarse-voiced boys. Out 
 of fashionable stores rushed other women, young and gray haired, 
 and joined the throng of rich and poor, many of whom had their 
 hearts and happiness bound up in those fighting at Ladysmith. 
 Many stood stock still in the crowded streets scanning the pages of 
 the extras. 
 
 Then there was a rush to the War Office, which by noon was 
 surrounded with private carriages and cabs, while many of the 
 humbler class of people came on foot, all waiting and watching for 
 the names they held dear. 
 
 As the day advanced the throng at the War Office steadily 
 grew. Anxious friends practically fought their way to the notice 
 board, and most affecting scenes were witnessed. Many a woman 
 was heard to gasp, " Thank God, he's alive, at any rate !" as she 
 found the name of some beloved one on the list of prisoners. All 
 the afternoon the sidewalks were packed with solid masses awaiting 
 their turn to enter, and up to a late hour in the evening there was 
 a continuous stream of callers. 
 
 At Gloucester, the home of many of those engaged, the wild- 
 
[olonel 
 
 sore 
 
 |1 pro- 
 
 (ndant 
 
 were 
 
 lents 
 ly. It 
 lot be 
 
 tiiru- 
 mtry. 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 
 305) 
 
 est excitement prevailed. The special editions of the local news- 
 papers were speedily exhausted, and the same thing occurred at 
 Bristol and other towns in that county. Coming so soon after the 
 engagement at Reitfonteiu, where the Gloucestershires suffered 
 heavily, the news brought the keenest sorrow to households all over 
 the county, whose name the regiment bore. 
 
 The disaster caused a feeling akin to consternation, and in 
 Gloucestershire and the north of Ireland, where the captured 
 regiments were recruited, the blackest gloom prevailed, families 
 awaiting with beating hearts the names of the killed and wounded, 
 which were fully expected to reach a high figure. Many homes 
 were already in mourning in consequence of losses sustained by 
 these regiments in previous engagements. 
 
 DISASTROUS BRITISH LOSSES. 
 
 While minor reverses were not wholly unexpected, nothing like 
 the staggering blow General Joubert delivered to General White's 
 forces was anticipated. The full extent of the disaster was not 
 acknowledged, if it was known, at the War Office. The loss in 
 effective men must have been appalling to a general who was prac- 
 tically surrounded. Two of the finest British regiments and a 
 mule battery deducted from the Ladysmith garrison weakened it 
 about a fifth of its total strength and altered the whole situation 
 very materially in favor of the Boers, who again showed themselves 
 stern fighters and military strategists of no mean order. The dis- 
 aster cost the British from i2cx) to 1500 men and six 7-pound screw 
 guns, and as the Boer artillery was already stronger than imagined, 
 the capture of these guns was a great help to the Boers. 
 
 It is evident that the patriotism and fortitude of the British 
 nation were to be tested in real earnest by these operations in Natal 
 against odds. General White had a difficult task set him, and it 
 soon became evident the disaster would be taken with the dogged 
 coolness which Britons know how to display, and the final result 
 would be awaited without apprehension. 
 
 One of the most influential journals of Canada commented as 
 follows : " Great Britain is temporarily dismayed by the disaster at 
 
 !'' ii ,. 
 
 
 
 «iiWi 
 
310 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 • \ ! ::l 
 
 Ladysmith, and from all parts of the empire come expressions of 
 deep regret that the survivors of two grand regiments, which have 
 participated in many glorious victories in the past, are in the hands 
 of the enemy. It is feared that many ot the brave soldiers have 
 been killed or wounded, and that when the truth is known the loss 
 of life will be appalling. 
 
 " BRITON SHOULD NEVER SAY DIE." 
 
 " It would have been a lasting disgrace had the British soldiers 
 surrendered to the Boers ; a Briton should never say die, but fight 
 until the bitter end. According to a late report from General White 
 the regiments lost heavily in the encounter, and when their ammu- 
 nition was exhausted * the survivors of the column fell into the 
 enemy's hands.' The brave soldiers fought until the last shot 
 was gone. - ; > 
 
 " Though the disaster may mean a temporary check, and leave 
 Ladysmith in danger, the British will ^jfoceed with the campaign, 
 more determined tlian ever to conquer the Boers and place South 
 Africa under British rule. Already the War Department is making 
 arrangements to send forth regiments to take the places of the 
 Gloucesters and Irish Fusileers, and there is talk of forming another 
 army corps. 
 
 "The fighting qualities of the Boers and the skill of the 
 generals as military strategists must not be underestimated, and a 
 sufiicient force should be sent to Africa to crush the enemy. It 
 must be admitted, though regretfully, that the Boers outwitted the 
 British and laid a trap which they fell into. General White man- 
 fully accepts all responsibility for the disaster, and, while it is cer- 
 tain that ' somebody blundered,' we must admire the general, who, 
 though it means much to him and dims the glory of his past mili- 
 tary record, says, ' I alone am responsible.' There is no quib !ing 
 or attempt to shift the responsibility. 
 
 " It was feared that the loss of the regiments would weaken 
 General White's position and that he would be unable to hold 
 Ladysmith, but, according to later dispatches the War Department is 
 still in communication with the British camp. The Boers shelled 
 
 vVsJU.^^ 
 
m 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 311 
 
 . I, 
 
 ssions of 
 |ch have 
 (e hands 
 -rs have 
 [the loss 
 
 soldiers 
 "t figlit 
 1 White 
 ammu- 
 nto the 
 ist shot 
 
 id leave 
 npaign, 
 2 South 
 'making 
 of the 
 another 
 
 of the 
 1, and a 
 ay. It 
 :ed the 
 i man- 
 is cer- 
 I, who, 
 t mili- 
 b ling 
 
 eaken 
 
 hold 
 
 ent is 
 
 1 el led 
 
 Ladysmith, but the British silenced their guns, and General White 
 is confident that he will be able to hold out. 
 
 " It has been suggested that Canada should send another con- 
 tingent to help the mother country. We think that at the present 
 time the colonies should stand behind Great Britain and render all 
 assistance in their power. In a movement of this kind Canada 
 should take the lead, and let Britain see that we are with her, and 
 that if another contingent is required it will be sent without delay. 
 
 " The government should certainly volunteer to raise another 
 contingent, and let the colonial office decide whether or not they are 
 needed. Great Britain, however, seems able to cope with the occa- 
 sion, and though the disaster is a great one, many brave soldiers 
 being lost, and sorrow brought to many homes, the grand old nation 
 will soon recover and bring the Boers to terms. Yet we think the 
 offer of another contingent should be made. Young Canadians will 
 gladly volunteer their services to the mother country." 
 
 ON MANY A HARD-FOUGHT FIELD. 
 
 The Gloucestershire Regiment, the first battalion of which 
 capitulated at Ladysmith, was formerly the Twenty-eighth North 
 Gloucester. The colors bear the following magnificent list of 
 honors: Ramilies, Louisburg, Quebec (1759), Egypt (with the 
 sphinx), Maida, Corunna, Talavera, Barossa, Alburhera, Salamanca, 
 Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nives, Orthes, Toulouse, Peninsula, 
 Waterloo, Punjab, Chillianwallah, Goojerat, Alma, Inkerman, . 
 Sebastopol, Delhi. The regiment raised in 1694 has been prac- 
 tically in existence ever since. One detachment was on garrison 
 duty in Newfoundland in 1868. 
 
 The regiment was reorganized in 1702 and took part in the 
 campaigns in the Low Countries, and in Spain from 1704 to 1709. 
 In the Vigo expedition of 17 19 the Gloucestershires went to the 
 fore. Later in the campaign in Flanders the regiment added greatly 
 to its reputation by the gallant bearing in the fearful battle of j 
 Fontenoy and other bloody fights of that campaign. Coming to 
 this side of the water in 1757 it fought at Louisburg, Cape Bretav 
 and Quebec, 
 
 M] 
 
 ..'■m 
 
 
 :|w^. 
 
h 
 
 ' I 
 
 'l I--, 
 
 '^:k^^ 
 
 
 y 
 
 312 
 
 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 The immortal General Wolfe received his death wound while 
 marching at the head of this regiment on the Plains of Abrahuiu. 
 The regiment afterwards took part in the defense of Quebec against 
 the French besiegers. In 1762 the Gloucestershircs participated in 
 the capture of Martinique and Havana, and later fought through 
 the American war of independence, where the desperate valor of 
 officers and men in many of the fierce struggles aroused the admir- 
 ation even of Britain's enemies. The years of 1778 to 1794 pro- 
 vided the regiment with much active service in the West Indies and 
 Flanders. In 1798 it was part of the force which captured Minorca, 
 and in 1800 formed part of the expedition which demonstrated 
 against Cadiz. 
 
 THE FAR-FAMED GLOUCESTERSHIRES. 
 
 Under Sir Ralph Abercromby the regiment fought in Egypt in 
 1801, and in 1805-1807 was engaged in the campaign in Holland. 
 In 1808 the Gloucestershire Regiment took part in Sir John Moore's 
 expedition to Portugal. Throughout Wellington's campaigns in 
 Portugal and Spain the regiment fought, adding laurels to its record 
 on many a hotly contested field and participating in the crowning 
 battles and triuinphs of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The Crimean 
 war furnished the regiment with stirring service, as did also the 
 Indian mutiny. 
 
 The Princess Victoria's Royal Irish Fusileers, late Eighty- 
 seventh and Eighty-ninth foot regiments, is one of the finest regi- 
 ments in the British army. The first battalion, the one which 
 capitulated, was raised in 1793, and, strange to say, witliin two 
 years of its organization, had an almost similar experience to that 
 which befell it at Ladysmith. In the year 1795, during the cam- 
 paign in Flanders against the French, it formed part of the garri- 
 son of Bergen-op-Zoom. The Dutch troops of the garrison betrayed 
 their trust, threw open the gates and the Irish battalion had no 
 other recourse than surrender. In 1796, prisoners having been 
 exchanged, the battalion proceeded to the West Indies with the ex- 
 pedition under Sir Ralph Abercromby, and the following year took 
 part in the Porto Rico campaign. The interval between 1797 and 
 
THUNDER OF ARTILLICKY AROUND LADYSMUH. 
 
 313 
 
 
 i8io was a quiet one, but in the iast-nanicd year the battalion was 
 present at the capture of Mauritius, and was stationed there until 
 1S14. 
 
 Its next active service was in India in the Nepanl campaign of 
 1S16. The Burmese war of 1S26 furnished considerable hard cam- 
 paigning for the battalion. Throughout the Indian mutiny, 1857- 
 1S59, the first battalion was to the fore in many a bloody fight. Its 
 last active service previous to being ordered to South Africa was in 
 the Egyptian war of 1882. The battalion was stationed at Halifax, 
 N. S., from 1872 to 1876. 
 
 The second battalion of the regiment, raised in 1804, takes the 
 place of the Eighty-ninth foot, a regiment raised in 1804- and dis- 
 banded in 181 7, after distinguished .service in the Egyptian expedi- 
 tion, the Peninsula and the American war, 1812-13. This battalion 
 also has a good fighting record, as the following brief summary 
 shows: 1818, Mahratta war; 1824, Burmese war; 1856-57, South 
 African ; 1857-59, Indian mutiny ; 1884, Soudan. 
 
 STANDARDS WREATHED WITH HONORS. 
 
 This battalion was stationed at Quebec, Montreal and Toronto 
 for several years from 1841. As stated, the second battalion took 
 the place of the old Eighty-ninth foot. The regimental standards 
 bear the following honors, which include those gained by the old 
 Eighty-ninth foot and the first and second battalions of the regi- 
 ment : Egypt (with the sphinx) , Montevideo, Talavera, Barossa, 
 Tarifia, Java, Vittoria, Nivelle, Niagara, Orthes, Toulouse, Penin- 
 sula, Ava, Sebastopol, Egypt (1882-84), Tel-el-Kebir. 
 
 The Tenth Mountain Battery forms a part of a comparatively 
 recently organized branch of the royal artillery. This is a branch 
 of the army that has been represented in every battle in the annals 
 of the British history since Crecy, where the cannon of the time 
 were scorned alike by friend and foe. It is now, however, admittedly 
 the finest branch of the service, and one which has frequently 
 aroused the admiration and envy of foreign military critics. The 
 story of its record in active warfare would fill a bulky volume. 
 
 British enthusiasm over the war was shown in the grand fare- 
 
 I n^ffl 
 
 'Ilk) 
 
 
Sf 
 
 '04^^^^' 
 
 i « 
 
 :bt 
 
 314 THUNDER OF ARTILLERY AROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
 well given the Guards on their departure from London for South- 
 ampton, where they embarked for the Cape. Three battalions, the 
 First Scots, the Second Coldstreams and the Third Grenadiers, left. 
 The Scots marched to Waterloo Station at 7 o'clock in the morning. 
 The fact that the day was raw and foggy did not deter a large crowd 
 from assembling at Chelsea Barracks at 6 o'clock, and when the 
 detachment wheeled out of the barrack gates the people cheered till 
 they were hoarse. 
 
 Along the whole route a lusty ovation awaited the troops, the 
 spectators including the wives and sweethearts of the men. Before 
 many yards were covered, ranks were broken and the women 
 linked arms with the soldiers, who were carried along in the surg- 
 ing, singing crowd to the station, where an immense concourse was 
 waiting to give them a tremendous reception. 
 
 Friends grasped the rifles and kits of the troops and insisted 
 on carrying them. The men marched to the platform singing, 
 while the band played Scotch airs, in which the crowd, that was not 
 
 Auld 
 
 in 
 
 (( 
 
 allowed to go upon the plrtform, joined. All united 
 Lang Syne " as the train steamed out of the station. 
 
 The Second Coldstreams marched to Nine Elms Station, amid 
 similar enthusiasm and many affecting scenes. The officers allowed 
 the women to mix freely with the men on the line of march and 
 before they entered the station. 
 
 Crowds assembled also near the Wellington Barracks, from 
 which the Grenadier Guards emerged, after an inspection in the 
 barrack yard by General Sir Evelyn Wood, who complimented the 
 men on their smart appearance in their khaki helmets and red field 
 tunics. The march to Waterloo Station was a triumphal progress. 
 
 If possible, their departure evoked more euthusiosm than did 
 that of the Scots and Coldstreams. Friends and relatives marched 
 with them, and soldiers and spectators joined in songs, which were 
 frequently drowned by hurricanes of cheers as the troops passed 
 points where the crowds were massed. At times they had difficulty 
 to get through, the people seeming to wish to carry them to the sta- 
 tion on their shoulders. Cheers shook the building as the trains 
 steamed out, the troops responding lustily. 
 
m> 
 
 ■iM^ln 
 
 [South. 
 
 the 
 
 |"s, left. 
 
 »rning. 
 
 crowd 
 
 |en the 
 
 (red till 
 
 >s, the 
 
 IBefore 
 
 ^omeu 
 
 surg. 
 
 fse was 
 
 isisted 
 
 l^ging, 
 
 as not 
 
 ' Auld 
 
 f amid 
 Ilowed 
 h and 
 
 from 
 11 the 
 dthe 
 
 field 
 rress. 
 1 did 
 ched 
 were 
 ssed 
 ulty 
 sta- 
 lins 
 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 British Victories in the Western Campaign. 
 
 ARLY in November Cecil Rhodes declared Kimberley was "safe 
 as Piccadilly." He referred to one of the famous thorough- 
 fares of London, and his statement meant that in his estima- 
 tion, the diamond town had no reason to fear it would be captured. 
 The defenders were proving their ability to hold the Boers at bay. 
 
 All the information from the great diamond mining centre con- 
 firmed the view that the town was safe. It appears that defense 
 against a Boer investment of Kimberley in the event of war had, 
 even as far back as July, gone beyond mere discussion and was 
 then in actual process of preparation. 
 
 With such men as Cecil Rhodes and -Gardner Williams, of 
 California, manager of the diamond mines, to manage its defense, 
 even without the assistance of British troops, the capture of Kim- 
 berley would have been a most hazardous and diffcult task. Shortly 
 before the war broke out half a battalion of the Royal North 
 Lancashire Regiment was sent up to Kimberley from Cape Town 
 to serve as a " stiffening " for the local troops, who were stated to 
 number at least 2000 and perhaps as many as 3000 men, including 
 a cyclist corps. 
 
 The local forces comprised the Kimberley Regiment, a town 
 guard under the command of Major Frazer, the Diamond Fields 
 Artillery and a corps recruited from employes of the De Beers mine. 
 These latter had a Maxim all to themselves, and altogether Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel R. G. Kekewich had about twenty field and machine 
 guns at his disposal. 
 
 Colonel Kekewich was considered one of the cleverest officers 
 commanding regiments. He served in Egypt from 1884 to 1890, 
 and was very popular there. He was specially promoted as a major 
 in the Royal Inniskillin Fusileers, and was given command of the 
 Royal North Lancashire Regiment in 1898. He saw service in the 
 
 315 
 
 m 
 
 
 nj>:f 
 
 \4m'' 
 
 r '-!. 
 

 1. 11 
 
 
 316 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 Perak and Soudanese expeditions, and was military secretary to 
 two commanders-in-chief in Madras. His experience, therefore, 
 was ample. 
 
 Kimberley, which was defended by the force under Colonel 
 Kekewich, is situated on a plateau, and is four miles from the 
 Orange Free State and 647 miles from Cape Town. There are no 
 natural features around the " City of Diamonds!' that would assist 
 in its fortification, but mounds of earth thrown up by the miners 
 were of service in sheltering the British troops from the Boer forces. 
 Electric searchlights, which are part of the mines' equipment, made 
 a night surprise by the Boers very difficult. 
 
 SEARCHLIGHTS AND STRONG DEFENSES. 
 
 Kimberley tested the searchlights and found them satisfactory. 
 It also tested the defenses of the town through the medium of sham 
 attacks directed by Major Hore, commanding the Protectorate Regi- 
 ment, and felt that it was safe against the Boer besiegers, although 
 the Transvaal forces were said to largely outnumber the garrison. 
 
 Boys in Kimberley were infected with the enthusiasm which 
 dominated the town, and a cadet corps of lads from fourteen to six- 
 teen years old did orderly duty in the invested city, which has a 
 population of io,cx)0 persons. 
 
 Colonel Kekewich erected a new signalling station on the top 
 of a conning tower 130 feet above the level of the road, and from 
 this the movements of the enemy could be clearly discerned. The 
 station had telephone connection with headquarters in the town. 
 Tests of the value of this station were made both day and night, 
 and added to the confidence inspired by the presence of Cecil Rhodes. 
 
 When the war broke out the little town of Mafeking, in British 
 Bechuanaland, was practically defenseless, but soon the place was 
 more or less protected by sandbags and hastily-thrown-up earth- 
 works. But Mafeking lies entirely in the open plain, which is as 
 flat as a pancake. A few isolated hills and ant-heaps, and here and 
 tliere a clump of bushes under three feet high — these are the only 
 things that break the monotony of the landscape. 
 
 The high plain runs right away to the far-distant sky line, and 
 
 only a 
 travelle 
 
 from C 
 
 find Ui 
 
 by the 
 
 the glo 
 
 ^Shmiitt 
 
BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 817 
 
 fary to 
 ^refore, 
 
 Colonel 
 
 )m the 
 
 |are uo 
 
 assist 
 
 liners 
 
 [forces. 
 
 made 
 
 only a few scattered shanties mark the line of railway. If the 
 traveller were adventurous enough to travel by the through express 
 from Cape Town to Bulawayo, away up in far Rhodesia, he would 
 find Maf eking practically half-way between the two. This railway, 
 by the way, is the main Cape to Cairo route and will one day carry 
 the globe trotter right through Africa from end to end. 
 
 IMPORTANT TRADIM STATION. 
 
 There is nothing palatial about Mafeking. Normally, it is a 
 simple little township of a few hundred souls. Primarily, it is a 
 trading station with the far north, and there are many stores of 
 greater or less importance. Grain, forage, tinned goods, saddles, 
 rifles, ammunition, and even furniture, can be bought there. In the 
 centre of the Main street is the market-place, surrounded by 
 galvanized-iron houses and stores, each with its little raised veran- 
 dah painted green and white, and many of the more miscellaneous 
 shops bearing wild Indian names. For the enterprising Mahom- 
 medan trader has found his way throughout South Africa and com- 
 petes very keenly and successfully with the white man. 
 
 The main street of Mafeking is a long, wide and straggling 
 thoroughfare with native trees, eucalyptus and diminutive oaks at 
 intervals. The houses all stand in little plots of ground, and there 
 are attempts at cultivation here and there of a few sunflowers or a 
 potato patch or a hanging trail of the grenadilla or passion flower 
 fruit. There is a church, a club, a prison and Salvation Army bar- 
 racks. A good deal of horse buying and selling takes place at 
 Mafeking. It is rather a centre market for the surrounding farm- 
 ers, which are mostly Boers, who bring in ugly-looking, but very 
 useful, nags to the weekly auctions on the market-place. A good 
 horse may often be picked up (in times of peace, of course) , for from 
 thirty to forty dollars, and though he may be an ugly animal to look 
 at, he can do almost anything that is asked of him, and will outlast 
 many a handsome-looking animal. 
 
 Colonel Baden-Powell, that veteran South African warrior, was 
 placed in command of an irregular, but wholly reliable, force of some 
 600 men encamped at Mafekir.-j. This did not include the regulars 
 
 
 i( 
 
 '.i-y*, 
 
ni8 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 
 which were sent to him since *:he hostilities began. He is an excel- 
 lent officer, a good sportsman, an inimitable entertainer and a bit of 
 a literary character to boot. 
 
 He went through the Matabele war and gained experience, 
 honor and no wounds. In some way he seems to bear a charmed 
 life, because he is a reckless sort of fellow and fears no danger. 
 He also has a quite remarkable gift of locality, that is to say, he is 
 able by some extraordinary instinct to find his way about a totally 
 unexplored country and always turn up just where he wants to, or 
 thereabouts. He shot big game wherever big game was to be shot, 
 and then came home quietly and wrote books about it. He is a 
 clever actor and musical entertainer. 
 
 n (I 
 
 i ;,! 
 
 li 
 
 RAILROAD BRIDGE STRONGLY GUARDED. 
 
 The railway bridge near Mafeking was built over the Moloppo 
 River, which runs east and west a quarter of a mile from the town, 
 and in view of its being easily blown up by the Boers, Baden-Powell 
 kept strict watch on it. The railway is the property of the Cape 
 Government. It is pretty fairly run. The fares are terribly high, 
 but, of course, that is inevitable in a new country. The officials are 
 mostly ex-English railway officials, and are uniformly polite — a 
 great contrast to the railway servants on the Dutch lines. 
 
 The Boers began a botnbardment of Mafeking at twenty min- 
 utes of 8 o'clock in the morning of October 23d, at a range of two 
 miles and a half, their battery of three Krupp guns throwing 
 7-pound, 9-pound and 12-pound explosive shells. At the outset the 
 firing was erratic, but ultimately the Boers got the range and sent 
 a number of shells into the town. Comparatively little damage 
 was done, a convent, which had been converted into a hospital, 
 being the chief sufferer. This building was struck thrice. 
 
 Apparently the Boer ammunition was inferior. No casualties 
 were sustained by the British, and only one shot was returned. 
 This, however, was So well directed as to disable one of the enemy's 
 guns. After three hours the Boers sent an envoy to ask the town 
 to prepare for surrender. Colonel Baden-Powell replied in the nega- 
 tive. The shelling was not resumed. 
 
BRITISH VICTORIES 
 
 ;UJ) 
 
 ixcel- 
 bit of 
 
 ience, 
 rmed 
 nger. 
 he is 
 tally 
 to, or 
 shot, 
 2 is a 
 
 The thrilling story of the siege of Mafeking reached London 
 by a circuitious route north of the Transvaal border. It contained 
 many interesting incidents. Colonel Baden-Powell provided subter- 
 raneous shelter-places where the troops and civilians could take 
 refuge while the shells were bursting. These were very effective in 
 preventing casualties. 
 
 The Boers tried to get within rifle range under cover of the 
 fire of their guns, but were beaten off after a spirited engagement 
 on all sides of the town. Both civilians and soldiers stood up 
 splendidly and administered a warning to the Boers against coming 
 to close quarters. In consequence of the fight, General Cronje fell 
 back on his old tactics, to advance by a succession of trenches. 
 This move had been anticipated. The British sent out parties 
 incessantly to worry the Boers by night attacks. 
 
 BOERS BAYONETED IN THEIR TRENCHES. 
 
 Colonel Baden-Powell employed clever tactics in sending out 
 Captain Fitz Clarence's squadron of the Protectorate Regiment to 
 worry the occupants of the trenches, and the little force stole out 
 silently in the darkness. Not a shot was fired. The men, with 
 bayonets fixed, creeping rather than walking along the ground, 
 gradually approached the chief Boer position near the race-course. 
 
 As they closed in there was a shrill screech. It was Fitz 
 Clarence's whistle, the signal for the onslaught. A ringing British 
 cheer which the listeners back in the camp caught up was the 
 response as the party dashed into the trenches. It was a fearful 
 struggle. The attacking forces bayoneted the Boers under tarpau- 
 lins where they crouched. At least fifty bayonets got in their work. 
 For just a moment there was no systematic resistence. Then a 
 perfect hailstorm of bullets poured from the trenches to the rear. 
 
 Again Fitz Clarence's whistle sounded. It was ''Cease firing ; 
 scatter homeward." The forces scattered silently, creeping back 
 under the furious fire in the darkness to the appointed rendezvous, 
 where a roll-call showed the British losses six killed, one missing 
 and eleven wounded. But these came back. The British left no 
 wounded man on the field. 
 
 m 
 
 ;i5 if* 
 
 %ti.l 
 
 Ml., ■ ■ 
 
S20 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 Another thrilling episode occurred the next afternoon. A cor- 
 poral and six men of the Protectorate Regiment went to get their 
 kits, which they had left on the retirement of the troops to the town. 
 The position was held by the Boers, but the men opened fire and 
 gradually drove loo of the enemy pellmell to their entrenchments, 
 from which a heavy rifle fire silenced the little party, who crawled 
 back to town. 
 
 Baden-Powell's defense scheme was a sound one. All fire was 
 reserved til^ the Boers got within 500 yards range during daylight. 
 At night he constantly worried them. Life at Mafeking was dreary 
 and unprofitable. Everybody was fearing that in the general advance 
 on Pretoria from Natal, the garrison would be cooped iip there. 
 General Cronje sent a flag of truce, giving Mafeking a last chance 
 to surr'^nder at the eleventh hour. 
 
 MAFEKING WOULD NOT SURRENDER. 
 
 The battlefield resembled a shambles after the Boers' final 
 assault, above described, showing what a desperate struggle had 
 gone on. All the men were killed by bullets or shells. A look- 
 out tower was shot to pieces. Nearly the whole place was simply 
 smashed up by a concentrated fire of seven guns and 1000 rifles. 
 The Boers at first held on pluckily, but lost heavily when they 
 came within short range, men being shot down at a distance of 300 
 yards, and Mafeking still held out, with no thought of surrendering. 
 
 Stirring and important news, on November 24th, from the 
 western frontier. Along with the announcement that a strong 
 position of the Boers had been carried at the point of the bayonet, 
 came the suggestive news of burghers leaving Natal for the capital 
 of the Free Stale, a pretty clear indication that they foresaw the 
 plan of campaign. An official telegram from Lord Methuen, in 
 command of the column marching northward to the relief of Kini- 
 berley, stated that at daybreak on the 23d he took the Boer position 
 at Belmont, some fifty-six miles south of Kimberley. 
 
 The infantry behaved with great gallantry, and was well sup- 
 ported by the naval brigade. The British losses were considerable, 
 while those of the enemy were heavy. The British troops carried 
 
 m 
 
 l^Sqfcj 
 
BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 821 
 
 ' A cor- 
 tlieir 
 town, 
 [re and 
 iments, 
 Irawled 
 
 I re was 
 liglit. 
 
 [dreary 
 vance 
 there. 
 
 chance 
 
 the position at the point of the bayonet. The third battalion of the 
 Grenadier Guards suffered most severely, one of their officers, 
 Lieutenant Fryer, being killed and eight others wounded. The 
 British total casualties were 223 in killed, wounded and missing. 
 It is evident that the action was of a pretty severe character. 
 "Our victory is complete," said Lord Methuen, in giving an 
 account of the engagement. 
 
 His official dispatch was as follows : " Attacked the enemy at 
 daybreak. He was in strong position. Three ridges were carried 
 in succession, the last attack being supported by shrapnel. Infantry 
 behaved splendidly^ and received support from the naval brigade 
 and artillery. The enemy fought with courage and skill. Had I 
 attacked later I should have had far heavier losses. Our victory was 
 complete. Have taken forty prisoners. Am burying a good num- 
 ber of the Boers, but the greater part of the enemy's killed and 
 wounded were removed by their comrades. Have captured a large 
 number of horses and cows and destroyed a large quantity of 
 ammunition." 
 
 BOER GUNS QUICKLY SILENCED. 
 
 From later details of General Methuen's fight with the Boers 
 at Belmont it appears that Boers from Finchams Farm shelled an 
 advance body of the British, and the British artillery was pushed 
 forward and shelled a hill, which the J^ritish subsequently occu- 
 pied, capturing two guns. The Boer casualties were thirty men 
 killed and wounded. 
 
 The Boer main column left Finchams Farm during the after- 
 noon and camped five miles ahead. At daybreak on the 23d the 
 Boers fired from the hills, 1000 yards distant, on the British advance 
 force. Other troops were then pushed up, and the engagement be- 
 came general. The British artillery made an excellent showing 
 and silenced the Boer guns. ' 
 
 Then two battalions of the Grenadier Guards and the North- 
 umberland Regiment stormed the heights at the point of the bayo- 
 net. Crossing the fire zone amidst a storm of lead, the Guards and 
 the North umberlands pushed up the incline and reached the summit, 
 
 : ti * ■ 
 
 
m 
 
 fiRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 u 
 
 doing great execution with their bayonets, and capturing the en- 
 campment, with guns, equipment, prisoners, cattle and sheep. Tlie 
 entire position was carried, the cavalry, consisting of the Ninth 
 Lancers and mounted infantry, pursuing the flying Boers. 
 
 General Methuen's force numbered 70CX) men and the Boers 
 had 50CXD men. The latter held an exceedingly strong position on a 
 , series of hills, extending a dozen miles. They were strongly en- 
 trenched, and their cannon were posted advantageously, and were 
 excellently served. The battle began at 7 o'clock, and raged for 
 several hours. The Boers held their positions with great stubborn- 
 ness and splendid courage. The British riflemen forced the attack 
 under a raking fire, and carried position after position with superb 
 dash, driving the Boers with great slaughter. The engagement was 
 really a series of battles, during which the Boers were constantly 
 carrying off their dead and wounded. 
 
 PRISONERS AND WOUNDED. 
 
 The War Office issued the following advices on the 24th : 
 " General Methuen further reports that the wounded are doing well. 
 There are over fifty prisoners, including a German commandant 
 and six field cornets. Nineteen of these prisoners are wounded. 
 The prisoners say that yesterday's attack was a surprise, and it 
 is the only beating they have had. A large amount of correspond- 
 ence has been secured." 
 
 It seems that the entire Western Division moved on the Orange 
 River and bivouacked at Witteputs. Two companies of mounted 
 infantry and a detachment of lancers were sent to hold Thomas 
 Farm. Their pickets prevented the Boers from advancing. The 
 Boers fired cannon, and the British artillery arrived on the scene 
 and silenced the Boers' fire. At two in the morning the Guards 
 Brigade moved steadily forward to a hill a few miles east of Belmont 
 Station. The Scots and Grenadiers advanced to within fifty yards 
 of the base, when the Boers poured in a scathing fire, staggering 
 the Guards momentarily. But, quickly recovering, they returned a 
 deadly hail into the Boers. The duel was continued for half an 
 hour. When the artillery commenced the Boers evacuated their 
 
BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 '62S 
 
 front position, and the Scots Guards rusbed the hill with the bayo- 
 net, amid lusty cheers. 
 
 The Ninth Brigade then moved forward in extended order, and 
 the Boers started a terrible cross-fire from the surrounding hills. 
 The Coldstreams, supported by the Scots, Grenadiers, Northumber- 
 lands and Northamptons, stormed the second position in the face of 
 a constant and effective Boer fire. The Ninth Brigade then ad- 
 vanced the artillery, in the meantime maintaining excellent practice. 
 The British infantry never wavered, and when a tremendous cheer 
 notified them of the charge the Boers fled and succeeded in gaining 
 a ridge of hills in the rear, in spite of the Lancers' flanking 
 movement. 
 
 HOT PURSUIT BY BRITISH CAVALRY. 
 
 The infantry again gallantly faced the fire, and the naval 
 brigade came into action for the first time, at a range of i8<x) yards. 
 The infantry was well supported by the artillery, and the Boers, 
 unable to withstand the death-dealing volleys, retired, and were 
 again forced to abandon some minor positions. The British cavalry 
 charged the Boers and pursued them for five iniles. Possession was 
 taken of the Boer encampment, and the Boer stores were destroyed. 
 
 The Boers hoisted a white flag over their second position, 
 whereupon Lieutenant Willoughby, of the Coldstream Guards, stood 
 up, and was immediately shot down. The Boers twice repeated the 
 same tactics. 
 
 The following graphic description of the fight at Belmont is 
 from an eye-witness : " General Methuen's superb force attacked a 
 commando of 4000 Boers in a position which the British troops 
 would hold against almost any force. The Boers, shielded by 
 boulders, held the crests of four rocky hills with dauntless courage. 
 
 " The men of the King's Own, Yorkshire Light Infanty, First 
 Northumberland Fusileers, the Northamptonshires and a battalion 
 each of the Scots Guards, Grenadiers and Coldstreams, threw them- 
 selves like so many onru^aing billows against the hills, poured up 
 and finally flowed over them. Splendid assistance was given by the 
 Naval Brigade and the field artillery, although the infantry occupied 
 
 i< ' '. 
 
324 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 nil 
 
 ';( !i 
 
 many of the best positions before their guns could be brought into 
 play. . 
 
 " Our victory is complete. The enemy were put to flight and 
 their fortified encampment destroyed, but only after three hours of 
 incessant rifle fire, by which the rocky field of combat was pelted as 
 if by hail. The Grenadiers suffered badly, their losses reaching 
 nearly half of the total casualties. 
 
 ADVANCING THROUGH A STORM OF BULLETS. 
 
 " The whole force of the fearful fight was borne by the infantry, 
 who had to climb upward 500 feet, straight into a terrific stream of 
 missiles. The Ninth Lancers pursued with great vigor, but the 
 Boers, being well mounted and familiar with the hills, melted before 
 them. Possibly, though, the victory would have been more decisive 
 had we had more cavalry." 
 
 General Methuen's column continued to encounter opposition 
 as it pushed forward with all possible speed to raise the siege of 
 Kimberley. On Saturday, November 25th, he moved at 3.30 a.m., 
 with the Ninth Brigade, the Mounted Corps, the Naval Brigade and 
 two batteries, the Guards following with the baggage. Near Gras 
 Pan (about ten miles north of Belmont, on the railway line to Kini- 
 berly) 2500 Boers, with six guns and two machine guns, opposed 
 him. The action began at 6 a.m. The British batteries fired shrap- 
 nel very accurately till the heights seemed clear. 
 
 Then the Naval Brigade and infantry advanced to the assault. 
 The fighting was desperate until 10 a.m., when the heights were 
 gained. The Boers retreated on the line where the Ninth lyancers 
 were placed to intercept them. The artillery took immediate advan- 
 tage of the enemy's retirement. 
 
 Early in the action 500 Boers attacked the British rear-guard. 
 The brigade met this and also protected the flanks. The Naval 
 Brigade acted with conspicuous gallantry and suffered heavily. The 
 Boers showed the greatest stubbornness and met with heavy losses. 
 More than fifty horses were found dead in one place. One battery 
 fired 500 rounds. The British troops worked splendidly, and were 
 prepared to overcome any difl&culty. The Naval Brigade, the Royal 
 
 V^l^.te^ 
 
BRITISH VICTOklES. 
 
 325 
 
 iglit into 
 
 [jglit and 
 
 'hours of 
 
 Jelted as 
 
 Ireachiiig 
 
 [infantry, 
 (tream of 
 
 but tlie 
 -d before 
 
 decisive 
 
 'position 
 siege of 
 30 A.M., 
 ^ade and 
 ear Gras 
 to Kim- 
 opposed 
 d shrap- 
 
 assault. 
 Its were 
 Lancers 
 ■ advaii- 
 
 -guard. 
 Naval 
 r. The 
 losses. 
 )attery 
 d were 
 Royal 
 
 Marines, the Light Infantry and the First Battalion of the North 
 Lancashire Regiment especially distinguished themselves. 
 
 Another battle, fierce and bloody, was fought on the Modder 
 River by General Methuen on November 28th. The story is told in 
 his own brief dispatch, as follows : '* Reconnoitered at 5 a. m. 
 enemy's position on Modder River and found them strongly en- 
 trenched and concealed. No means of outflanking, the river being 
 full. Action commenced with artillery, mounted infantry .uid 
 cavalry, at 5.30. Guard on right. Ninth Brigade on left, attacked 
 position in widely extended formation at 6.30, and, supported by the 
 artillery, found themselves in front of the whole Boer force, 8000 
 strong, with two large guns, four Krupps, etc. The Naval Brigade 
 rendered great assistance from the railway. 
 
 DESPERATE FIGHTING FOR TEN HOURS. 
 
 "After desperate, hard fighting, which lasted ten hours, our 
 men, without water or food, and in the burning sun, made the 
 enemy quit his position. General Pole-Carew was successful in 
 getting a small party across the river, gallantly assisted by 300 
 Sappers. I speak in terms of high praise of the conduct of all who 
 were engaged in one of the hardest and most trying fights in the 
 annals of the British army. If I can mention one arm particularly, 
 it is two batteries of artillery." 
 
 General Methuen's dispatch to the Queen after the battle of 
 Modder River, said : " The battle was the bloodiest of the century. 
 The British shelled the enemy out of the trenches and then charged. 
 The result was terrible." - 
 
 General Methuen's advance from the Orange River was a most 
 notable achievement. In the course of a week he marched his 
 column nearly fifty miles, fought three battles and won three 
 victories. The fight at Belmont was fierce enough, with its deplor- 
 able loss to the Guards. The engagement at Enslin or Gras Pan 
 had melancholy notoriety for the terrible execution wrought among 
 the naval brigade, but the Modder River battle was the hardest 
 fought and bloodiest of the three. 
 
 This combat, which was waged under great difficulties by the 
 
 
 ' 'i ' 1^, 
 
 
 11 
 
 
326 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 * 1 
 
 British troops, and for many hours was carried on with great deter- 
 mination against a strongly entrenched enemy, possessed features 
 which will make it live in military history. After Saturday's battle 
 at Gras Pan General Methuen's force rested on Sunday. It advanced 
 fifteen miles northward on Monday, and at night the column found 
 itself close to the Modder River and confronted by a Boer army of 
 8000 men strongly entrenched. 
 
 Early Tuesday morning the attack began. The Boers were 
 posted on the north side of the Modder River, which was running 
 at full flood. The British attacked from the south side. As there 
 was no opportunity for outflanking the enemy's position owing to 
 the high river, they made a frontal attack and forced the Boers to 
 quit their position by the superiority of their artillery and rifle fire, 
 the retirement being accelerated by the fact that General Pole-Carew, 
 late in the engagement, had succeeded in getting across the river 
 with a force. No pursdit of the Boers was possible. 
 
 CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE GENERAL. 
 
 That General Methuen expected dogged resistance on his 
 northward march is shown by the speech which he made to his 
 troops after the battle of Gras Pan. After reading a telegram from 
 Sir Alfred Milner, congratulating the troops and sympathizing with 
 the wounded, General Methuen personally congratulated the troops 
 on the work done, and expressed appreciation of. the way in which 
 they had endured the hardships. 
 
 The work, he said, was the most severe encountered by the 
 British Army for many a long day. They had in front of them, 
 he added, an enemy to whom they could not afford to give a single 
 point. Their tactics had been excellent, and he recognized and 
 admired their courage. General Methuen added that when called 
 upon to fight for his country he preferred to fight a foe worthy of its 
 steel rather than savages, whose sole recommendation was bravery. 
 
 He then expressed the hope that he and his men had gained 
 each other's confidence, and would all do their duty to their 
 country, as Englishmen should. General Metheun described as 
 " dastardly " the conduct of the Boers in firing on ambulance wag- 
 
 ons, th 
 
 Boers' 
 
 these 
 
 until 
 
 tofigli 
 
 couini 
 
 most 
 
 Glenc 
 
 numt 
 
 surpa 
 
 by re 
 
 opens 
 
 to as: 
 
 endu 
 
 than 
 Rive 
 poin 
 Grai 
 iusij 
 stre 
 Be^ 
 
 SP3 
 fiel 
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 mil 
 
 sic 
 sa 
 fie 
 ev 
 
 A^*-'^*^ 
 
^t deter- 
 features 
 |s battle 
 'vaiiced 
 found 
 ^rniy of 
 
 l"s were 
 
 fmniug 
 
 there 
 
 "ig to 
 
 oers to 
 
 fle fire, 
 
 Carevv, 
 river 
 
 ^n his 
 to his 
 1 from 
 ?with 
 troops 
 ivhich 
 
 V the 
 hem, 
 
 ing]e 
 and 
 illed 
 ►fits 
 ery. 
 ined 
 heir 
 1 as 
 ^ag- 
 
 BKITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 327 
 
 ons, the shooting of a British officer by a wounded Boer, and the 
 Boers' use of dum-dum bullets. But he refused to believe that 
 these acts were characteristic of the Boers. He gave them credit, 
 until convinced to the contrary, that they, like the British, wished 
 to fight fair and square. 
 
 FIERCE BATTLE OF MODDER RIVER. 
 
 Under date of November 30th, one of our American newspapers 
 commented as follows : 
 
 " Lord Methuen appears to have won at Modder River the 
 most important battle thus far of the war. It plainly outranks 
 Glencoe, Elandslaagte and the battles around Ladysmith in point of 
 numbers engaged and losses sustained on both sides. It certainly 
 surpasses them in importance of results. For they were followed 
 by retreat and confinement within besieged Ladysmith, while this 
 opens the way for further advance toward Kimberley, and goes far 
 to assure tlie relief of that city from the state of siege it has long 
 endured. 
 
 " Lord Methuen has certainly made good progress. He is more 
 than 600 miles from Cape Town, fifty miles beyond the Orange 
 River and about .twenty miles from Kimberley. The successive 
 points taken by him after crossing the Orange River are Belmont, 
 Gras Pan, Honey Nest and Modder River, where there is an 
 insignificant village and railroad station at the junction of a small 
 stream of the same name with the scarcely larger Riet River. 
 Beyond it the stations and villages are closer together — Merton, 
 Spytfontein, Wimbledon ; then the considerable town of Beacons- 
 field, which is practically a suburb of Kimberley, with 10,000 inhab- 
 itants and containing the Du Toit's Pan and Bulfontein diamond 
 mines ; and then Kimberley itself. 
 
 " It is understood that Beaconsfield is still in British posses- 
 sion, standing siege along with Kimberley and defended by the 
 same general force. The railroad from Modder River to Beacons- 
 field is not in a condition to be used. That does not matter, how- 
 ever, as the distance is so short and as there is a good road running 
 parallel with the railroad just to the east of it. 
 
 
 
 
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 >'*'*siliS 
 
 fe. 
 
ii 
 
 n\ 
 
 ■i 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 J I 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 
 328 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 " Whether a clearing of the line to Mafeking, or even to Bula- 
 wayo, is the sole mission of this daring and masterful commander 
 is, however, an open question. Some reinforcements are on their 
 way up to join him. It will not escape notice that he is not only 
 nearest of all i^ritish commanders to Bloemfontein, but nearest to 
 Pretoria, too. And he is on the most direct road thither — we might 
 say almost the only practicable road. For an advance across the 
 Drakensberg from Natal would be most difficult. One from Coles- 
 berg by way of Nr rval's Pont and Bloemfontein would be easy if 
 the railroad were to be utilized. 
 
 LONG AND DIFFICULT MARCH. 
 
 " But the Boers will make sure that the railroad shall not be 
 utilized. In that case the march from the Orange River would be 
 much longer and more difficult than from the western border. 
 There is no good wagon road ruuning directly from the Orange 
 River to Bloemfontein, and none from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. 
 But from Kimberley there is a fine great highway running parallel 
 with the Vaal River and leading right up to Johannesburg and 
 Pretoria, and there is another, and not a long one, from Mafeking. 
 
 " Thus Lord Methuen's army was the advance guard of the 
 whole movement upou the Boer States, and to him was intrusted 
 the coveted task of leading the invasion. He was known to be a 
 brave commander, fertile in resources, courageous in the face of the 
 enemy, equipped with long experience and heroic fortitude, and 
 nothing was felt to be wanting to insure complete success in the 
 endeavor to raise the siege of Kimberley." 
 
 A detailed account of the hard fight at Modder River is fur- 
 nished by an eye-witness of that terrible battle : 
 
 "The severest engagement our column has yet had, and 
 probably the severest of the whole campaign, was fought November 
 •sSth. The battle was waged fiercely for nearly fourteen hours. The 
 enemy occupied a strongly entrenched position, their front extend- 
 ing five miles along the bank of the stream. They were well 
 supplied with artillery, and fought desperately, 
 
 " Our force consisted of the second battalion of the Coldstream 
 
 Guar 
 
 of th 
 
 Fusi 
 
 (the 
 
 Lane 
 
 three 
 
 and 
 
 .«%■ 
 
BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 9m 
 
 to BuUa- 
 inlander 
 on their 
 iiot only 
 f earest to 
 I'e might 
 [cross the 
 m Co]es- 
 [e easy if 
 
 1 not be 
 
 'ould be 
 border. 
 
 Orange 
 Pretoria. 
 
 parallel 
 "rg and 
 ieking. 
 J of the 
 ^trusted 
 
 to be a 
 e of the 
 ie, and 
 > in the 
 
 is fur- 
 
 J, and 
 ember 
 
 The 
 ctend- 
 
 well 
 
 ream 
 
 Guards, fne first battalion of the Scots Guards, the third battalion 
 of the Grenadier Guards, the first battalion of the Northumberland ' 
 Fusileers, the second battalion of the Yorkshire Light Infantry 
 (the King's Own), a part of the first battalion of the Loyal North 
 Lancashire Regiment, the Ninth Lancers, the mounted infantry, 
 three batteries of field artillery and the first battalion of the Argyll 
 and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's). 
 
 AN AWFUL HAIL OF BULLETS. 
 
 " The latter reinforced us from General Wauchope's brigade, 
 and arrived just in time for the fight. The battle started at day- 
 break, our guns shelling the Boers' left. The enemy replied with 
 artillery, Hotchkiss and Maxims, and the artillery duel lasted some 
 hours. Then there was a brief lull in the enemy's operations, of 
 which the general immediately took advantage. Our infantry ad- 
 vanced across the plain towards the river in two brigades. 
 
 " The Guards, on the right, were met by an awful hail of bullets 
 from the enemy's sharpshooters, posted close to the river on the 
 opposite bank. Ours had no cover whatever, and were simply 
 mowed down. It seemed impossible to live through the terrible 
 fire, but the brave fellows did not retreat an inch. The Boer fire 
 was horribly accurate, and they must have had a large force. 
 
 " The Scots Guards advanced 6cxd yards before they were fired 
 on. Then they had to lie down to escape the deadly fusillade which 
 lasted, without intermission, throughout the day. The High- 
 landers made several attempts to force a passage of the river, but 
 they were exposed to such a murderous enfilading fire that they 
 had to retire after they had suffered terribly. Subsequently a party 
 of the Guards got over and held their own for hours against a vastly 
 superior force. 
 
 " The general opinion of the staff is that there had never been 
 such a sustained fire in the annals of the British army as that 
 which our troops had to face. Our men fell in dozens while trying 
 to rush the bridge. Among the many heroic deeds, one of the 
 most conspicuous was that of Lieutenant-Colonel Codrington, of 
 the Coldstream Guards ; Captain Sellpein, of the Queensland con- 
 
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 330 
 
 BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 tingeiit, and a dozen members of the Coldstream Guards, who 
 jumped into the river and swam nearly to the other side in the face 
 of a steady fire, but who were forced to retire, and, joining hands, 
 swam back, two of their number being nearly drowned in the 
 retreat. 
 
 " The British guns kept up a heavy fire all day ; and fearful 
 havoc was wrought on the Boer positions, the enemy being forced 
 to fly from their entrenchments. Night put an end to the terrible 
 bloodshed. The infantry brigade was dreadfully cut up." 
 
 THE FIGHT BEFORE REACHING MODDER RIVER. 
 
 Further details of the batile at Gras Pan showed that the British 
 arms achieved a brilliant victory. The enemy, strongly entrenched, 
 held a range of hills commanding both sides of the railway at Rooi 
 Laagte, near Gras Pan. The Lancashires, under Lewis, recon- 
 noitered in an armored train. The Boers shelled the train, killing 
 Lewis and a private. 
 
 General Methuen then advanced. His column made a detour 
 and bivouacked for the night at Swinks Pan, three miles from the 
 Boer position. At dawn the advance began, the Guards forming 
 the reserve. The column debouched on the plain eastward of the 
 Boer hills. The Boer guns opened fire. Two batteries of British 
 artillery, posted on each side, shelled the Boers, the aim being good 
 on both sides. 
 
 The Boers stuck tenaciously to their positions, firing steadily 
 and accurately. The duel, which constantly became hotter, lasted 
 three hours. The Boer shells wounded several men of the Naval 
 Brigade. Finding it impossible to displace the Boers with artillery, 
 General Methuen resolved upon an infantry attack. A brigade of 
 infantry, including the Yorkshires, the Northamptons, the North- 
 umberlauds and the Lancashires, with the naval brigade on the 
 right, gallantly stormed the Boer positions, in the face of a wither- 
 ing fire, and carried hill after hill, the brigade under Colonel Money 
 capturing the main position agaitinf a terriiir fire, but suffering 
 severely. 
 
 Commandant Rossik aided in leading the lioer forces. Many 
 
BRITISH VICTORIES. 
 
 331 
 
 fS) who 
 
 [he face 
 
 hands, 
 
 in the 
 
 I fearful 
 forced 
 terrible 
 
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 of the B'>er forces voluntarily surrendered. The Boers were shelled 
 during the final retreat, and must have lost heavily, but they 
 succeeded in getting away northward with their six guns. The 
 British were badly in need of more cavalry. Among the Boer 
 prisoners were Alderman Jeppe and Commandant Rossik, who led 
 the Boer force. 
 
 General Methuen, who commanded the British forces, is one of 
 the most distinguished captains in the British service, aud has had 
 extensive experience in the field. He was ordered to Africa at the 
 outbreak of hostilities, and raised to the rank of lieutenant-general, 
 the intention of the War Office being to make him second in com- 
 mand to General Sir Redvers Buller. Brave, accomplished, educated 
 for the army, and a man of excellent discretion and great ability 
 for organization and administration of affairs, he is looked upon as 
 one of the best generals in the army. 
 
 DECORATED FOR BRAVERY. 
 
 Lord Methuen received a medal for bravery at the battle of 
 Amoaful, in the Ashantee war of 1873-74. lu the Egyptian expedi- 
 tion of 1882 he was present at Mahuta and Tel-el-Kebir, was men- 
 tioned in the '* Gazette," and received a medal with clasp, bronze 
 clasp and third-class Osmanieh decorations. He was honorably 
 mentioned for his services as commander of the mounted rifles in 
 the Bechuanaland expedition of 1884-85. He was military attache 
 at Berlin for three years, 1878-81. He entered the army as ensign 
 in the Guards in 1864. 
 
 The march of event-^ under General Methuen was swift. To 
 him was committed the task of relieving Kimberley and he did not 
 linger on the way. On Wednesday, November 2 2d, he had got 
 across the Orange River aud began his advance towards the 
 beleaguered city. On Thursday he attacked the Boers at Belmont 
 and defeated them. On Saturday, as we have seen, he fought 
 another engagement with them at Gras Pan, ten miles north of 
 Belmont, and again defeated them. He continued to advance and 
 at Modder River he fought the most serious engagement of the war 
 on Tuesday, with brilliant results. 
 
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 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Curious Sights in the Land of the Boers. 
 
 WHAT a great press agent war is ! A few months before the 
 war broke out South Africa was comparatively an unknown 
 country, except to the few people whose interests or friends 
 were there, but soon the whole outside world had its eyes upon this 
 quarter of the globe, and Durban, Ladysmith, Pietermaritzburg, 
 Glencoe, Dundee, Colesburg, Kimberley, Colenso, Belmont, Gras 
 Pan, Modder River Bridge and Mafeking are household words, and 
 have all been studied carefully and located upon the map. This 
 same agent brought the West Indies into prominence during our 
 • var with Spain, and the Philippines have used it most effectively. 
 
 The political situation in the Transvaal, or South African 
 Republic, has bee'^ s^reatly strained for over a decade, and the feel- 
 ing between the British and Boers has been very hostile for a long 
 time. All have met the type of man who is continually looking 
 for a fight, and, it seems to an outsider, that this has been the state 
 of these two nations for years, and at last the climax was reached 
 in the outbreak of hostilities. 
 
 South Africa is a wonderful country, and at the end of the war 
 will open up opportunities and present advantages to the young men 
 of to-day unequalled by any other. The political atmosphere of the 
 country has been written about and discussed so much that we can 
 here pass it by, simply comparing it with the atmosphere of Johan- 
 nesburg and Cape Town, where dust-storms are frequent, darkening 
 and obscuring the air and often suspending business for hours at a 
 time. * 
 
 A few words about the country, its people and their customs, 
 The southern part of Africa has a fertile fringe around its coast, 
 growing all the products of our own country, and, on the east coast, 
 all the varieties of the tropics. The interior is a barren and desolate 
 Kaste, known as the "Karoo," scarcely producing sufficient forage 
 
 332 
 
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 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 333 
 
 ore the 
 known 
 friends 
 on this 
 itzburg, 
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 This 
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 African 
 he feel- 
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 the war 
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 Johan- 
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 stems, 
 coast, 
 : coast, 
 isolate 
 forage 
 
 for stock-raising purposes, the principal pursuit of the Boers. One 
 plateau is above another until an altitude of 9000 feet above the sea 
 is reached at Johannesburg. Very few rivers flow therein, and 
 these go out of business in the dry season, and as the great rivers 
 of Africa are too far distant to warrant building artificial waterways, 
 a system of irrigation is quite out of the question. Why Oom 
 Paul's people settled and remained in this part of the country can- 
 not be understood, unless we believe the oft-told story that they love 
 the veldt (plain) and its loneliness, as it is most unattractive and 
 grows exceedingly monotonous to the average man. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE BOERS. 
 
 The Boers are a sturdy, sluggish and lazy race, but at the 
 same time subjecting themselves to hardships of the worst kind. 
 Since they have always lived in the open, they are physically per- 
 fect, hardened, sacrificing and are marksmen of the best ability. 
 These combinations make the type of soldier who fight , ;;o win, and, 
 owing to their previous victories over the British and this individual 
 motto : " We declare before God, who knows the heart, and before 
 the world, that the people of the South African Republic liave 
 never been subjects of Her Majesty, and never will be," the 
 British do not find their task an easy one. 
 
 Such are the men, young and old, who left their homes, wives, 
 families and sweethearts and went to the front in defense of their 
 Republic, with a hope that they would be victorious, but the odds 
 against them appeared so great as to cause the universal prediction 
 that after the smoke of the heavy firing cleared away the Transvaal 
 and the Orange Free State would be painted British red. 
 
 If there can be such things as hermit families they are to be 
 found among the Boers. They do not live in settlements, but 
 build their houses far back from the regular transport roads, to keep 
 their cattle free from passing tear;:s, in order to avoid cattle diseases; 
 and then they like to be out of sight of their neighbor'? smoke ; 
 twenty miles apart is a preferable distance to build. The Boer home- 
 stead is as plain as its owner, usually a low, one-story structure, with 
 steep tile roof and a small annex in the rear, which is used as 
 
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334 
 
 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
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 a kitchen. The door is on a level with the ground, and four win- 
 dows afford all the light that is required in the four square rooms in 
 the interior. 
 
 A dining-room and three bed-rooms suffice for a family, how- 
 ever large. The best of the latter is always ready for the stranger 
 who may stop for the night, besides the best food the kitchen holds 
 and a goodly supply of fodder for his horses, provided he is un- 
 tainted with British blood. The floors are hardened clay, liberally 
 coated with manure, which is used to ward off the pestiferous insects 
 that swarm over the plains. Houses are built in a valley, in close 
 proximity to a stream, and nearly always devoid of trees. Native 
 trees are such a rarity that travellers may go many miles without 
 being able to rest in the shade of a single one. 
 
 HOW THEY BEGIN THE DAY. 
 
 The Boer rises with the sun, and after the chores are done the 
 family meet at breakfast and an hour is spent in reading the Bible, 
 which guides them in everything. When the meal is finished, the 
 men start with their flocks, j,nd are gone until the sun sets. This 
 life is followed in winter and rummer, except in the dry season, 
 when the whole family desert the home, and, with "bok-wagen" 
 (travelling wagon), become nomads and wander around, allowing 
 their flocks to graze, returning to their homes in the winter. 
 
 All are thoroughly religious, and some families have special 
 church wagons, with lone arid roomy bodies for a " katce " or hang- 
 ing-bed, in which to trt, ,o their nearest church, a trip which often 
 means three days from home, to church and back again. Of all 
 that has been written about the Boers, the writers have commented 
 upon their uncleanliness, which is quite true, but at times water is 
 a scarce article in their country. Many stories are related of the 
 seltzer-water baths indulged in by the early pioneers of Johannes- 
 burg, costing from $5.00 to $10.00 each. It is related that on one 
 occasion a shower-bath was taken in the Gold City at a cost of 
 $18.00. 
 
 The Boers have their "city cousins," who are smart, shrewd 
 and industrious, being able to cope successfully with the financiers 
 
 of the 
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 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
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 of the different nations whose representatives have drifted into 
 Johannesburg and Pretoria. 
 
 Johannesburg, the Gold City, as it is rightly called, is a Mid- 
 way Plaisance in a greater sense than the one to which we were 
 introduced at the World's Fair in Chicago. Allow your mind to 
 imagine a city of over 100,000, made xip of men and women from 
 England, Ireland, Wales, France, Scotland, Germany, America, 
 Portugal, Spain, Italy, Norway, Denmark, China, Japan, Russia, 
 Austria, Sweden, Turkey, India, Arabia, Australia, New Zealand, 
 all the countries of South America, Mexico, British North America, 
 Alaska, and, in fact, every country under the sun, all wearing their 
 native costumes and head-dress, speaking their own language, 
 following their own customs, but all seeking gold and diamonds in 
 the mines by hard work, and you have a fair representation of the 
 only city in South Africa noted for business and hustling en- 
 terprise. Other towns are slow and stagnant. 
 
 MEN FROM EVERYWHERE TRYING THEIR LUCK. 
 
 It is a disappointment that the inhabitants of Mars are not 
 there, and if passenger communication were in use between the two 
 planets, Martians would surely be found there, " trying their luck." 
 If they could reach this fascinating city, to coin a new word, would 
 they be " Outskyers," inasmuch as the aliens are Outlanders ? 
 
 All of the other cities except Kimberely are dependent upon 
 Johannesburg, which is like a wealthy brother generously support- 
 ing all of his brothers and sisters. Cape Colony and Natal furnish 
 all the grain, fruits and vegetables, and a duty is imposed on all 
 goods imported into the Transvaal through the ports of these 
 colonies, and a heavy railroad charge i' Jso incurred. These 
 charges are also applicable in the Orange i\ee State, making double 
 customs and railroad charges. 
 
 It is the most expensive city in the world to live in. The main 
 portion is thoroughly modem and up-to-date, bu t ones outside of the 
 centre, it becomes a typical mining camp, with low corrugated iron 
 shanties which are the sleeping quarters of the tlousands of Out- 
 landers, and all the accessories which go to make up a mining 
 
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 336 
 
 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 settlement. Gambling finds plenty of followers. Four lottery 
 companies are established in the city and all have quarterly draw- 
 ings, when thousands of pounds change hands. The " three-shell " 
 game and other devices of the sort are often encountered on the 
 street corners. Even the women and children speculate in gold 
 shares. 
 
 The goal which the people who are temporary residents there 
 seem to aim for is to accumulate, in any manner, a sufficient 
 amount of money to enable them to return to their homes and live 
 quietly after their busy life of a few years at this city that was built 
 in a day in the centre of South Africa. It is the stopping place of 
 the multi-millionaire and the beggar, and, in the constant flow of 
 cosmopolitan life, each man makes the biggest show possible. 
 
 HOTEL LIFE AT JOHANNESBURG. 
 
 Hotels are plentiful and expensive. The cheapest $5.00 and 
 the best $10.00 per day. The Goldfields Hotel is strictly a 
 . bachelors' hotel and is well patronized. All is built on the grpund 
 floor and everything conducted in a " go-as-you-please " manner. In 
 the dining-room which is always crowded at noon and in the even- 
 ing, it is a common sight to find men in evening dress and sitting 
 opposite or next to them will be found others in mining garb of a 
 flannel shirt and trousers stuck in boot tops. After the meal is 
 finished pipes are filled and the scene changes to a smoker. 
 Seventy-five per cent, of the Outlanders sleep in iron shanties and 
 have coffee and rolls served in their rooms in the morning. 
 Luncheons and dinners are taken at the different hotels in the 
 city. 
 
 Cab fares are five times as high as in New York. Drinks ex- 
 pensive and largely consumed. Two theaters and five music halls, 
 prize fights, pony and bicycle races furnish the amusement. English 
 repertoire companies cover the circuit in South Africa, and English, 
 French, American and German artists are brought out by the music 
 hall managements. Barmaids have birthdays every month and a 
 dance is given in celebration. Tickets to dance cost $5.00 each and 
 are sought after by their many friends. 
 
 'C»i,i4wS:- 
 
CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 337 
 
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 each and 
 
 Cape Town is known as the " front door " to South Africa. 
 Fully one-half of the money seekers who arrive in. this country enter 
 by this port, although it is not the shortest route to the gold fields, 
 which are in the Transvaal and up-country districts. But, after a 
 passage of twenty-one days, a change from the deck of the steamer 
 to the land is a most agreeable one and the tourists are willing to go 
 ashor6. The usual plan is for travellers to remain at Cape Town 
 two or three days and then take a train for their up-country destin- 
 ation. Upon the arrival of a mail stamer Cape Town is crowded 
 for several days, until the people get started upon the last lap of 
 their journey, and then the place settles down to its normal state. 
 
 The next port to Cape Town is Port Elizabeth, 480 miles dis- 
 tant. This is known as the " back door " to South Africa, and it is at 
 this port that all of the cargo for the up-country is unloaded from 
 the steamers. For this purpose a jetty or pier, has been built into 
 Algoa Bay, extending over 300 feet from the land aftd costing 
 thousands of pounds. 
 
 NOVEL WAY OF GETTING ASHORE. 
 
 East London is the port of entry for the Orange Free State. 
 When the steamer reaches this place the tourist is introduced to a 
 novelty, in the manner of transferring passengers from the steamer 
 to the tender which is to convey them ashore. It is called the 
 " basket trick." The water in this port is so rough that in unload- 
 ing the passengers to the tender there would be great danger of 
 loss of life, so an immense wicker-basket is suspended to a derrick 
 on the deck of the steamer. Three persons are placed in it at a 
 time. The signal is given and the passengers are let out of their 
 temporary prison and the basket is returned for another load. This 
 method of disembarking passengers is also in use at the port of 
 Durban. 
 
 Durban is then reached by the East Coast route, and, once 
 installed, you come to find this the only desirables place in which to 
 live. The whole colony is garden-like. Stately palms and flowing 
 bamboos surround banana groves, cane-fields, pine-apple planta- 
 tions, tea and coffee estates. Pretty little farmers' cottages are 
 
 aft 
 
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 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 dotted throughout the country and open-eyed and humorous natives 
 together with solrtnn and thin-faced coolies lend picturesqueucss to 
 the scenes. 
 
 Pretoria, the capital of the South African Republic, is thor- 
 oughly a Dutch city filled with a young and floating population 
 drawn from the Republic, the Orange Free State, Natal and Cape 
 Colony. The life there is similar to that found in Washington. 
 
 Kimberley is termed " a slow show," as everything is owned 
 and controlled by the De Beers Mining Syndicate. The Kimberley 
 Club is located here and it is the " swellest " club in South Africa. 
 Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Beit, J. B. Robinson and other famous South 
 Africans hold forth there. The late Barney Barnato spent much 
 of his time at this club. 
 
 MOST FAMOUS SOUTH AFRICAN TRIBE. 
 
 Of thl^ natives the most interesting are the Zulus, the " four 
 hundred " of the South African tribes. In the the Transvaal all 
 natives must wear a tag, bearing a number, which is registered, 
 upon their coat sleeve or arm and displayed conspicuously at all 
 times. They are not allowed to walk on the pavements or to ride 
 in public cabs or tram-cars. At 9 o'clock in the evening, a curfew 
 bell is rung and all natives must be in their kraals, and if found 
 on the streets after this hour they are liable to arrest and a fine. 
 
 The native police of Natal are the most interesting characters 
 a writer could find in his travels in South Africa, and volumes 
 could be written about their characteristics and customs. They 
 seem to be at every point in the colony and almost numberless in 
 the cities. The work they have to perform is to keep the natives 
 straight and to act as watchmen at night, and they are not allowed 
 to arrest the whites. They take great pride in their uniforms — in 
 fact, as much as the police of our country do — and they always look 
 neat. They will ogle the nurse girls in the parks and the squares; 
 so, naturally, some might say, they make good police. 
 
 The ricksha boys of South Africa are famous the world over. 
 They are found in Durban, Pitermaritzbnrg and Johannesburg. 
 There are over 800 rickshas on the streets of Durban, and the}/ 
 
CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THK llOKRS. 
 
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 greatly enhance the picturesqiieness of this semi-tropical city. 
 These vehicles are used principally by the business men in going 
 from their offices to the different parts of the city. Although 
 employed for distances of four, five and six miles, and with two pas- 
 sengers, the boys will keep on a trot the entire distance, which is 
 really remarkable when you consider the work. 
 
 On the short drives around town they develop great speed. 
 All the boys are Zulus and head-dress is one of their customs. 
 Horus, feathers and wings are used in this decoration and even dis- 
 carded creations of " Worth " are worn by the more fortunate ones. 
 The boots around the ankles are made of reed and contain small 
 gravel stones, which rattle while the boy is in motion and make con- 
 siderable noise. Very few speak or understand English, and 
 passengers must know the streets thoroughly if they wish to reach 
 a certain point quickly. 
 
 HOW THE RICKSHA IS GUIDED. 
 
 You start the boy in the direction you wish to go, and, if 
 necessary to turn any corners, you simply extend your leg and 
 touch the boy's back, and he then turns his head and you point 
 with your finger to the road you wish him to. take ; and when you 
 reach your destination, by simply using the Zulu word " ponda," 
 which means down, the shafts are lowered and you can easily dis- 
 mount. The fares are fixed according to the distance, and ricksha 
 stands are located in the different parts of the city. 
 
 It is quite amusing to watch them solicit fares. A guest of the 
 Royal Hotel will walk to the gates and hold up his hand, and every 
 boy who may be waiting at this particular stand will jump with 
 alacrity and pull his ricksha to the entrance of the hotel and solicit 
 his patronage in pigeon English, using the expressions : " Me fast 
 runner, boss;" " Me go quick, boss;" " Me taka soon, boss," and 
 many others. Say twenty are at the stand, only one can be utilized, 
 hence nineteen must be disappointed ; but it apparently makes no 
 difference, as they laugh and jump and seem to be as pleased as if 
 they had been successful in securing the passenger. The boys are 
 ver}^ playful and in starting off they curve their necks and neigh 
 
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 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 like horses and also imitate locomotives. A ride in a ricksha will 
 carry one back to his boyhood days of playing horse with a small 
 express wagon and a boy to draw it. 
 
 Throughout South Africa are many Hindoos and they are par- 
 ticularly plentiful in Natal. -They are brought out from India on 
 account of their Empire being over-populated, and are distributed 
 among the farmers, under the care of an emigrant agent or inspec- 
 tor. They work as slaves for three years and then become free and 
 receive the regular wage of a laborer. Quite a few are established 
 as traders, importing silks, laces and silverware from India. The 
 women decorate themselves to the extreme with silver and gold 
 jewelry. This also applies to the poorer classes, as the men have 
 coins of the different denominations melted and made into jewelry 
 of all kinds for their wives and sweethearts. This was one of their 
 modes of saving money until the money basis of India was changed 
 
 from silver to gold. 
 
 * ' ■ * . ■■ 
 
 CURIOUS DWELLINGS OF THE KAFFIRS. 
 
 • 
 
 Kaffir Kraals, the homes of the different South African tribes, 
 are built in settlements. The framework is made of striplings and 
 then thatched, making them water-proof. There are no windows or 
 doors excepting one small opening as a means of ingress and egress, 
 and this is quite low and adults have to crawl in on their hands and 
 knees, as the height will not permit them to enter in an upright 
 position. A family of twenty will occupy a kraal, which is simply 
 one room, there being no partitions. They are devoid of beds and 
 the ground is used for this purpose. From all indications the occu- 
 pants are as happy as people who reside in castles. 
 
 Hotel life is both interesting and novel. Interesting in the 
 cities where modern hostelries arc found, copied after the style oi 
 the English inns. The Royal Hotel, at Durban, is worthy of spe- 
 cial mention. It is built and conducted upon the Oriental plan. 
 Hindoo waiters, attired in immaculate white suits with turbans to« 
 match, move noiselessly around the dining-room with bare feet. 
 Wicker furniture and tropical plants grace every nook and corner, 
 and with guests in evening dress, which is the custom, make 
 
CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 341 
 
 ipar- 
 
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 ited 
 
 an exquisite dinner scene. This hotel ranks favorably with the 
 world's best, and is used as officers' headquarters during the war. 
 It is one of the best that the collaborator foi;i^d in his travels. 
 
 Novel are the country parts where the old Dutch customs are 
 retained. One of the queer experiences in stopping at an inn, 
 which is the post-cart station, is going to bed in a room with five 
 men, for the rooms contain as many beds as they will hold, often 
 five and six, and never less than two. Five out of the six room- 
 mates may be booked for the post-cart, due at midnight. The cart 
 arrives and deposits four or five passengers and takes on the five 
 who are booked. The incoming passengers take the places of the 
 outgoing passengers, and in the morning you arise with five dif- 
 ferent men from' those you retired with. .*- 
 
 ' . IMMENSE FREIGHT WAGONS. 
 
 Transportation is done by the railways, owned by the different 
 governments, travelling wagons, Ckpe carts, American spiders, 
 cabs, automobiles and rickshas. The train service is a most excel- 
 lent one when the travelling population is considered. Two 
 departures each way between the centres daily. The " bok-wagen," 
 or travelling wagon of the Transvaal, is a great sight. All of the 
 heavy mining machinery of the Transvaal and Rhodesia was 
 transported on these freight wagons. The bodies are twenty feet 
 long by seven between the wheels, and are drawn by fourteen, six- 
 teen or eighteen trained bullocks "spanned" in pairs. In the 
 front of all this ^nake-like outfit walks the " voor-looper " leading 
 the front pair by their " reims," which he has so hitched in a loop 
 that he can hold it and walk before them out of horn's reach. 
 Then " Hawt-yeh," yells the driver, with a smack of his whip as 
 loud as a rifle shot, and the great freighter begins its steady crawl. 
 
 Nature has caused this steady influx of people to South Africa, 
 but not that part of nature which shows itself above ground, for 
 
 " The rivers of South Africa have no waters, 
 The birds no song, the flowers no scent," • 
 
 but that which is hidden deep below — shining gold and glittering 
 diamonds — is a world-wide attraction. 
 
342 
 
 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 People grew tired of the Midway Plaisance at the World's 
 Fair, and perhaps the patient Boers have become tired of the one 
 that has been holdine^orth in Johannesburg for fifteen years, and 
 they have shouldered their modern guns of the best make, wives 
 and mothers have placed " biltong " (a piece of beef dried in the 
 sun) and a few biscuit in their pockets, and they have crossed the 
 lonely veldt to join forces and crush their annoyers, who, no 
 doubt, were v/orse than the noisy " tom-toms " at our Chicago Fair, 
 and which we revolted against. 
 
 The Capitol of the Transvaal is a noble pile of buildings, 
 stately, imposing and dazzlingly white in the blatant sunshine, 
 against the bluest of blue . skies. The Volksraad, or Parliament 
 building, fronts on Market square, Pretoria, and l6oks directly into 
 the church which is less imposing — almost humble — in its modest 
 absence of any particular order of architecture, save the practically 
 utilitarian. To the right of the government buildings is a great 
 square block of four or five stories in height, each with a verandah. 
 
 BUSINESS QUARTER OF PRETORIA. 
 
 This is the Grand Hotel, and stands on the site of what was 
 once the comparatively humble dwelling of Mr. Lys, one of the old- 
 est and most resolutely honest and reputable Transvaal burghers. 
 He is now dead, and his son lives elsewhere. To the left of the 
 buildings is a queer wedge-shaped block of ofiices, behind which is 
 the theatre, and in front of which are two or three gnarled old oaks, 
 the appointed centre of the weekly auctions which take place on the 
 Market square. 
 
 Every Saturday, in the piping times of peace, the square is full 
 of hucksters, buyers, wagons, carts,, horses, oxen and stray stalls, 
 where almost anything may be bought, from a rifle to the latest comic 
 _ song. It is a very ordinary thing to see sales advertised in the Pretoria 
 papers as taking place " under the oaks." The summit of the Raa !- 
 zaal or government buildings is surmounted by a bronze female 
 figure, which is intended to typify the Spirit of Liberty. Incredu- 
 lous Boers, however, always agog to spy out some hidden taunt or 
 allusion, insist that it is a statue of Queen Victoria. 
 
rld'a 
 
 one 
 
 land 
 
 rives 
 
 the 
 
 the 
 
 no 
 
 •air. 
 
 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 343 
 
 There is a great portico, and a flight of steps that give access to 
 the inner hall. The doors are guarded by artillerymen in jackboots, 
 a blue coat, a white helmet, a revolver slung across their shoulder and 
 a carbine in the hand. From the hall a staircase, wide, well-propor- 
 tioned, and handsomely appointed, leads up to the first floor, where 
 the great Raadzaal, or House of Commons, is situated. 
 
 A fine, large, lofty hall, well decorated in sombre colors, on the 
 walls portraits of past presidents of the South African Republic. 
 Galleries for the press and the public A great dais, on which sit 
 the chairman of the First Raad, the vice-chairman and Paul Kruger. 
 Below them sit the secretaries and clerks, and below them again are 
 three concentric horseshoes of desks, each with its own armchair. 
 Here the members sit. There are not thirty of them, all told. 
 Here and there, between the Raadsleden, or members, are bottles of 
 water and glasses, which ai«e much used by intending speakers. 
 
 MOTTO OF the;. TRANSVAAL. 
 
 Above the chairman's head is the Transvaal coat-of-arms, sur- 
 mounted by the vierkleur, or four-colored national flag — red, white, 
 blue and green — below which is the country's motto, " Eendraagt 
 maakt magt" (Union makes strength). 
 
 Round about the horseshoe tables sits a medley of more or less 
 smooth farmers. Nearly all have fine, striking, picturesque heads; 
 and by a curious freak of reversion to the original type, despite all 
 their terrible degeneration for nearly a century, the heads in the 
 aggregate distinctly suggest the same type as in Rembrandt's 
 "States-General" at the Hague. And no wonder, for the Boer of to- 
 day and the burghers of that date are directly related by descent in 
 the fourth and fifth generations. 
 
 The speaking is hoarse, gruff, guttural, hesitating, rarely 
 fluent, unless one of the leaders and known orators gets up to pour 
 forth his views. The president is a poor speaker as to manner, his 
 matter on the controversy is often excellent, convincing, fall of apt 
 similes, and exactly calculated to the mental capacity of his audience. 
 Now and then the ever wily Oom Paul simulates anger or disgust, 
 talks about resigning, and stalks out of the Council Chamber. But 
 
 '1'J' 
 
344 
 
 CURIOUS SIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THE BOERS. 
 
 it is mere bluff, and has occurred too often for even the youngest 
 member to be taken in by his periodical cry of " wolf." 
 
 The sittings of the Raad take place in the mornings ; occa- 
 sionally, in times of stress, in the afternoons, but never in the 
 evenings. Very often a " secret session" takes place. All strangers 
 »and the press are excluded, and the debates are said to wax very 
 hot and personal. Each hour an adjournment takes place for 
 smoking, and pipes are produced, which are promptly loaded up 
 with the curiously dry, but very fascinating, Boer tobacco from 
 Magaliesberg. 
 
 The pile of Government buildings is new in appearance. 
 Formerly the Raad sat in a tumble-down shanty with a thatched 
 roof just across the church square. During the building of the new 
 edifice their honors met in the theatre, and it is said that the 
 dramatic surroundings were not without their effect upon the 
 speeches. 
 
ingest 
 
 occa- 
 
 i the 
 
 mgers 
 
 very 
 
 ice for 
 
 ied up 
 
 from 
 
 tlie 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Remarkable Features of the British Campaign. 
 
 TXTHILE no great advantage had so far been gained by the 
 
 yV British forces, they were engaged in very active operations, 
 
 the final outcome of which was awaited with great interest. 
 
 It is possible to give a clear statement of the situation at this stage 
 
 of the campaign. 
 
 The renowned General Methuen, noted not only as a success- 
 ful strategist, but also as a brave fighter, started with his column 
 to relieve the " diamond town " of Kimberley. He had a railroad 
 base and open lines behind him. He was expected to push rapidly 
 forward to his terminus, sixty miles from Bloemfontein, ready to 
 threaten the very centre of the Orange Free State. From Belmont 
 on he had now fought ten days. He had with him about 7000 
 men, a picked force selected of the best that could be brought 
 together, including the Guards Brigade, the Naval Brigade and 
 regiments of tried character. He lost in killed and wounded 1002 
 men, one-seventh of his total force. 
 
 He successively placed in action each of the brigades of which 
 his division was composed. His men fought with unflinching 
 gallantry. They were rammed against unshaken infantry under 
 cover, occupying strong positions. He made progress, but cap- 
 tured few prisoners, except those too seriously wounded to retreat. 
 He had not taken a gun or a wagon, neither captured nor broken 
 up a single one of the enemy's organizations, and, except among 
 the wounded, he captured no officer of rank. Military men know 
 only too well the condition in which two weeks of fighting of this 
 character leaves any army, however determined. Nothing so takesi 
 the edge oflF of an advancing force as a succession of assaults which 
 win only empty positions, a bit of trodden ground, a breastwork 
 
 strewn with empty cartridges and desperately wounded men, here 
 
 345 
 
 ^' 
 
 jM . 
 
346 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 and there a skulker under cover, and all else withdrawn in good 
 order and in position on the hill beyond. 
 
 If, after an opening of this sort. Lord Methuen and his men, 
 even with reinforcements, were still able to force their way to 
 Kimberley, all agreed that they would display qualities of tile 
 very highest character as leader and led. At that point thej^ would 
 make a junction with a force of 2760 men (of which about one-third 
 were regulars in the North Lancashire Regiment), nine Maxims 
 and twelve field-guns. 
 
 The purpose of the British plan of campaign was clear. If 
 Lord Methuen reached Kimberley he could threaten Boer communi- 
 cations and make a demonstration against the capital of the Orange 
 Free State, while two British forces were operating, one for the relief 
 of Ladysmith and the other along the lines of railroad which reach 
 from De Aar Junction, Naauwpoort and Stormberg. 
 
 THE SITUATION AT LADYSMITH. 
 
 Sir George White, at Ladysmith, when he began operations, 
 had four cavalry regiments, ten infantry battalions, six field-bat- 
 teries and one mounted battery, with about 1400 local troops, mak- 
 ing about i2,cxx) men. Of these about one-half were shut up in 
 Ladysmith, beleaguered by the Boer forces, which could not have 
 been much over 8cxx) to io,cxx5, though English estimates were 
 much greater. When a junction was effected at Ladysmith the 
 English force there must have outnumbered the Boer force. 
 
 This was also the case in the approach from the south toward 
 Bloemfontein, and it transpired that Lord Methuen's force was to 
 his opponents about in the proportion of 7000 to 5cxx); it must, 
 however, be remembered that, while Lord Methuen started with 
 7000 men from his railroad base, he was more fortunate than most 
 men in campaign if, after a month of operations under this dogged 
 fighting, he had over 4500 men to put in line for a general action. 
 This was the situation : General Methuen moving to Kimberley, 
 General Gatacre concentrating on the lines of converging railroad 
 toward Bloemfontein and General Clery approaching Ladysmith. 
 
 The campaigu had passed out of its first stage. In the ten 
 
 veeks af 
 advantag 
 of the oi 
 be occup 
 they wei 
 ing thes( 
 
 Wh 
 make in 
 field, th< 
 tions of 
 body, ai 
 given p< 
 have a i 
 extreme 
 which, 1 
 savage | 
 and the 
 lar oval 
 Tl 
 ing on 
 forces, 
 of a la 
 while, 
 their n 
 camp '^ 
 had at 
 troops 
 i6,ooc 
 
 Mafel 
 Aar J 
 iindei 
 were 
 othei 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 347 
 
 good 
 
 s men, 
 «^ay to 
 of tfte 
 would 
 third 
 
 weeks after the ultimatum was issued the Boers had every possible 
 advantage which their prompt action could give them. The period 
 of the oflfensive was over for them, and from this time on they would 
 be occupied in defending the three points just mentioned at which 
 they were massed in force. The results which the Boers won dur- 
 ing these ten weeks were amply sufficient to justify their action. 
 
 SIZE OF THE BOERS' ARMY. 
 
 While English estimates of the force opposed to them would 
 make in the aggregate a Boer force of from 28,cxxd to 30,000 in the 
 field, the actual population of the Transvaal, the ordinary condi- 
 tions of civil life, which has to be continued during war by some- 
 body, and the possible military force which can be raised by any 
 given population, rendered it impracticable that the Boers should 
 have a force of ov«r from 22,000 to 25,000 all told. This was the 
 extreme limit. • Deducting guards, men needed to watch frontiers, 
 which, both to the northwest and the northeast, were threatened by 
 savage tribes, and the inevitable attrition of military operations, 
 and the Boer force on the-fighting line, which extented in an irregu- 
 lar oval of nearly 500 miles, was from 16,000 to 18,000 men. 
 
 The figures given in dispatches were much larger, but so dur- 
 ing our own war were the uniform estimates of the Confederate 
 forces. Like Jhe Confederate forces, the Boers have the advantage 
 of a large colored population, which can be used for camp purposes, 
 while. the English forces, organized like our own, have to reduce 
 their military effective in order to provide for cumbrous trains and 
 camp work. This force of the Boers, of from 16,000 to 18,000 men, 
 had at the opening in October opposed to it about 11,000 regular 
 troops, which various volunteer British forces raised to between 
 16,000 to 18,000 men. 
 
 Roughly speaking, this English force had about 1200 men in 
 Mafeking, 2760 in Kimberley, about 1000 without artillery at De 
 Aar Junction, which was made a depot of supplies, and about 6000 
 under Sir George White, with a base at Ladysmith. The remainder 
 were dispersed along the coast, covering communications and in 
 other ways removed from the actual field of hostilities. 
 
Sih 
 
 REMARKABT.L ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 In ten weeks the Boer force took from the British about 1500 
 prisoners. It inflicted a loss in killed of about 500 and in wounded 
 of about 1400, or in all about 340x3. The Boer loss in the same 
 time it is difficult even to estimate. The English statements of a 
 " large Boer loss " after every battle may have been in the main 
 correct. Putting together, however, the statements issued from 
 Pretoria, the actual number of prisoners reported and the killed 
 buried, the Boer loss must have been in the neighborhood of from 
 1000 to 1200. 
 
 Vailed in offensive warfare. 
 
 Meanwhile, the English force was raised by successive 
 arrivals to about 56,000 men. What the Boers accomplished, 
 therefore, was to inflict a loss of a little less than ten per cent. 
 of the force opposed to them at a cost to their own force of a loss 
 of about five per cent. They gained a moral advantage which it 
 is impossible to overestimate, as it enabled them to harden, to con- 
 solidate and to train their raw levies. Their capture in equipment, 
 in horses, in food and in material was. also considerable. Their 
 failure, and it was a most serious one, was in initiative. Military 
 history has established as a principle, which is as incontrovertible 
 as a problem in Euclid, that irregular troops cannot be trusted, ex- 
 cept when in greatly superior numbers, to make hazardous assaults 
 or eflfective offensive operations. 
 
 The very large depot of English ammunition at De Aar Junc- 
 tion was for nearly three weeks under guard of a single regiment, 
 unprovided with artillery. It was never attacked, much less de- 
 stroyed. No one of the three positions invested was even seriously 
 assaulted. The one risk at any one of them was of the lack of 
 ammuintion and there was evidently, at Ladysmith, some reason 
 for leading the Boers to feel that its fall was possible, or there would 
 not have been the constant succession of rumors which emanated 
 from Boer sympathizers in Europe. 
 
 The three points of superiority which marked the Boer campaign 
 thus far were the great skill with which they, at every stage, in 
 carrying on offensive operations, forced a British attack ; the range 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 349 
 
 |)out 1500 
 
 wounded 
 
 I the same 
 
 jents of a 
 
 I the main 
 |ued from 
 [he killed 
 of from 
 
 uccessive 
 tnplished, 
 per cent. 
 of a loss 
 which it 
 Q, to con- 
 [uipment, 
 e. Their 
 Military 
 rovertible 
 Listed, ex- 
 1 assaults 
 
 Ur Junc- 
 egimeni, 
 
 less de- 
 seriously 
 
 lack of 
 e reason 
 re would 
 tnanated 
 
 :mpaign 
 tage, in 
 e range 
 
 of their artillery, which exceeds by nearly a mile the range of the 
 English arm, as it would also of our own, and their success in 
 moving to Ladysraith a field-gun intended for seige purposes, of 
 great range and power. 
 
 Such a gun offers great technical difficulties in its transporta- 
 tion, in 'providing for its mount, the recoil being too great to be 
 taken up by the carriage of an ordinary field-piece, and in the supply 
 of its ammunition. But for the 5-inch navy guns thrown into 
 Ladysmith by the energy and on the personal responsibility of a 
 naval captain, the British position would have been completely com- 
 manded by the heavy Boer artillery. The Boer campaign, if it did 
 nothing else, demonstrated that a strong artillery service can be 
 organized with material which has hitherto been supposed to pre- 
 clude an effective use of this weapon. • 
 
 COUNTRY AFFORDS STRONG DEFENSIVE POSITIONS. 
 
 The Boer offensive was concentrated about North Natal, deter- 
 mined by the presence there of a large English force. The English 
 offensive was determined by the character of the country. South 
 A.frica consists of a low and very narrow plain of an elevation of 
 100 to 500 feet. Above this runs for from 200 to 400 miles inland 
 a rainless plateau of from i5cmd to 2000 feet high. Where this 
 reaches its highest level it comes to the more elevated plateau, 
 sloping from mountains of 6000 feet on the east, with some peaks 
 still higher, of the two republics to the river valleys which leave it 
 on the west, and having an elevation of about 3000 feet. 
 
 This plateau consists^ as does so much of our own country on 
 each side of the AUeghanies, of a broad expanse of saddle-back 
 hills, separated by deep valleys in which run streams that have cut 
 precipitous channels. It was over such a region that Lord Methuen 
 was fighting. It offered ideal possibilities for defense. The streams 
 are narrow ditches and the saddle-back, rolling-top hills furnish 
 space for manoeuvre, for cover and for dogged defense. 
 
 The Modder River, where General Methuen crossed it, in its 
 steep bank, the slope beyond and the level, rolling plateau beyond, 
 closely resembles the conditions General Burnside faced at Freder- 
 
 is 
 
 V..i,, 
 
350 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 icksburg. Like General Burnside, General Methuen crossed and 
 assaulted at a terrible loss. His movements and action were prompt. 
 The English reserves turned out with great rapidity. Nothing 
 could be finer than the success with which Great Britain succeeded 
 in gathering an army and in equipping its infantry regiments. 
 Their one deficiency was in oificers, and Boer marksmanship greatly 
 aided the English difficulty at this point. With us our regiments 
 grow their own officers in the field. English officers are and must 
 be drawn from a class, and the English service has never yet been 
 tried at this point by the rapid attrition of modern warfare. 
 
 DEFICIENCY IN CAVALRY AND ARTILLERY. 
 
 A misplaced economy has left English guns two horses short, 
 and the cavalry remounts deficient. The result has been that, while 
 the English infantry has gone on in rapid shipments, the cavalry and 
 artillery have been deferred to the last, and English operations began 
 with a most serious deficiency in both arms. The disaster at Lady- 
 smith showed what untrained horses and mules may do in battle. It 
 is a sad fact that our own military establishment is systematically 
 unhorsed in its artillery and cavalry. It was generally conceded 
 that if the English campaign opened with a serious disaster it would 
 undoubtedly be because, against the advice of military experts, a 
 few thousand pounds were saved during the preceding twenty years 
 in horse flesh. 
 
 The large number of British officers killed in battle in Natal 
 brought out strenuous protests from many quarters against the 
 ancient custom of British officers in refusing to take cover when 
 under fire. 
 
 From figures at Glencoe it is apparent that one out of every 
 four men killed was an officer, whereas the organization exists upon 
 the principle that to every twenty-five men there is one officer. It 
 is evident that if the same ratio of mortality were kept up the 
 British forces would become seriously underofficered. Among the 
 enlisted men at Glencoe the proportion of killed to wounded was 
 thirty to 156, while ten officers were killed to twenty-two officers 
 wounded. The diffierence in the percentage led to the conclusion 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMI'AlGN. 
 
 851 
 
 ^y 
 
 sed and 
 prompt. 
 Nothing 
 icceeded 
 riments. 
 greatly 
 giments 
 id must 
 ^et been 
 
 !S short, 
 It, while 
 ilry and 
 s began 
 t Lady- 
 ttle. It 
 atically 
 onceded 
 t would 
 perts, a 
 y years 
 
 1 Natal 
 Qst the 
 r when 
 
 ' every 
 s upon 
 er. It 
 up the 
 ig the 
 2d was 
 )fficers 
 lusion 
 
 that many of the officers were hit more than once and kept on 
 leading their men after the first wound. 
 
 The feeling in the army itself is that, though the regulations 
 do not say the officers must not lie down, it is such an old- 
 established principle that it would take a brave man to inaugurate 
 a change, and the adage of the British soldier, *' Follow wherever 
 an officer leads," is heldstilLtobeintensely true, for, though the 
 officers believe the personnel of the army is as good as ever, it has 
 been the history of Great Britain that * Tommy Atkins " needs 
 more leading than any other man in the world ; so the spilling of 
 Great Britain's best blood is in this way accounted for. 
 
 HEAVY LOSSES IN BATTLE. 
 
 The proportion of the casualties as a whole caused a thrill of 
 horror and sympathy throughout Great Britain, for the people now 
 began to realize what a fight with a civilized enemy means. Old 
 soldiers pointed out that at the Alma, one of the bloodiest battles 
 in Great Britain's annals, the casualties totaled only six percent, 
 whereas in the Boer engagements they considerably exceeded that 
 figure. 
 
 That the war was bound to come in process of time was the 
 almost universal opinion of those who noted the trend of events 
 and studied the situation. To show the bitter feeling between the 
 English and Boers, we insert here an extract from a statement by 
 Mr. Victor M. Clement, who lived in the Transvaal three years, 
 and who was one of the committee" that made an armed protest 
 against the alleged abuses of the Boer Government. Mr. Clem- 
 ent's statement fallows : 
 
 " In 1886, when gold was discovered in the Transvaal, that 
 country was miserably poor, and the government had no credit. 
 It was largely in debt, and things were at so low an ebb that the 
 government could not negotiate a loan for so paltry a sum as 
 $25,000. Being in most urgent need of money. President Kruger, 
 of the so-called Boer Republic, finally found a Jew named Sam 
 Marks, who made a loan, taking as security therefor a mortgage 
 on sixty Boer farms, each comprising many thousands of acres. 
 
 3 
 
862 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Ii 
 
 II ' 
 
 "Following the discovery of gold, there was a rush of 
 English, Americans, French and Germans to the Transvaal, and 
 by them and the capital which flowed in with them the country 
 has become one of the richest in the world. In spite of the 
 obstacles placed in the way, the mines have become the greatest 
 producers of the yellow metal in the world, but the oppression of 
 the foreigners by the Boer Government has become intolerable. 
 
 "The system of concessions is a great evil. The government, 
 for instance, for a large consideration, most of which finds its way 
 into the pockets of dishonest ofi&cials, granted the sole right to one 
 firm to sell dynamite. The result is that miners have to pay most 
 exorbitant prices for that to them indispensable material. The 
 exclusive right to build railways in the Transvaal was sold to a 
 Holland company, and so on down the line, until the privilege of 
 selling almost every commodity is granted to some firm or indi- 
 vidual. This state of things is almost as bad for the rank and 
 file of the Boer population as for the foreigners, and the chief ben- 
 eficiaries are the officials, the government receiving a very small 
 percentage of the money paid for the concession. 
 
 OUTLANDERS DENIED POLITICAL RIGHTS. 
 
 "The newcomers, the Omlanders, are as progressive and intel- 
 ligent as any people in the world. The Boer population, all told, 
 number about 78,000, while the Outlanders are 210,000. Of the 
 latter about one-sixth are English, a good many are Americans 
 and Germans, some French dnd a few of other countries. 
 
 " The Outlanders have no political rights except to pay taxes. 
 They are denied the franchise, have no say whatever in the gov- 
 ernment, and are without representation in the legislative ass em- 
 blies. Yet they pay nine-tenths of the entire taxes. Their quota 
 in 1899 was nearly $50,000. It is, moreover, almost an impossi- 
 bility for a foreigner to become naturalized. So many conditions 
 which cannot be fulfilled are prescribed that even under the most 
 favorable circumstances the time required is so long that a man 
 would die of old age before he could get his full citizenship. This 
 is purposely arranged because the Boer rulers know that if 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN 
 
 sh of 
 .1, and 
 untry 
 f the 
 eatest 
 ion of 
 ble. 
 ment, 
 s way 
 to one 
 most 
 The 
 d to a 
 ege of 
 r Indi- 
 ik and 
 efben- 
 small 
 
 ms 
 
 foreigners were admitted to citizenship and given the right of suf- 
 frage their reign would be short. 
 
 "Johannesburg has a population of over 100,000, most of 
 whom are debarred from the franchise. Among them originated 
 the demand for reform and equal rights. They took up arms in 
 1895, with the intention of enforcing their demands on Kruger. 
 They made arrangements with Jameson, the administrator at 
 Rhodesia, who had 480 English soldiers under his command, that 
 if the armed 'committee' failed, he would come to their help with 
 his troops, whom he massed at Mafeking. 
 
 PROMISES MADE ONLY TO BE BROKEN. 
 
 "Oom Paul became alarmed at the turn affairs were taking, 
 and sent representatives to Johannesburg to meet the reform com- 
 mittee and adjust matters without recourse to arms. Kruger 
 invited members of the reform committee to meet him at Pretoria. 
 A deputation was sent, and an understanding was reached with 
 Kruger and his cabinet, whereby the Boers agreed to such amend- 
 ments to the laws a§ would enable Outlanders to become citizens 
 within a reasonable time. An armistice was established, and 
 the committee, 2,600 strong, agreed to peace. 
 
 " Against the instructions of the committee and for some unex- 
 plained reason, Jameson with his little band, crossed the border. 
 They were outnumbered by the Boers, and either taken prisoners 
 or slain. Jameson's unjustifiable action placed the English gov- 
 ernment in a bad position. The English High Commissioner of 
 South Africa came to the Transvaal with a view to arranging 
 terms for the release of Jameson's band. The only condition 
 upon which Kruger would release the prisoners was that the 
 reform committee would turn over their arms to the Boers. 
 
 "The High Commissioner sent a representative to the reform 
 committee, and to save Jameson and his men, and on the assurance 
 from Kruger that no action would be taken against them, and on 
 the promise that the British Government would see that the 
 reforms agreed to by the Boers would be carried out, the commit- 
 tee turned over their arms to the Boers. 
 
 
864 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 
 
 "Instead of instituting reforms, tlie Boer Government 
 engaged in making new laws still more oppressive to the Out- 
 landers. About this time the case of Brown versus the Transvaal 
 Government, involving Brown's right to mining claims worth 
 $2,000, cxx), came up for trial. The five judges of the Supreme 
 Court decided in favor of Brown, which made Kruger so angry, 
 that he caused the removal of all of them from the bench. The 
 Outlanders made an urgent appeal to Great Britain to exercise iu 
 their behalf the power of sovereignty over the Transvaal, con- 
 ferred upon it by the previous treaty. . 
 
 "Three causes led up to the present war: 
 
 "i. The Outlanders' demand for redress and sweeping 
 reforms. 
 
 "2. The question of England's suzerainty over the country, 
 the Boers contending that it had been lost by the treaty of 1881, 
 made with the Boers by the Gladstone Government. 
 
 "3. An attempt by Kruger and the Dutch element to unite 
 all the states in South Africa in one govem;ment, with Kruger at 
 its head, and to exclude England from the country." 
 
 SEVERE REPULSE OF GATACRE'S COLUMN. . 
 
 General Gatacre's column, which had been moving toward 
 Stoi'mberg, in Cape Colony, where it was known there was a formid- 
 able force of Boers, met with a serious repulse on Depember loth. 
 The British were misled by guides as to the enemy's position, and 
 met with sharper resistance than was expected. General Gatacre 
 left Putters Kraal by train for Molteno and then proceeded by forced 
 march twelvt miles toward Stormberg, his force including the 
 Northumberland Fusileers, the Royal Irish Rifles and two 
 batteries of field artillery, with other troops. 
 
 The British were unmolested by the Boers until the Boer posi- 
 tion was reached, when a hot fire was unexpectedly opened upon 
 the advancing column. The engagement began at 4.15 a.m. At 7 
 A.M., after a sharp artillery duel, the British retired and marched 
 towards Molteno. General Gatacre found the enemy's position 
 impregnable. It was impossible for the British infantry to get at the 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 356 
 
 Boers. The movement may be termed a reconnoissance in force. Its 
 object was to ascertain the strength of tl^e position of the Boers who 
 
 • were strongly entrenched along the Stormberg Range. 
 
 Details of the engagement show that the column arrived safely 
 within a couple of miles of its destination, the only incidents of the 
 
 * inarch being an occasional sudden call of " Halt," under the belief 
 that the Boers were near. Suddenly a terrific fire opened simulta- 
 neously on the British front and right flank. The Royal Irish 
 Rifles, which formed the advance, sought shelter behind a neighbor- 
 ing hill, and were speedily joined by the remainder of the column. 
 It was soon found, however, that this position was also covered by 
 Boer guns, which were more powerful than had been supposed. 
 The troops, therefore, sought a safer position about half a mile away, 
 two batteries in the meantime engaging the Boers and covering the 
 troops in their withdrawal. 
 
 RUSHING INTO A TERRIBLE FIRE. 
 
 The action now became general at long range, and a detach- 
 ment of mounted infantry moved northward with a view of getting 
 on the enemy's right flank. Suddenly a strong commando was 
 seen moving from the north and the Royal Irish Rifles and the 
 Northumberland Regiment were sent out to meet it. It was soon 
 discovered, however, that the Boers had machine guns well placed, 
 and the British were compelled to face a terrible fire. 
 
 Finding it impossible to hold the position in the face of an 
 enemy apparently superior in positions, numbers and artillery, the 
 British retired on Molteno, the Boers following up the retirement 
 closely and bringing two big guns to bear on the retiring column. 
 
 Advices received at the War Office in London from Cape Town, 
 flated December 9th (before the engagement above described), were 
 :is follows: 
 
 "The position of the enemy in Stormberg district last night was 
 the following : At Stormberg six encampments ; at Dordrecht, 800 
 men; twenty-three miles south of Sterkstroom, 220 men. Major 
 Elliott reports that Dalgetty, with a force, has gone toward Dord- 
 recht to co-operate with Gatacre. The railway bridge at Modder 
 
 ii 
 
356 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 River was completed December 7th. Methuen reports that he made 
 a demonstration up the line of the railway at daylight to-day with 
 artillery. The enemy did not respond. Methuen is receiving the 
 remainder of his reinforcements and supplies. He has established 
 detached posts on his lines of communication. Mafeking reports 
 all well on November 30th." 
 
 Sir William Forbes Gatacre, commander of the British force 
 that operated against Stormberg, won a great reputation in the British 
 army in the campaigns in India and the Soudan, where he com- 
 manded brigades, and received many war medals for services in the 
 lower grades of rank. He is a member of " Distinguished Service 
 Order." The private soldiers in the barrack-room bestowed on the 
 General the nickname of " Bill Backacher," on account of his capa- 
 city for hark work. In the Soudan his brigade was recognized as 
 the best marching force in the country, and General Gatacre him- 
 self tramped cheerfully through the desert on the way to Khartoum. 
 
 RECEIVED THANKS OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 From the time he entered the army in the Duke of Cambridge's 
 Own Middlesex, he passed a most active military career. 'Having 
 gone through the Staff College, he filled administrative posts at 
 Aldershot and Madras, and later on filled the positions in India of 
 assistant quartermaster-general on the headquarters staff, r^nd adju- 
 tant-general at Bombay. In the Chetral campaign of 1895, with 
 his brigade forming part of the relief force, he conducted the action 
 of Marragai, and had fierce fighting in the passages of the Janbatai 
 and Lowarai passes. At the end of the 1898 campaign in the Egyp- 
 tian Soudan, for his services at the battles of Atbara and Omdurman, 
 he received the thanks of Parliament, and was made a Knight 
 Commander of the Bath. 
 
 Another desperate engagement between General Methuen's 
 column and the Boers occurred north of Modder. River, in which the 
 British troops met with serious check and suffered great losses. 
 Their artillerj^ shelled a very strong position held by the enemy in 
 a long, high kopje (hill), from 4 until dusk on Sunday, December 
 loth. The Highland Brigade attacked at daybreak, on Monday, 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 357 
 
 |he made 
 
 lay with 
 
 nng the 
 
 iblished 
 
 reports 
 
 ih force 
 British 
 |he com- 
 s in the 
 Service 
 3 on the 
 lis capa- 
 lized as 
 ere him- 
 artoum. 
 
 bridge's 
 Having 
 posts at 
 India of 
 id adju- 
 )5» with 
 2 action 
 anbatai 
 
 urman, 
 Knight 
 
 :huen's 
 ich the 
 losses, 
 imy in 
 member 
 Dnday, 
 
 the south end of the kopje. The attack was properly timed, but 
 failed. 
 
 The Guards were ordered to protect the Highlands' right and 
 rear. The cavalry and mounted infantry, with a howitzer artillery 
 battery, attacked the enemy on the left, and the Guards on the right, 
 supported by field and howitzer artillery. They vigorously shelled 
 the position from daybreak. At 1.15 o'clock. General Methuen 
 sent the Gordons to support the Highland Brigade. The troops 
 held their own in front of the enemy's entrenchments until dmsk, 
 the position extending, including the kopje, for a distance of six 
 miles toward the Modder River. 
 
 GREAT BRAVERY OF BRITISH TROOPS. 
 
 General Methuen held his position and threw up entrench- 
 ments. His loss was heavy. Under date of December nth, an 
 ofl&cial report was issued by the Boers, as follows : "A battle at 
 Modder River began on the loth with cannon firing, heavy fighting 
 proceeding from 3.30 o'clock in the morning until 9.30 o'clock, with 
 cannon, Maxim guns and rifles. A balloon has just arisen above 
 the British positions, where it remained ten minutes and descended. 
 There were heavy rains during the night. 
 
 " At 9 o'clock this morning a further report was received from 
 Modder River. A dispatch rider brought word that all the Boer 
 positions had been maintained, and that forty-one British prisoners 
 had been taken. At 9.30 o'clock it was reported that the heavy 
 cannon fire had somewhat abated. The British are constantly using 
 their ballooii. The fighting was still going on at noon." 
 
 From complete accounts of the engagement it appears that, 
 early in the evening, the Guards of the Highland Brigade moved 
 from the Modder Camp, marching in the night in a northeasterly 
 direction. The objective of the Highlanders was the eastern spur of 
 the Boer position, the Guards following the bank of the river, while 
 the Yorkshire Light Infantry moved along the riverside. Just be- 
 fore daybreak, the Highlanders arrived within 200 yards of the Boer 
 entrenchments at the foot of a hill. 
 
 Unsuspecting that the Boers were in the vicinity, the British 
 
 f:.i;^ 
 
" hi 
 
 m 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 868 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 were still marching in quartei column, in close order, when they 
 met a terrible fire from the flanks and were forced to retire with 
 heavy loss. The troops reformed under the shelter of some rising 
 ground and gallantly held their position. Later, the Gordons 
 arrived. The troops gradually worked their way until within 300 
 yards of the Boer positions, displaying the greatest gallantry. In 
 the meanwhile, a naval gun at the Modder River, the Howitzer bat- 
 teries and the Horse Artillery opened a terrific fire, enfilading the 
 trenches and searching every portion of the Boer position. The 
 Boer guns were entirely silent. 
 
 In the meanwhile the Boers, on the open ground directly in 
 front, moved with the object of making a flank attack. But this was 
 frustrated by the Guards and artillery. The Boers recommenced 
 shelling in the evening, but no damage was done. The British 
 slept on their position. The losses on both sides were very heavy. 
 
 Among the killed on the British side were the Marquis of West- 
 minster and General Wauchope. The death of General Wauchope 
 was widely deplored. A pathetic circumstance was that his wife 
 was among the inquirers at the War Ofiice in London a few minutes 
 before the telegram announcing his death was posted. 
 
 A VALIANT GENERAL. 
 
 Wounded in three campaigns — once very severely — during his 
 soldier's life, General Wauchope fell as he wished, leading his own 
 regiment, the Black Watch, to the attack. The position he had 
 coveted was his. As Brigadier of the Highland Brigade, in which 
 the Scotch Highland regiments of the First Army Corps were 
 grouped, he was in the line of succession to Sir Colin Campbell, 
 Lord Clyde, under whom some of the sternest fighting and most 
 brilliant feats of arms were accomplished in the Crimea and the 
 Indian mutiny. 
 
 Andrew Gilbert Wauchope, of Niddry Marischal, Midlothian, 
 came of a family long settled near the Scottish capital, the "heart" 
 of the county. As a magistrate and deputy lieutenant he possesscu 
 considerable county influence, and for this reason was chosen as the 
 conservative candidate to oppose Mr. Gladstone in what was a " for- 
 

 p they 
 fe with 
 rising 
 [ordons 
 |in3oo 
 
 fy- 111 
 per bat- 
 
 ig the 
 
 The 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 359 
 
 lorn hope" at the general election of 1892. Mr. Gladstone held the 
 seat by an enormous majority, and it was with no prospect of oust- 
 ing the aged statesman in his last electoral contest that Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Wauchope came forward. 
 
 But it was one of the significant incidents of that general elec- 
 tion that Mr. Gladstone's majority was greatly reduced by the simple 
 soldier, who had no political pretensions. His life was passed in 
 military service with but brief interruptions, and he devoted himself 
 assiduously to maintaining the traditional fame of the Black Watch, 
 the second battalion of which, the old Seventy-third, he joined on 
 entering the army. 
 
 IN THE FOREFRONT OF BATTLE. 
 
 He married, in 1882, Alethea, daughter of Sir Thomas Erskine. 
 Accompanying his regiment, he fought with it in the Ashanti cam- 
 paign of Sir Garnet Wolesley, in 1873-74, and gained a mention in 
 the dispatches. At Tel-el-Kebir he was in the front, in 1882, and 
 in the Gordon relief campaign two years later was severely wounded. 
 He was selected for the command of a brigade in 1898, in Lord 
 Kitchener's expedition to Khartoum. 
 
 At the battle of Omdurman, when the advance from the Zariba 
 to the city began, his brigade gave timely help to Macdonald's 
 Egyptians. His services in this campaign brought him promotion 
 to a Major-General's rank, and he received the thanks of Parlia- 
 ment. Like Sir William Penu Symons, he was a typical regimental 
 ofl&cer of the British army, with prospects of selection to an inde- 
 pendent command, and his loss was all the greater blow. 
 
 Detailed accounts of the sortie made from Ladysmith by the 
 British in an effort to capture the Boer position on Gun Hill, 
 showed that all the men taking part in it were on foot. Some wore 
 rubber-soled shoes and carried no bayonets. When they had 
 silently mounted the rocks, passing the sleeping Boer picket, they 
 suddenly heard the challenge, " Who comes there ?" No reply was 
 made, and the challenge was repeated. 
 
 Then the Boers cried out several times: "The Redcoat! Shoot!" 
 An officer of the Light Horse Volunteers thereupon shouted in Dutch: 
 
 
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 ;, 
 
 % 
 
 
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 m:^"' 
 
 
 
ili 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. ' 
 
 " The Redcoats with bayonets I Run !" The British cheered and 
 charged. The enemy's fire broke out in front and rear, and the 
 British in front thought their comrades were firing on them. Gene- 
 ral Hunter ordered " cease fire" to be sounded, and the next minute 
 the Boers bolted. Some thirty were surprised asleep. One of the 
 sergeants, amid the confusion, seized General Hunter by the throat, 
 crying, " Who the devil are you ?" . 
 
 There was a hurried search by the British for the big guns. 
 For a moment the horrible thought seized them that there might be 
 no guns at all ; that the enemy, as had often been the case, had 
 somehow got wind of the projected attack and removed their cannon 
 to a safe distance; but at last, to the delight of everybody, the " Long 
 Tom" itself was discovered snugly ensconced behind a parapet of 
 sand-bags thirty-one feet thick. A 4.7-inch howitzer was found in 
 an emplacement hardly less strong, with a Maxim gun between the 
 two, posted apparently for the purpose of repelling an assault. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF BIG GUNS. 
 
 Lieutenant. Turner, with two sappers and six artillerymen, at 
 once took charge of the " Long Tom," and with crowbars and ham- 
 mers smashed the breach and elevating gear. Two charges of gun- 
 cotton were then placed in the breech and muzzle and connected 
 with fuses. While the Long Tom was thus being provided for, 
 similar attention was bestowed on the howitzer by Captain Fowke 
 and other sappers and gunners. The preparations being completed, 
 General Hunter ordered the men down the hill. 
 
 The fuses were lit with the burning ends of ofiicers' cigars. 
 Everybody fell back with the exception of Captain Fowke, who re- 
 mained midway between the two big guns, and after a couple of 
 minutes of suspense a loud report showed that the object had been 
 accomplished. Captain Fowke hastened to examine the debris. He 
 found the 6-inch gun with two gaping holes in the muzzle, which 
 I was badly bulged, and the breech rifling had been destroyed beyond 
 • all chance of repair. The howitzer was in even a worse plight, the 
 explosion having wrecked the carriage as well as the gun. The 
 Maxim was seized and carried off. - 
 
 ■■*■ 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 361 
 
 The men returned to camp across the plain unmolested. 
 Other trophies of the sortie were an English song book that was 
 found in a cave underneath the parapet, where the gunners evidently 
 took refuge, and a private letter, in which it was said that the 
 burghers were not a bit frightened. 
 
 In the desperate fight at Magersfontein, the Highlanders did 
 all that the most gallant troops in the world could do, but it was 
 impossible to face the terrible fire of the Boers. The British artil- 
 lery again saved the situation, and divided the honors of the day 
 with the Scotchmen. The batteries worked for hours under a 
 galling rifle fire. The Boers suffered a heavy loss. A single lyd- 
 dite shell killed or wounded more than seventy Boers, and two other 
 shells burst over two bodies of Boers ensconced behind the range, 
 doing fearful damage. The Boers fought throughout with the 
 utmost gallantry. Their sharpshooters seldom missed the mark. 
 
 BURSTING SHELL AT A PRAYER MEETING. 
 
 A Boer, faultlessly dressed, with polished top-boots, a shirt 
 with silk ruffles, and a segar in his mouth, was seen walking among 
 the ant hills, picking off the British. This Boer was quite alone, 
 and it was apparent from his frequent use of field-glasses that 
 he was singling out officers. A lyddite shell, fired on Sunday, fell 
 in the middle of an open-air prayer meeting, held to offer supplica- 
 tions for the success of the Boer arms. 
 
 All the wounded were full of praise for the treatment they 
 received from the medical department on the battlefield. While the 
 Guards were advancing on the plain, which the Boers were shelling 
 from the adjoining ridges, they encountered and cut up a strong 
 Boer picket, posted on a hill for purposes of observation. All the 
 members of the picket were either killed, wounded or taken 
 prisoners. 
 
 Concerning the engagement at Magersfontein, General Cronje, 
 
 commander of the Boers, reported that there was desultory fighting 
 
 ' for several hours, when heavy cannon fire was resumed. The 
 
 Scandinavr'ans stormed a difficult position, but it became untenable 
 
 and they suffered severely. General Cronje was unable to send 
 
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I 
 
 
 III 
 
 862 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 help. The British were in overwhelming force, but their losses 
 were very heavy. 
 
 Another official report from Captain Finnhart stated that 
 there were no signs of surrender, the burghers fighting with con- 
 spicuous bravery and maintaining their positions under heavy 
 British fire. The Boer cannon were of very little use. The British 
 were greatly assisted by balloons. Twenty-four ambulances worked 
 backward and forward between the fighting line and the enemy's 
 camp, and were kept busy caring for the wounded. 
 
 FIERCE BATTLE AT TUGELA RIVER. , 
 
 On the 15th of December General Buller attempted to i^jice a 
 passage of the Tugela River in order to afford relief to Lady smith, 
 and met with a serious reverse. He moved in full strength from 
 his camp near Chieveley at 4 o'clock in the morning. There are 
 two fordable places in the Tugela River, and it was his intention to 
 force a passage through at one of them. They are about two miles 
 apart. 
 
 He planned to force one or the other with one brigade, sup- 
 ported by a central brigade. General Hart was to attack the left 
 ford, General Hildyard the right road, and General Lyttleton was 
 to take the centre and to support either. Early in the day Buller 
 saw that General Hart would not be able to force a passage and 
 directed him to withdraw. He had, however, attacked with great 
 gallantry, and his leading battalion, the Connaught Rangers, 
 suffered a great deal. Colonel I. G. Brooke was seriously wounded. 
 Buller then ordered General Hildyard to advance, which he did, 
 and his leading regiment, the East Surrey, occupied Colenso station 
 and the houses near the bridge. 
 
 At that moment Buller heard that the whole artillery he had 
 sent to support the attack — the Fourteenth and Sixty-sixth Field 
 Batteries and six naval 12-pounder quick-firing guns — under Colonel 
 Long, had advanced close to the river in Long's desire to be within 
 effective range. It proved to be full of the eneaiy, who suddenly 
 opened a galling fire at close range, killing all their horses, and the 
 gunners were compelled to stand to their guns. Some of th«» wagon 
 
|i;. »'>■!'■ 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 888 
 
 |ir losses 
 
 ted that 
 
 ^ith con- 
 
 Jr heavy 
 
 British 
 
 worked 
 
 [enemy's 
 
 /•jice a 
 tysmith, 
 th from 
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 »e had 
 Field 
 ■olonel 
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 ad the 
 vagon 
 
 teams got shelter for the troops in a donga (hollow) and desperate 
 efforts were made to bring out the field-guns. The fire, however, 
 was too severe, and they only were saved by Captain Schofield and 
 some drivers. 
 
 Another most gallant attempt with three teams was made. Of 
 the eighteen horses thirteen were killed, and, as several drivers were 
 wounded, the commander would not allow another attempt, as it' 
 seemed that they would be a shell mark, sacrificing life to a gallant 
 attempt to force the passage Unsupported by artillery, he directed 
 the troops to withdraw, which they did in good order. Throughout 
 the day a considerable force of the enemy was pressing on his right 
 flank, but was kept back by mounted men under Lord Dundonald 
 and part of General Barton's brigade. The day was intensely hot 
 and most trying even on troops whose condition was excellent. 
 
 SERIOUS LOSS OF GUNS. 
 
 The British abandoned ten guns and lost by shell-fire one. 
 The losses in General Hart's brigade were heavy, although the pro- 
 portion of severely wounded was not large. The Fourteenth and 
 Sixty-sixth Field Batteries also suffered severe losses. The British 
 retired to their camp at Chieveley. 
 
 The Tugela River flows from close to Van Reenen's Pass to 
 the Indian Ocean, about forty miles above Durban. It lies north of 
 Colenso and immediately south of Lady smith, and in the winter 
 season is a turbulent stream. Both banks at and for miles along 
 the front where General BuUer attempted to cross in pontoons, as 
 the bridge had been destroyed, are steep, and, on the north side 
 especially, are backed by a mountainous country. For weeks the 
 Boers had been entrenching themselves on the north bank of the 
 river, as it was realized that there the advance of the British for the 
 relief of Ladysmith could be most stubbornly resisted. 
 
 That the fight was a desperate one it is needless to say. The 
 issue at stake was tremendous, and it can readily be understood that 
 the British retired only after a succession of plucky efforts to cross 
 the river. This was the first engagement in which General Buller 
 figured. All England looked forward to him to retrieve British 
 
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 ! 
 
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 I- \-Ai 
 
 m 
 
i 
 
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 364 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 prestige, and that his initial battle proved to be a defeat was a bitter 
 disappointment. 
 
 All the British commanders in South Africa — Gatacre, Methueu 
 and Buller — had now been discomfited and repulsed. 
 
 On the 15th the British bombarded some of the Boer positions 
 at Colenso, but the burghers did not reply. This concealment of 
 their positions was in line with Boer tactics. It is only when 
 a British cavalry charge is ordered and made that the artillery and 
 rifle fire of the Boers disclose where they are. 
 
 General Buller reported to the War Office in London that his 
 losses in the engagement with the Boers at the Tugela River, near 
 Colenso, December 15th, were 1150 men. The revised list of the 
 British casualties in the battle of Magersfontein, on the i2th, showed 
 the total to be 963, of which number seventy were officers. In 
 these two encounters with the Boers, therefore, the British lost 
 21 13 men. The Boers fought generally under cover. 
 
 DEATH OF A BRILLIANT OFFICER. 
 
 Captain Roberts, son of General Lord F. Roberts, was severely 
 wounded in the Tugela River fight while leading some men in an 
 attempt to rescue the guns. Professor MacCormac, President of the 
 Royal College of Surgeons, extracted the bullet, but Captain 
 Roberts died from the effects of his wound. The War Office issued 
 a list of the casualties in the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) 
 Regiment in the battle of Magersfontein. There were forty-one 
 killed, 163 wounded and 11 1 missing. 
 
 Mutual arrangements were made by the British and Boer com- 
 manders by which the British dead were to be buried on the 14th 
 and 15th. The Boers stipulated, however, that only a clergyman 
 of the Reformed Church should officiate, and that the British should 
 not come within 600 yards of their lines. Mr. Robertson, the 
 Presbyterian chaplain of one of the Highland regiments, who had 
 previously been of great help, was selected to conduct the burial 
 services. He took twenty engineers with him and started for the 
 scene of the battle of Magersfontein. The engineers, who acted as 
 litter-bears, were blindfolded when they reached the Boer outposts. 
 
 -r- 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 •M\rt 
 
 \ . '» !' 
 
 bitter 
 
 ithuen 
 
 fsitions 
 
 lent of 
 
 when 
 
 |ry and 
 
 lat his 
 , near 
 of the 
 howed 
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 h lost 
 
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 in an 
 of the 
 aptain 
 issued 
 aders) 
 ty-one 
 
 com- 
 14th 
 
 ^^n^au 
 
 lould 
 
 , the 
 
 > had 
 
 urial 
 
 r the 
 
 id as 
 
 »sts. 
 
 General Cronje, the Boer Commandant, sent a message regret- 
 ting that he could not come personally to receive the burial party, 
 but he said that other affairs engaged his attention at the time. 
 He sent Commandant Vermaas, Intelligence Officer Draper and 
 Field Comet Wills to assist Mr. Robertson in locating the dead. 
 Afterward Colonial Doctor Grogan joined them and found he knew 
 many of the slain. Chaplain Robertson said that what seemed 
 like deserted kopjes and ridges swarmeid with men as his party 
 approached. Commandant Vermaas treated him in the kindest 
 manner. He returned twice to see if he could be of any further 
 assistance and shook hands with Mr. Robertson on parting. 
 
 MET WITH A TERRIBLE HAIL OF BULLETS. 
 
 Boer prisoners said that if the Highland Brigade had massed 
 and stormed the trenches after the first surprise the British loss 
 would have been heavier, because the Boers from the kopje on the 
 side were ready to enfilade the trenches if they had been captuted. 
 The Gordon Highlanders were held in reserve till 10 o'clock the 
 morning of the fight, when they went forward in wide order toward 
 the base of the east kopje. They got within 500 yards of this 
 point without any casualties worth mentioning, when they suddenly 
 encountered a strong cross-fire. The Boers had allowed them to 
 reach the point where they were concealed in the trenches and then 
 the burghers infiladed the Highlanders. Early in the fighting the 
 Highland Brigade demolished the Scandinavian contingent of about 
 two hundred. 
 
 The Boer Intelligence Officer reported that " great quantities of 
 British weapons were on the field at Magersfontein. There were 
 any number of Lee-Metford rifles, bandoleers, cases of ammunition 
 and bayonets scattered in all directions. Attempts were made to 
 count the English losses, but the task was given up as hopeless. 
 So great was their loss that the English ambulance corps, large as 
 it was, was unable to bury their dead and attend the wounded. After 
 attending to our own men we assisted the British with our few 
 ambulances. 
 
 " Thirty-one burghers were buried at Bisset's Farm, where our 
 
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 [''^■'^M 
 
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366 
 
 REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 r 
 
 wounded are. The losses in horses were very great. The sappers 
 must have suflfered heavily. The burghers expressed undue rejoic- 
 ing at our great victory. Very few of our men were engaged. 
 The field is a dreadful sight. It was a great victory and our men 
 have new spirit. 
 
 " The * Black Watch' were moved close to our lines in the 
 night for an attack in the morning before sunrise. The Boers shot 
 them all except thirty-one, who were taken prisoners. These thirty- 
 one men of the * Black Watch' said they were all who survived. 
 Scottish prisoners stated their brigade was about 4000 strong, and 
 that they were terribly punished. General Wauchope was killed." 
 
 ENGLAND AROUSED TO THE SITUATION. 
 
 Amid the gloom and grief which overwhelmed England on 
 receiving intelligence of General BuUer's repulse, the confidence in 
 the final triumph of the British arms throughout South Africa re- 
 mained unshaken. The determination to win regardless of the cost 
 was, however, coupled with another grim resolve, namely, to fix and 
 enforce the responsibility for the disasters which brought the darkest 
 days Great Britain has known within the memory of living man. 
 This purpose was not directed so much against the incompetency of 
 the commanders in the field, but against some of the officials who 
 plunged the country into a war which it was not prepared to mfifet. 
 
 The British authorities, both at home and in Cape Colony, con- 
 fessed that they were surprised at being obliged to fight both the 
 South African Republics instead of one, and also at the strength of 
 the Boer armament. The one feature whereof they could fairly 
 plead excusable surprise was the size of the rebellion in Cape Colony 
 itself. This had now reached appalling proportions. No cable 
 information concerning it was allowed to reach London, but there 
 was abundant intelligence in the many mail advices received, show- 
 ing that Cape Dutch Afrikanders in thousands had been joining 
 the Boer standards in the preceding few weeks. 
 
 This was the most serious feature of the situation, and the 
 one which most alarmed England. The campaign was practically 
 ended in the discomfiture of the British arms. An entirely new 
 
 KVt^iH^'' 
 
REMARKABLE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 867 
 
 campaign, on a new basis, would have to be undertaken. All 
 military men recognized this, although the public did not. Not a 
 single British column was in condition to act oflfensively except at 
 desperate risks. The new situation of ^^rtual civil war above 
 described changed everything. 
 
 PEOPLE OF CANADA VERY PATRIOTIC. 
 
 The resolute spirit that animated the mother country was 
 exhibited in all the British Colonies, particularly in Canada. The 
 Canadian contingent of troops for service in South Africa landed at 
 Cape Town November 30th, and were given an enthusiastic recep- 
 tion. They were greeted with continuous cheers, and the heartiest 
 welcome. They showed that their long home training and colonial 
 campaigning experience was not lost on them, and they received 
 their reward by being pushed rapidly to the front. 
 
 The disaster of General Buller at Tugela River was everywhere 
 discussed in Canada as an imperial calamity, but while soreness and 
 humiliation were rife, the reverse to British arms served to stir 
 anew the imperial patriotism of the people. This was shown in the 
 renewal of the offers of service made to the government. That 
 Canada must send a second contingent was accepted as an inevitable 
 outcome of the situation, and the militia department of Ottawa 
 received from ofl&cers of the city corps alone offers of about 5000 men. 
 
 The ardor of the Canadian militiamen to enlist for service 
 in South Africa was fully evidenced. The officers of the Second 
 Field Battery, one of the smartest artillery corps in Canada, waited 
 upon Major-General Hutton, who commands the Canadian militia, 
 and urged acceptance of the battery's services, offered at the out- 
 break of the war. They pointed out that artillery, next to cavalry, 
 ifor scouting purposes, was the arm in which the British force 
 in South Africa is most deficient. It was also strongly presented 
 to the government that a welcome addition to the British forces 
 would be a detachment of 500 of the mounted police, who are 
 excellent horsemen, expert shots and well drilled in scouting and 
 vidette duty. Supplemented by a contingent of field artillery such 
 a brigade would be of inestimable service. 
 
 . .i"%4 
 
 •'!. I 
 
 ii k»l 
 
 f 
 
 t4' 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Additional Account of the Canadian Contingent. 
 
 THE 1 6th chapter of this volume, page 238, contains a graphic 
 description of the organization and equipment of the Canadian 
 troops who enlisted for the war in South Africa. A full account 
 is given of the great public demonstrations with which they 
 were greeted in the several towns through which they passed, and 
 of their departure from Quebec by the steamship Sardinian. 
 
 The facts to be added in this connection only emphasize the 
 feeling of Canadian loyalty and the splendid patriotism which 
 animated the people everywhere. 
 
 Througho'it the lower provinces more men desired to become 
 " the soldiers of the Queen " than could be accepted, and great was 
 the disappointment of those who had to remain at home. Offers 
 for service came pouring in from Saint John, Fredericton, Wood- 
 stock, Saint Stephen, Newcastle, Chatham, Moncton, Sackville, 
 and other places in New Brunswick ; from Halifax, Truro, Yar- 
 mouth, Pictou, and elsev/here in Nova Scotia, while such was the 
 feeling in little Prince Edward Island that the whole contingent 
 might have been obtained there without much difficulty. In Saint 
 John, the City of the Loyalists, where many of the leading citi- 
 zens are the descendants of that sturdy stock, the New Brunswick- 
 ers, numbering nearly one hundred strong, had a magnificent 
 send-off. 
 
 The line of march from the parade grounds to the railway 
 
 station, a distance of about one and a half miles, was crowded with 
 
 enthusiastic thousands, who were evidently determined that this 
 
 old city should not be outdone by any one in its appreciation of the 
 
 readiness of the boys in red and blue to uphold the national honor. 
 
 From windows, roofs and every point of vantage cheer after cheer 
 
 went up as, with swinging stride and true soldierly mien, they 
 
 swept along. 
 868 
 
THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 36J) 
 
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 From one of the windows of the Fusiliers' clubroom there 
 streamed out an immense British flag, which called forth the most 
 tumultous cheering, while the playing by one of the bands of 
 "The Soldiers of the Queen," called forth round after round of 
 applause. As the procession swept along Charlotte, down King, 
 and up Dock street it seemed as if the entire population was out- 
 doors, and, as the familiar strains of " Auld Lang Syne" floated 
 out upon the evening air, for the shadows were now beginning to 
 gather, the excitement knew no bounds. 
 
 AN IMPOSING PAGEANT. 
 
 The scene at the depot was one to be remembered, but not 
 described. The immense building was packed with the represen- 
 tatives of all classes, ages, and sexes, while thousands were out- 
 side and around, anxious to have a part in the imposing pageant. 
 The soldiers were to enter by a side door, and a strong force of 
 police were on hand to keep open a narrow path to1;he cars. But 
 when the band struck up the National Anthem, and the cheers 
 from without indicated the arrival of the boys, the surging crowds 
 came together with a rush, the pathway was closed, and baud 
 instruments, policemen's batons, ladies' hats, and soldiers' uni- 
 forms were one wild medley of confusion. 
 
 Sons of the Sovereign have been royally entertained here, 
 regiments of the line have been warmly welcomed, and many a 
 scene of wondrous interest has been witnessed here, but never 
 before were the people of this city so profoundly moved as on this 
 occasion. There was no abatement of the enthusiasm until the 
 train had slowly crept out of the station, and, as the crowds slowly 
 dispersed, the prayer went up from many a heart that we might 
 have the privilege of welcoming the brave lads home again when 
 the war is ended. That they would acquit themselves like men 
 was not doubted by anyone. 
 
 A similar send-off was given the members of the second con- 
 tingent, with the addition of a mass meeting in Mechanics' Insti- 
 tute, presided over by Mayor Sears, when, as in the case of the 
 first contingent, each man was presented with a five-dollar gold 
 
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 THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 piece and a package of sundries that will be found useful wheu 
 in camp or on the march. . . ^ 
 
 Nor were the Saint John men the only ones to be welcomed 
 and cheered, for when the men from Woodstock passed through 
 the city there was an impromptu gathering at the station which 
 was greatly appreciated by the men in question. Similar enthu- 
 .siasm was manifested in Halifax in connection with the departure 
 of the second contingent from that city. On the evening of 
 January 19th the greatest crowd that ever gathered under one roof 
 in this city was that iat the new armory, the occasion being the 
 civic reception to the second contingent. It is estimated that at 
 least 10,000 persons were present, and at least 2,000 were turned 
 away. The whole proceeding was a grand blaze of patriotic 
 enthusiasm, the equal of which was never witnessed in this old 
 military city. Speeches were delivered by Mayor Hamilton, Sir 
 Malac^y Daly, Lieutenant-Governor ; General Lord William Sey- 
 mour, Hon. W. S. Fielding, and Hon. Dr. Borden. The scene 
 was one of dazzling brilliancy, the decorations being on an elabor- 
 ate scale, bright uniforms of military adding to the effect of hun- 
 dreds of electric lights. Military bands played patriotic airs, 
 and the rendering of patriotic songs evoked tremendous enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 GREAT OUTPOURING OF THE POPULACE. 
 
 The day was dark and dreary, rain fell in torrents, and a thick 
 fog hung over all. But despite these discouragements the anxious 
 thousands were early on the move to see the departing troops. 
 With quick elastic step, with swing and life and jauntiness in every 
 stride, the men marched through the centre of the city. The 
 streets and sidewalks along the line of march swarm with people. 
 Some forty thousand witness the scene. Cheer upon cheer comes 
 iswelling on the air, faces peer from every window. Men rush along- 
 side for the last hand clasp with departing comrades. At last the 
 dockyard is reached and the last man is on board. The steamer 
 is now ready to start and scores of boats are waiting to escort the 
 transport down the harbor. 
 
 . A local writer, referring to the departure of the first contin- 
 
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 '^■|^„.VA'^ 
 
THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 371 
 
 gent from Saint John, and his remarks apply equally to all, thus 
 voices the public feeling: "From the City of the Loyalists and 
 from the province they founded under the aegis of the flag for 
 which they sacrificed so much, there went out yesterday a soldier 
 , band. The flag their fathers planted on these shores in years 
 agone is their flag. It beckons them now across the seas, where 
 loyalists on another continent are called to arms in its defense. 
 We give of our best, and they go to fight if need be in the battles 
 of the empire. Our hearts and hopes go with them, and we are 
 assured that whether in war or peace the honors and traditions of 
 their native land will bravely be upheld. 
 
 " And so they went — the sons of Great Britain and soldiers 
 of the Queen. They went, these lads that we have known and 
 loved, with a little sinking of the heart, it may be, at the moment 
 of severing the ties of home and friendship ; but animated by the 
 same stern spirit that has tracked the wilderness and bridged the 
 seas, toiling upward through the centuries and outward through 
 the regions of the earth, upbuilding that imperial fabric whose 
 strength is freedom, and into whose texture time for a thousand 
 years has woven the imperishable fibre of a Briton's loyalty. 
 
 ALL HEARTS BEAT AS ONE. 
 
 " And so they went — and some at home will count the cost, 
 and some will weep and pray. But over the sea and over the 
 veldt, with these lads that go a-soldering, will go the message to 
 our kindred that, whether beneath the Southern Cross or beside 
 the northern sea, in the hour of need heart answers heart in 
 "Britain's realms throughout the wide, wide world." 
 
 As already stated in a preceding chapter, the first Canadian 
 contingent arrived at Cape Town November 30th. The magnifi- 
 cent welcome the troops received is thus described by a correspond- 
 ent who was a witness of the inspiring scene : 
 
 "At noon we anchored in the spacious bay; at 6 o'clock we 
 drew up alongside the wharf Cheers from the crowds, salutes 
 from the steamers which thronged the anchorage, marked our slow 
 journey inwards from the outer roadstead. Our voyage, tedious 
 
 
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 THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 enough in its monotonous length, had a beginning and an ending of 
 marvelous and romantic beauty. What impressions our departure 
 from Quebec produced upon us you already know. Yesterday we 
 drew into a harbor set amongst mighty hills, a ship-thronged sheet 
 of water encircled by mighty mountains. The hills have a steep- 
 ness of outline, a hard bareness of aspect foreign to our own loved 
 land, but the airs which greeted us were the national anthem, 
 * Rule Britannia,' and ' Soldiers of the Queen.' Four weeks' voy- 
 age, and we are still in the empire. 
 
 "Table Mountain loomed ahead of us early in the morning, 
 and for hours it grew larger in front of us. The day was hazy 
 and the purple shadow, with its level, clear-cut top, lay like a cloud 
 high above the horizon ahead. Larger and larger it grew, and we 
 were suddenly aware of a low-lying land to our right and a long 
 stretch of coast to our left. 
 
 PICTURESQUE SCENERY AT CAPE TOWN. 
 
 " The land to our right was Robbers' Island, a low-lying patch 
 of land, with an evil reputation as a leper settlement. To our left 
 was a long line of land, breakers rushing high into the air along 
 the shore, dim, precipitous peaks showing ominously in the back- 
 ground. But embayed as we were in a wide sweep of coast, the 
 only land for which we had eyes was the mountain cluster right 
 ahead. 
 
 " Reared high above us, the flat top of Table Mountain over- 
 bore the scene. To the right, a conical peak ; to the left, a rugged 
 peak.. The size of it all had a strangely minimizing effect. We 
 were a strangely small entity, running into a toy harbor, enringed 
 by stage mountains. The long stretches of the shore to the left, 
 the low island to our right, fell into insignificance ; we were heading 
 for the sheet of water which those towering hills encircled. Strange < 
 is the dwarfing effect which bulk itself produces. 
 
 " Cape Town seemed a spattering of roofs clinging to the roots 
 of the square-topped hill, the basin to which we were heading a 
 small enough sheet. But when we landed it was a weary walk 
 around that basin, and the town extended over many a high-built 
 
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THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
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 street. But still that purple mountain overbore us, rising in the 
 air whenever we raised our heads. The Lion's Head to our right, 
 with its outline of a human face upon its front, the conical top of 
 Signal Hill to our left, beset us ; we were in a city set about with 
 hills. From a score to a score and a half of steamers lay in the 
 outer anchorage, ships and steamers lay in close-packed rows along 
 the docks; yet the huge overhanging hills dwarfed all this wide 
 expanse of water, these mighty works of man. 
 
 " Amid the cheers of the men the anchor chain rattled out, 
 and our four weeks' voyage was over. When we were approach- 
 ing, the towering semicircle of hills made the sheet of water which 
 was our destination seem of small account ; when we were in it a 
 score and a half of big ocean steamers lay scattered over it, and 
 there was room for hundreds more. The blue ensign hung over 
 nearly every stern ; the harbor was filled with transports. Over 
 towards the docks was a thicket of masts and funnels. The docks 
 were crowded and we would have to wait. 
 
 Mil 
 
 THE CANADIAN COLONEL WELCOMED. 
 
 " It was about noon when we anchored ; it was about 6 when 
 we docked. We filled in the time by waiting. The sun was 
 brilliant, the day cloudless, the harbor surface glassy smooth, and 
 yet our ship, no longer ploughing forward, from time to time 
 rolled heavily. We flew the yellow flag, which demanded a quar- 
 antine officer, and the doctor came and passed us. It was against 
 orders for anyone to leave the ship before Colonel Otter, and it 
 wt^s well into the afternoon before he set foot upon the soil of 
 Africa. A broad side-wheel tug brought aboard Sir Alfred Mil- 
 ne r's representative, a fresh, pleasant-faced lad of an officer, natty 
 in khaki, with the brilliant scarlet collar-patch which denotes a 
 staff" officer, and he extended a welcome to Colonel Otter. 
 
 " An army service corps officer in blue and white came 
 aboard, and there was a shout from the quarterdeck of ' Duffus ! ' 
 Lieutenant Frank Duffus it was, a Halifax man, an old college 
 friend of several of our officers. Business with Colonel Otter 
 came first, for he was transport officer ; then he fell into the arms 
 
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 874 
 
 THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 of old friends. Another visit from the side-wheeler, just as Col- 
 onel Otter was about to embark in a skiff ; it was the Mayor and 
 Harbor Board of the city, come to give us a municipal welcome. 
 It was a practical welcome, for they gave him a lift to the wharf ; 
 Colonel Otter and Major Drummond, with Sergeant Reading, 
 were the landing party, while Captain Todd was given a passage 
 ashore. It was good-bye to Captain Todd, and we cheered him 
 with all our hearts ; and as the men forward saw departing the 
 officer who has been superintending their quarters for the past 
 three weeks it was again 'three cheers for Captain Todd!' 
 
 NOISY GREETINGS IN THE HARBOR. 
 
 "Then we waited for a while longer. The Warwera, which 
 had come in the day before with the Australians and New Zea- 
 landers, swung near us, and a megaphone man at her stern 
 shouted bits of the month's news to us, while we devoured the 
 few newspapers which had drifted ashore. Then we found 
 that a notable favor had been shown us. The steamer Cheshire 
 had beaten us in by some hours and was lying near us. She had 
 on board the ist Gordon Highlanders, the Dargai battalion. 
 Word went around that we were going into dock at once — ahead 
 of the Highlanders. Up came our anchor, in we moved. As we 
 came into motion our welcome began. We crossed first the bows 
 of the Cheshire, and her whistle boomed incessantly, while her 
 bows and upper works were dense with khaki and kilts, as the 
 Gordons cheered and cheered again. Whistle after whistle — 
 every one of the ships seemed to be saluting us ; whenever we 
 passed near enough for the voice to reach, cheers rang out across 
 the water, and were roared back from our decks. • 
 
 " A long dock and a crowd upon it was before us. Through an 
 opening in it we passed, and were in a steamer-crowded basin, 
 approaching a slip, on the other side of which lay ajnauve-painted 
 Castle liner. The liner's band played us in, and the first air we 
 heard was 'God Save the Queen.' 'Rule Britannia' and 
 'Soldiers of the Queen' were other numbers in this dockyard 
 concert. The crowd on the dock cheered us wildly and sang ' God 
 
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 THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 Save the Queen.' We cheered back, and showed that we knew the 
 song. We drew alongside, and another Canadian stood on the 
 dock — Captain Kennedy, Royal Engineers, well known to many 
 of us. Then the gang-plank fell and we were at Cape Town. 
 
 " Last night our men stayed aboard, very few, indeed, leaving 
 her. All night the disembarkation of baggage went on, and at 
 8 o'clock the regiment formed on the dock and marched away for 
 Sea Point, a suburb about four miles out, where the prisoners and 
 wounded are. The Australians, who preceded us so closely, are 
 at Maitland, another suburb. Active service at once ; such is our 
 fortune." 
 
 Our readers will be interested in an account of the departure 
 of the Manitoba troops for South Africa. They went out with the 
 first Canadian contingent and left for Quebec on Tuesday, Oct. 
 24. Never since the 90th Battalion went to the front in 18^5 was 
 there such a demonstration of loyalty as when the brave boys who 
 volunteered to fight in Africa for the Empire marched to the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway station and entrained for Quebec. 
 
 DENSE MASS OF CHEERING PEOPLE. 
 
 Many of the stores and places of business were closed down, 
 and the route of march was lined from beginning to end with 
 citizens, while from the drill hall to the station the troops marched 
 through a lane of cheering people, who at times waxed so enthu- 
 siastic that the brass band? could hardly be heard. That Winni- 
 peg is proud of her contingent was shown in several ways, and 
 well she had reason to be. The Manitoba men were all of splendid 
 physique, and as smart in their drill as regulars. 
 
 It was not curiosity nor affectation which drew forth such an 
 immense gathering, but the true loyalty and esteem of those 
 young men who eagerly sought and accepted the opportunity of 
 bearing Her Majesty's arms and wearing her uniform in a strife 
 which, though still in the same realm, is nevertheless upon the 
 opposite side of the globe. A rumor was circulated that a fire was 
 ill progress a few blocks from the spot, but no one displayed the 
 faintest interest in the report "while history was making." The 
 
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THE CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
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 City Hall steps were occupied by a crowd of brightly dressed, pretty- 
 faced school-girls, while their brothers of the senior classes stood 
 shoulder to shoulder, like a miniature army, under the command 
 of their drill-instructor. Captain Billman, awaiting the military 
 command to take their place upon the flank of their senior Volun- 
 teers. Such short notice of the day and hour of departure had 
 been given that but scant opportunity was afforded for the display 
 of bunting or other ornamentation, but from every flagstaff within 
 the range of vision floated the emblem of the Empire, and a myriad 
 of little flags had been secured by the populace to wave in the face 
 of the honored ones. 
 
 The contingen*; was greeted by enthusiastic crowds at every 
 railway station of importance across Canada, cigars, food, drinks, 
 etc., being thrust by willing hands into the cars, aiid even in the 
 middle of the night the men were welcomed by bands and bunting. 
 Two days afterwards the British Columbia contingent passed 
 through Winnipeg, their arrival and departure being the cause of 
 nearly as much excitement as the farewell to the Manitoba boys. 
 There was little doubt of the loyalty of Canada. 
 
 LIFE ON BOARD A TROOP SHIP. ^ 
 
 The Allans' steamship " Sardinian," chartered by the Domin- 
 ion government to convey the Royal Canadian Special Service 
 Regiment to Cape Town, was not new to this kind of work, having 
 been employed before in trooping during the Egyptian war. She 
 was looked upon as a most serviceable boat for this service, as she 
 is easily converted into a transport. The Canadian troops were 
 fortunate in having so good a troop ship. 
 
 Before troops embark on a troopship, a lot of rules, must be 
 observed, for the comfort and welfare of Tommy Atkins. Accord- 
 ing to the English War Office regulations, an inspection of the 
 fittings and all the arrangements for the accommodation, victual- 
 ing, and health of the men, has to be made by a Board, consisting 
 of the Assistant Quartermaster-General, an officer of the garrison, 
 senior medical officer, and a naval officer, and the medical officer 
 going in charge of the troops. Another inspection by a like Board 
 
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 THK CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 liii' 
 
 is also made after the troops are ou the ship, the baggage stowed, 
 and everything ready for sea. 
 
 The object of this inspection is to ascertain whether the 
 arrangements for berthing, etc., have been faithfully carried out. 
 All the heavy baggage is supposed to be on board the day before 
 sailing, and all kinds of lucifer matches are strictly prohibited on 
 board ship, p.nd all embarkations take place under the immediate 
 superintendency of the general or other officer commanding the 
 station. When embarked on board, it is the duty of the colonel and 
 the company officers to see that the men are allotted to berths, 
 divided up into small messes, and instructed in the proper method 
 of rolling up bedding and slinging hammocks ; that their arms, 
 ammunition and accoutrements are properly disposed of in the 
 places reserved for them ; and sea necessaries when served out are 
 marked, the hammocks and canvas bags numbered, and the orders 
 relative to smoking and the use of lights on board ship are read 
 and explained to every soldier as soon as practicable. 
 
 RECREATION AND FUN. 
 
 After the usual guard has been provided, the troops are divided 
 into three watches, one of which is constantly on deck in charge of 
 a junior officer, and in fine weather, except those on duty below, 
 are also up on deck. The watches generally put in twelve hours, 
 going on at 8 A. m. and 8 p. M. All bedding and clothing is 
 brought up on deck every morning, weather permitting, and well 
 .aired. The decks and berths are supposed to be swept, scrubbed, 
 and scraped daily ; in fact, great care is taken of the sanitation of 
 the ship, and the troops are turned out early, about 5 A. M., for 
 a morning sea bath, in canvas baths rigged up on the main deck. 
 
 The officer of the day is supposed to be present on all these 
 occasions, and when free watered grog is served out. In every 
 transport the doctor, in common with all ranks, has his daily 
 routine work to do. Immediately after breakfast he visits the 
 " sick bay," the miniature hospital, goes round his cases, and then 
 gives his attention to the new-comers who require his services. A 
 foretopman's "black draught" is the common prescription for 
 
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 THE CANADIAN CONTINC.KNT. 
 
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 "Tommy's" ailments. Two or three times ;i week \\v. goes the 
 " rounds" of the ship-with the captain, and a rigid scrutiny is 
 made in every corner for any dirt or uncleanness, and if they find 
 it, it's a bad quarter of an hour for the offices of the mess. The 
 doctor has a good deal of work cut out for him, more than most 
 people imagine, especially with troops in the tropics. Every day 
 lie must inspect the troops, who parade about lo a. m. (without 
 slioesor stockings and trousers rolled to the knee in warm climates). 
 The soldiers are supposed to be exercised for a few hours 
 daily in drill and shooting at targets, and parade one day in the 
 week in marching order, when officers must see that their kit is 
 complete and arms and appointments in good order, so that on 
 landing they can march at once into action. Smoking is only 
 allowed on the upper deck, and then at reasonable hours. All 
 lights are out at 8 v. M., when at sea, and all fires in the '' galleys" 
 at 8.30 P. M., except when required for the sick. 
 
 REGULATIONS ON BOARD. 
 
 While it is most necessary to enforce the strictest discipline, 
 for the health and safety of all, the officers are looked upon by the 
 Government to do all in their power to provide recreation and 
 amusement on a long vorage. Generally after supper, in the 
 evening, the officers get the imen together near the hatchway aft, 
 near the saloon, when an impromptu concert takes place, con- 
 sisting of warlike and humorous songs, recitations of a local 
 character generally by the regimental poet, jig and hornpipe 
 dancing, and a touch of the manly art with the gloves. 
 
 When minstrels' costumes can be extemporized, then the fun 
 never wanes a moment. As there is always plenty of vocal and 
 histrionic talent in every British regiment, there is no weariness 
 in a long voyage in a British troopship. Every one goes on to 
 make the time pass pleasant to all around, and with a good band 
 and the drums and fifes playing each evening a trip in a troopship 
 is one to be remembered. Our gallant soldiers and sailors arc 
 extremely fond of dancing, but their terpsichorean evolutions are 
 not usually of the kind which find favor in crutch and toothpick 
 
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 i 
 
 I 
 
880 
 
 THR CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 ^ 
 
 society. They are ^nothing if not vigorous, and the perfonnei 
 who can keep his feet moving to the twang of the fiddle for the 
 greatest length of time is the hero of the hour. As it is a 
 physical endurance feat, the dancer takes off his sweater, rolls up 
 his shirt-sleeves and pounds away upon the deck until he is 
 bathed in perspiration, while his admiring comrades watch every 
 step, and applaud him with hearty hand-clapping and loud 
 cheering. 
 
 Delinquent soldiers are punished in several ways, but those 
 which cause the most chagrin are the stoppage of grog, and 
 facing the bulwarks during smoking hours and being not allowed 
 to smoke. Soldiers may, if they like, assist in the general duties 
 of the ship on deck, but are never to go aloft, and are not to be 
 employed as stokers or coal trimmers, unless they volunteer and 
 receive extra pay. With regular exercise and drill, good food, 
 with a taste of " salt junk" once or twice a week, plenty of books 
 to read and games to play at, and concerts and dancing in the 
 evening, the Canadian regiment did not find the voyage long or 
 dull, and the men were in first-class fettle on landing at Cape Town, 
 to advance and tackle with Kruger and his Boers. 
 
 A continued account of the Second Canadian Contingent by 
 Dr. Wilson will be found on page 522 
 
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 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Attempts to Raise the Siege of Ladysmith. 
 
 'T'HE British General White and his army, numbering accord- 
 ^ ing to the most authentic accounts eight or nine thousand 
 men, were shut up in the town of Ladysmith, and for many weeks 
 had resisted the attempts of the Boers to capture the place. The 
 situation gave great anxiety to the War Office in London. It was 
 feared that General White would be compelled to surrender his 
 command before relief could reach him. 
 
 From the opening of the war down to December 1 5 the British 
 operations consisted of a series of frontal attacks, all of which were 
 repulsed with a loss in all of about 8000 men. The last and most 
 severe of these disasters at Colenso left General BuUer with a loss 
 of 1 100 men, eleven gnns, and the three most important brigades 
 of his command, under General Hildyard, General Hart and Gen- 
 eral Barton, shattered and depressed by heavy loss. This had the 
 effect upon the morale of the troops of these brigades which is 
 always caused by losses that are fruitless in result, and which 
 themselves result from a faulty plan on account of insufficient 
 information prior to the attack as to the position of the enemy. 
 
 After this disaster General Buller addressed himself to the 
 task of reorganizing his forces and preparing for another cam- 
 paign. Three weeks passed in this work. At the end of that 
 time he deemed his transport sufficiently well organized to begin 
 a movement intended to dislodge the enemy around Ladysmith. 
 General Buller was in command of the strongest force of pure En- 
 glish troops ever assembled in the field. He had in his army twenty- 
 nine battalions of infantry, or, as weshoudsay, regiments divided into 
 brigades. These were supported by a cavalry force, consisting of 
 the First Royal Dragoons, the Thirteenth Hussars, two squadrons 
 of the Fourteenth Hussars, six squadrons of the Imperial Light 
 Horse, and three regiments of mounted Colonial Horse. 
 
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 382 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 The artillery comprised nine batteries of the royal arti^'sry, 
 or fifty-four guns, a howitzer battery, a mountain battery and the 
 Natal or Colonial Field Battery, making eighteen guns more, or 
 seventy-two in all, of which eleven were afterward lost. There was 
 in addition a naval brigade with several 4.7-inch guns and quick-fir- 
 ing i2-pounders, which force had, judging from the rank of its com- 
 nmnder, about the same force as an infantry battalion. In all, 
 as will be seen, this was a force of all arms of over 30,000 men, 
 
 which had been in service 
 together in the field for 
 nearly two months, and 
 which had been under the 
 immediate command of 
 General Sir Redvers Bul- 
 ler'for nearly two months 
 and a half. 
 
 His field service had 
 been in steady operation, 
 and his base was supplied 
 by railroad, and he had at 
 Durban as complete a sup- 
 ply as the British com- 
 mand of the seas could 
 furnish. A strong naval 
 brigade at Durban, and the 
 friendly character of the 
 English population of Na- 
 tal relieved General Buller from the necessity of detaching any 
 considerable portion of his force in order to guard his communica- 
 tions or protect his marine base. There was probably no military 
 critic in the world who would have hesitated to predict the certain 
 success of such a force operating against the Boer intrenchments, 
 manned by farmer levies never drilled, disposed around Lady- 
 smith, which contained the additional British force of from 8000 to 
 9000 men. 
 
 In all, the Boer force, which must have been very considerably 
 
 GENERAL GEORGE WHITE. 
 
 WHO COMMANDED THE BRITISH AT LADYSMITH. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 883 
 
 reinforced by tlie inaction of General Methuen and General 
 Gatacre, was probably in all from 20,000 to 25,000 men. This 
 force, bowever, had two lines of front to keep, one surrounding 
 Ladysmith in a circuit of nearly twenty miles, and the other 
 facing a superior force under General Buller. 
 
 General Buller had before him the choice of two routes. He 
 could move to the east of Weenen's Ford, and, marching from 
 there, strike on the Boer communication by railroad at Elauds- 
 laagte. This involved leaving his flank unprotected from the 
 Boer position on Inhlawe Mountain, and the entrance, after leav- 
 ing Weeuen's Ford and passing through a comparatively level 
 country on defiles beyond, easily defended. It also tended to 
 separate his force from the force of General French and General 
 Gatacre, about 150 miles away. He was left also with only one 
 objective on the Boer line of communications, and his attack could 
 only be delivered from the left. 
 
 THE KEY TO THE SITUATION. 
 
 By moving westward up the Tugela river it was possible 
 since the Boer positions were principally north of the Tugela 
 river, to push forward on its southern bank over ground whose 
 separation from the chief Boer force by a rapid river, fordable at 
 two or three places, rendered it feasible to carry a very consider- 
 able force sufficiently far to the west to be able, above the junction 
 of the Great and Little Tugela, to have a choice between any one 
 of the several passes, the most northern of which was the railroad 
 entrance to the Orange Free State. Its possession would force 
 the precipitate retreat of the Boer army around Ladysmith. It is 
 not surprising that under these conditions General Buller selected 
 a western movement. 
 
 On Thursday, January 11, General Buller pushed forward his 
 cavalry force under General Lord Dundonald, amounting to about 
 4,500 men, of whom about 3,000 were cavalry and about 1,500 
 mounted riflemen. This force during the next three or ^our days 
 easily swept away the Boer outposts which were at Springfield, 
 and which made no defense, pushed to the river supported by 
 
 k 
 
 r »^ 
 
 ' ^'ft 
 
 >vi.t- 
 
384 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 m 
 
 |;i i#' 
 
 infantry, crossed at Potgieter's Drift, a ford which at this season 
 when the river was high is crossed by a rope ferry, and established 
 itself on both banks of the river. The engineers came up with 
 the infantry, built a pontoon bridge^ and within a week the British 
 troops were established with their depot of supplies at Springfield, 
 their artillery massed in field works at Swartz Kop, and thoir 
 infantry disposed on both banks of the river. 
 
 NECESSITY FOR QUICK MOVEMENT. 
 
 This initial movement must have informed the Boers of the 
 plan of offensive operations intended by General Buller. The 
 one condition on which his success depended was an immediate 
 movement, which would carry the infantry in sufficient force and 
 with sufficient rapidity to seize some one of the passes west of 
 the Boer army. The infantry force was neither small nor ill- 
 selected. It consisted of General Woodgate's brigade, General 
 Hildyard's and General Hart's, each with four regiments, or 
 twelve regiments, in all. This was the advance division under 
 Lieutenant General Francis Clery, Lieutenant General Sir Charles 
 Warren being in command of the whole movement. This force, 
 which was in round numbers about 12,000 men, and which artil- 
 lery and cavalry brought up to about 16,000 men, was moved 
 forward to the west, following the cavalry. The movement of the 
 infantry began on January 13. These brigades and their supports 
 were moved forward in two divisions along the Frere and Knners- 
 dale roads, the road through Springfield being by this time fully 
 occupied with the supply of General Lyttleton's brigade, Irish 
 and Scotch, four battalions, and other troops on the river at Pot- 
 gieter's Drift. One week elapsed from the time these troops 
 started until they first met the enemy on three days, January 18, 
 19 and 20. 
 
 Meanwhile a depot had been established for British supply at 
 Zunckles, and this appears to have formed a second base, while a 
 pontoon bridge crossed the river at Trichand's Drift. Lord Dun- 
 donald, immediately after crossing the river at Potgieter's Drift, 
 pushed forward with commendable rapidity and occupied Acton 
 
1 
 
 lOul 
 
 4 
 
 M^ 
 
 h 
 
 
 bojlr artillerymen sighting a gun. 
 
 885 
 
 h ""V 
 
 fiWi 
 
 ^^ 
 
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 ■^#r*»\| 
 
 
 
 |M| 
 
 
 ^9 
 
 isl£'^ 
 
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386 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 il 
 
 Homes, a place at the opening of a valley whose road leads across 
 the water-shed to the high road from Ladysmith to Van Reenen's 
 Pass. General Lyttleton's brigade was moved westward in his 
 rear and held the Tugela, but no infantry force seems to nave 
 pushed on to occupy and entrench the ground taken by the 
 mounted troops. 
 
 When General Warren, therefore, after a week's march, cov- 
 ering some thirty to thirty-five miles, had brought his force of two 
 brigades and a half, or ten regiments, which seems subsequently 
 to have been reinforced by another brigade, or Barton's, of four 
 regiments, all Irish, he found the heights just north of the Tugela 
 river, about Spion Kop, fully occupied by the Boers. The Boer 
 despatches indicate that this was a new position which had been 
 taken as the English movement developed itself during the pre- 
 ced::ig week. The forces there consisted principally of Oranj^e 
 Free State troops. 
 
 ' ' HARD TASK FOR BRITISH TROOPS. 
 
 The English turning movement under General Warren had, 
 therefore, resulted in establishing two bodies, one a small one, 
 heavily supported by artillery posted on Swartz Kop, and the 
 other the moving column which was intended to complete the 
 flanking operation, which was under General Warren, and which 
 had before it the task of carrying the heights beyond the Tugela. 
 The rise in level in some twenty miles from Ladysmith up to 
 Acton Homes is nearly icxxd feet. 
 
 The Upper Tugela at this point flows past broad river terraces, 
 beyond which rise the steep bluffs of a former river b^nk, of which 
 Spion Kop is the conspicuous landmark. The British troops had, 
 in other words, traveled some thirty miles to find themselves on 
 the upper Tugela in a position somewhat more difficult than that 
 which existed when, on December 15, they attempted the passage 
 of the Lower Tugela. It appears that on Friday, January 19, the 
 enemy was first met, on Saturday their grand guards driven in 
 and the Tugela river successfully crossed, and that on Sunday a 
 position was successfully occupied on the plateau beyond. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 387 
 
 .ads across 
 Reeneii's 
 ard in liis 
 s to iiave 
 n by the 
 
 arch, cov- 
 
 )rce of two 
 
 >sequently 
 
 s, of four 
 
 le Tiigcla 
 
 The Boer 
 
 had been 
 
 1^ the pre- 
 
 »f Oran^y^e 
 
 rren had, 
 mall one, 
 , and the 
 iplete tlie 
 lid whicli 
 2 Tngela. 
 lith up to 
 
 terraces, 
 of which 
 )ops had, 
 ielves on 
 han that 
 passage 
 V 19, the 
 riven in 
 unday a 
 
 An attempt was made Tuesday night to take Spion Kop, and 
 dnring the next three days there succeeded the battle whicli 
 ended with the meeting of the Council of Military Defense in 
 London, and the determination to send additional reinforcements 
 to South Africa. 
 
 What occurred was simple. The original plan plainly looked 
 to cavalry clearing the way, to a force at Swartz Kop to guard the 
 exposed flank of Warren's advance, and a steady forward march, 
 the flanking force on the river protecting the advance to Bethany, 
 and beyond, as General Dundonald could at Acton Homes. In 
 the midst of this advance, after having moved to the base of the 
 hills which rise to the mountain range. General Warren found 
 ridges he could not hope to carry. He swung off to his right to 
 look for a weak place. He hoped to find it at Spion Kop, 
 delivered a night attack, and was forced to withdraw. Spread out 
 as his troops were, a mobile force would tear up BuUer as Lee and 
 Jackson tore up Hooker at Chancellorsville. 
 
 ' TROOPS WIDELY SCATTERED. 
 
 The British troops were left, therefore, after three weeks of 
 operations, dispersed in three separate masses over a stretch of 
 some thirty miles : General Warren, with some twelve to sixteen 
 battalions of infantry on the upper Tugela ; General Lyttleton, 
 with about six battalions around Swartz Kop, and General BuUer 
 with the remainder of his force at Chieveley. Lord Dundonald' s 
 force lay before Acton Homes, to the north of the Boer position, 
 but was apparently unable to move in any direction. The Boer 
 force on the hills around Spion Kop, at Blaauw Bank, and in the 
 natural bastion around Onderbrock, occupied positions of whose 
 assault the British force in front of them were at no point equal. 
 Lord Dundonald' s cavalry finally succeeded in crossing to the 
 south side of Tugela river. 
 
 This disastrous close of a turning movement, which in theory 
 was admirably conceived, added one more to the numerous exam- 
 ples in war in which defeat and failure have come solely because 
 the commanding general had not the ability to insure rapid move- 
 
 ' hm 
 
 ^=Hb 
 
 
 
388 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 ment. The Britisli forces in South Africa were moving with all 
 the cumbrous equipage of an Anglo-Indian campaign. Each 
 battalion had with it fourteen wagons, of which nine required 
 teams capable of moving 4000 pounds, in all ; therefore, as a mere 
 camp eq^iipage. General Warren had a train of 400 to 500 wagons, 
 added to the regiment's wagons, the brigade and staff complement. 
 The supply of commissary was on the same lavish scale, and 
 this expedition, which called for a swift march, had a train, accord- 
 ing to one despatch, amounting in all to 3000 wagons. The 
 extraordinary health of the British troops in South Africa, and 
 their remarkable freedom from disease, was no doubt secured by 
 furnishing the men every comfort in the field, but this could only 
 be done at a sacrifice of mobility, and in war, in the long run, it is 
 better to risk fever and disease from men insufiiciently provided 
 for, than by over-provision to insure the delays which in the end 
 lead to the abject failure of a campaign. 
 
 RAPID ADVANCES IMPOSSIBLE. 
 
 Clogged with 3000 wagons, with a staff unequal to its duties 
 under it, as one English correspondent declared, "it has been the 
 most frequent occurrence for the same battalion to strike its tents 
 and recamp on the same site two and three times in a day." It 
 was impossible for General Buller to advance with sufiicient rapid- 
 ity to seize the points essential to the success of his operation 
 before they were occupied by the Boers. 
 
 General Buller' s despatch, stating that he had withdrawn his 
 forces to the south bank of the Tugela, and the accounts of the 
 fighting at Spion Kop on January 24, which came through Boer 
 sources, showed the British disaster in all its serious aspects. 
 Lady smith's relief was as far removed as when Buller first started 
 to White's assistance, and it was thought that it might yet be 
 necessary for the garrison, abandoning the sick and wounded, to 
 make a last sortie and try to fight their way through the Boer 
 cordons. ^ 
 
 Buller signally failed in his attempt to turn the Boer position 
 and with the force at his command could not hope to outflank 
 
 f • 
 
 '1 
 
s duties 
 5een the 
 its tents 
 ay." It 
 tit rapid- 
 peration 
 
 awn his 
 of the 
 h Boer 
 aspects, 
 started 
 yet be 
 Jed, to 
 i Boer 
 
 )sition 
 tflank 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 889 
 
 them in another direction, as the mobility of the Boers enabled 
 them to change front at any moment. 
 
 It was subsequently known that Spion Kop was not, as first 
 reported, the key of the Boer position. When the British attacked 
 on the night of the 23d, they secured one kop, but in the morning 
 they discovered that there were two others commanding the one 
 they held. These positions the Boers reinforced, and then began 
 their counter attack, the British trying to capture the other kops 
 and the Boers defending them, and at the same time trying to 
 retake the one they had lost. What had great effect on the result 
 was the fact that the hill on the British side was very steep and 
 difficult to approach, whereas on the Boer side it sloped gently. 
 This hampered the British. 
 
 DESPERATE FIGHTING ALL DAY. 
 
 The British appear to have at once entrenched themselves 
 strongly, and fighting of the most desperate description continued 
 all Wednesday. The battle oscillated along the northern slope, 
 now the British and now the Boers attacking. Then came the 
 end. The Boers were smashing the British with a heavy shell 
 fire and cutting them down with a deadly hail of Mauser bullets, 
 while there appeared no indication that the British had been able 
 to get any artillery up. 
 
 The Boers captured some British trenches, according to their 
 account, and 150 men. According to Buller's report, the British 
 held the position until nightfall, when General Woodgate having 
 been wounded, the officer who succeeded him decided to abandon 
 the position. General Buller's despatch to the War Office stated 
 that Spion Kop was abandoned on account of lack of water, 
 inability to bring artillery there and the heavy Boer fire. His 
 whole force withdrew south of the Tugela river, with the evident 
 intention of reaching Ladysmith by another route as soon as the 
 army could be reorganized. 
 
 Following is the text of General Buller's despatch, which was 
 dated Spearman's Camp, Saturday, January 27, 6.10 p. m. : "On 
 January 20 Warren drove back the enemy and obtained possession 
 
 V 
 
 4 
 
 
 •■ r. ■ I'l l 
 
 "y 
 
 m 
 
m 
 
 THE SIEGE or LADYSMITH. 
 
 jf the soiitliem crests of the high table land extending from the 
 Jine of Acton Homes and Monger's Poort to the Western Lady- 
 miith hills. From then to January 25 he remained in close 
 ;ontact with the enemy. 
 
 '' The enemy held a strong position on a range of small kop- 
 jes, stretching from northwest to southwest, across the plateau 
 from Acton Homes, through Spion Kop, to the left bank of the 
 Tugela. The actual position held was perfectly tenable, but did 
 not lend itself to an advance, as the southern slopes were so steep 
 [hat Warren could not get an effective artillery position, and water 
 supply was a difficulty. 
 
 " On January 23 I assented to his attacking Spion Kop, a 
 large hill ; indeed, a mountain, which was evidently the key of the 
 position, but was far more accessible from the north than from the 
 south. 
 
 POSITION HELD AGAINST HEAVY ATTACKS. 
 
 "On the night of January 23 he attacked Spion Kop, but 
 found it very difficult to hold, as its perimeter was too large, and 
 water, which he had been led to believe existed, in this extra- 
 ordinary dry season was found very deficient. 
 
 " The crests were held all that day against severe attacks and 
 heavy shell fire. Our men fought with great gallantry. I would 
 especially mention the conduct of the Second Cameronians and 
 the Third King's Rifles, who supported the attack on the moun- 
 tain from the steepest side, and in each case fought their way to 
 the top ; and the Second Lancashire Fusiliers and Second Middle- 
 sex, who magnificently maintained the best traditions of the 
 British army throughout the trying day of January 24, and 
 Thorny croft's mounted infantry, who fought throughout the day 
 equally well alongside of them. 
 
 " General Woodgate, who was in command at the summit, 
 having been wounded, the officer who succeeded him decided on 
 the night of January 24 to abandon the position, and did so before 
 dawn, January 25. I reached Warren's camp at 5 A. M. on Jan- 
 uary 25, and decided that a second attack upon Spion Kop was 
 
 itseles! 
 force i 
 
 u 
 
&n 
 
 'I 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 301 
 
 from the 
 Lady. 
 |in dose 
 
 lall kop. 
 
 plateau 
 
 of the 
 
 but did 
 
 ISO steep 
 
 id water 
 
 Kop, a 
 7 of the 
 rom the 
 
 op, but 
 ■ge, and 
 5 extra- 
 
 'ks and 
 • would 
 ns and 
 moun- 
 ivay to 
 liddle- 
 of the 
 h and 
 e day 
 
 nimit, 
 sd on 
 3efore 
 ijan- 
 ) was 
 
 useless, and that the enemy's right was too strong to allow me to 
 force it. 
 
 " Accordingly I decided to withdraw the force to the south of 
 the Tugela. At 6 A. m. we commenced withdrawing the train 
 and by 3 A. M., January 27 (Saturday), Warren's force was concen- 
 trated south of the Tugela without the loss of a man or a pound • 
 of stores. The fact that the force could withdraw from actual touch 
 — in some cases the lines were less than a thousand yards apart — 
 with the enemy in the manner it did, is, I think, sufficient evidence 
 of the morale of the troops ; and that we were permitted to withdraw 
 our cumbrous ox and mule transport across the river, eighty-five 
 yards broad, with twenty-foot banks, and a very swift current, 
 unmolested is, I think, proof that the enemy has been taught to 
 respect our soldiers' fighting powers." 
 
 STUBBORN DEFENSE OF THE BRITISH. 
 
 The following description of the capture of the Boers' posi- 
 tion is from Winston Churchill, the gallant son of Lady Randolph 
 Churchill, who took up arms for his country in South Africa ; 
 
 " On the morning of January 24tli the force under General 
 Woodgate marched on Spion Kop, which is the predominating 
 feature and centre of the whole Boer position, which is shaped 
 Tike a note of interrogation, the curve before Potgieter's Drift and 
 the line before Triegarde Drift, with Spion Kop at the junction 
 and angle, commanding and enfilading both. At 3 o'clock Wood- 
 gate surprised the Boers holding the trenches, who volleyed with 
 their magazine rifles and fled, pursued with great cheering. At 
 dawn there was a fierce shelling by the Boers, who were striving 
 to regain the vital position. 
 
 " A stubborn defense was made by the British troops, in spite 
 of severe loss. At 10 o'clock they received strong reinforcements 
 from the corps of troops below, including the Imperial Light 
 Infantry. The position was completely secured, but was heavily 
 shelled continually, the British artillery replyii^g furiously. The 
 Boer guns were difficult to locate. At noon the Boers made sev- 
 eriil attempts to retake the position, bringing men from the extreme 
 
 ^W 
 
802 
 
 THE SIKGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 f 
 
 right and showing that they regarded it of the utmost importance. 
 All attempts to retake the position have been so far repulsed." 
 
 The position was, however, recaptured by the Boers, and tlic 
 sacrifice of life on the part of the gallant Woodgate and his army 
 was fruitless. Some Vryhcid burghers from the outposts on tlie 
 highest hills of the Spion Kop group rushed into the laager, suy- 
 ing that the kop was lost, and that the English had taken it. 
 Reinforcements were ordered up, but nothing could be done for 
 some time, the hill being enveloped in thick mist. At dawn the 
 Heidelberg and Carolina contingents, supplemented from other 
 commandoes, began the ascent of the hill. Three spurs, precipi- 
 tous projections, faced the Boer positions. Up these the advance 
 was made. The horses were left under the iirst terrace of rocks. 
 
 « 
 
 FIELD SWEPT BY SHRAPNEL. 
 
 Scaling the steep hill the Boers. found that the English had 
 improved the opportunity and entrenched heavily. Between the 
 lines of trenches was an open veldt, which had to be rushed under 
 a heavy fire, not only from rifles, but of lyddite and shrapnel from 
 field guns. Three forces ascended the three spurs co-ordinately 
 under cover of fire from the Free State Krupps, a Creusot and a 
 big Maxim. The English tried to rush the Boers with the bayo- 
 net, but their infantry went down before the Boer rifle fire as before 
 a scythe. 
 
 The Boer investing party advanced step by step until 2 o'clock 
 in the afternoon, when a white flag went up and 150 men in the 
 front trenches surrendered, being sent as prisoners to the head 
 laager. The Boer advance continued on the two kopjes east of 
 Spion Kop. Many Boers were shot, but so numerous were the 
 burghers that the gaps filled automatically. Toward twilight 
 they reached the summit of the second kopje, but did not get 
 further. 
 
 The British Maxims belched flame, but a wall of fire from the 
 Mausers held the English back. Their center, under this pres- 
 sure, gradually gave way and broke, abandoning the position. 
 The prisoners captured by the Boers spoke highly of the bravery 
 
 lii» 
 
THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 30» 
 
 importance, 
 pulsed." 
 |ers, and the 
 id his army 
 osts on tlie 
 laager, sa^-- 
 d taken it. 
 e done for 
 t dawn the 
 from otiicr 
 rs, precipi. 
 the advance 
 e of rocks. 
 
 nglish had 
 etween the 
 shed imder 
 apnel from 
 ^ordinately 
 usot and a 
 1 the bayo- 
 e as before 
 
 il 2 o'clock 
 len in the 
 
 the head 
 ies east of 
 
 were the 
 
 twilight 
 
 I not get 
 
 from the 
 
 his pres- 
 
 position. 
 
 bravery 
 
 of the burghers, who, despising cover, stood against the sky-line 
 edges of the summit to shoot the Dublin Fusiliers, sheltered iu 
 the trenches. Firing continued for some time, and then the 
 Fusiliers and Light Horse, serving as infantry, threw up their 
 arms and rushed out of the trenches. 
 
 Thus General Buller's flank movement to reach I/idysmith 
 came to naught. Repulsed in his first attempt to cross the 
 Tugela by a frontal attack at Colenso, he was now compelled to 
 give up his attempt to pass around the left of the Boer line. His 
 new repulse was equally disastrous in casualties and certainly 
 more damaging to British hopes. 
 
 GENERAL BULLER'S PLANS MADE KNOWN. 
 
 After Sir George White had succeeded in beating off the 
 determined attack of the Boers at Caesar's Camp the development 
 of Buller's new plans became inevitable. His preparations had 
 been deliberate, but nothing was allowed to become known as to 
 his real intentions until a despatch from the General himself 
 announced that he had seized Potgieter's Drift, on the upper 
 Tugela, and was getting his force across. Four or five days fol- 
 lowed, in the course of which General Lyttleton placed his brigade 
 on the north side of Potgieter's Drift ready to attack a Boer posi- 
 tion at Brakfontein commanding a road to Dewdrop, while General 
 Warren was preparing to throw his division against the extreme 
 right of the long line of Boers. 
 
 Warren had crossed at Trichard's Drift, some five or six 
 miles to the west of Potgieter's. He had met with more opposi- 
 tion, but his cavalry under Lord Dundonald were able apparently 
 to reconnoitre for a considerable distance in the direction of Acton 
 Homes, working round on Warren's far left. 
 
 So deliberate was this whole movement of Buller's army, as 
 if the General were intent on throwing away no chances or taking 
 any risks, that the Boer generals had ample time to concentrate 
 any number of their troops at any point they wished. General 
 Joubert was at the front, with Generals Botha and Cronje. 
 Warren found himself at once confronted with an opposing army 
 
894 
 
 THE SIEGE Ol*' LADYSMITH. 
 
 ."Ml 
 
 .ill? 
 
 thrown right across his path. A long ridge ran four miles to the 
 northwest of Trichard's Drift, ascending from the river. The 
 ridge runs into spurs of the mountains, making the boundary of 
 Natal and the Orange Free State. 
 
 On the right of Warren as he advanced lay the mountain of 
 Spion Kop, facing the river, with precipitous sides, but more 
 accessible from the north by a series of summits leading to its 
 real head. The country on either side swarms with hills favor- ' 
 able for guerilla warfare, and the Boer intrenchments extended 
 along to Brakfontin and eastward to Colenso and the Tugela. 
 Eight Boer camps were located by the British along this line of 
 defense. 
 
 The main position of the Boers, however, which was the scene 
 of the fighting, lay to the west of Spion Kop, and it is clear that 
 General Warren was unable to get sufficiently to his left to make 
 a really fianking movement. There was nothing for it but 
 to force his way through the barrier. So, having got up his 
 artillery, he sent forward, under cover of his long range fire, the 
 brigades of Generals Hart and Clery. 
 
 BOERS CONTEST EVERY FOOT OF GROUND. 
 
 On Saturday, the 20th inst., an action began at six in the 
 morning and continued till the evening. Ridge after ridge was 
 captured, but the advance was slow, the Boers stubbornly con- 
 testing every foot of ground. Hart's troops wheeling round on 
 the left along the rocky spur on to the semi-circular position of 
 the Boers came under a heavy fire from three directions, but the 
 British bivouacked on the ground they had won, .though this was 
 within the fire distance of the Boer lines. The loss so far had not 
 been heavy, but only three miles' progress had been made, and in 
 front was an open glacis. , 
 
 In a despatch from Frere Camp, dated January 26th, the 
 writer says: "I have just ridden here, having left General 
 Buller's forces in the new positions south of the Tugela, to which 
 they retired in consequence of the reverses at Spion Kop. 
 
 , "The fighting, before and after the occupation of the moun- 
 
 — ■ ■ v 
 
I to the 
 The 
 lary of 
 
 :ain of 
 more 
 to its 
 favor- ^ 
 
 :ended 
 
 [ugela. 
 
 ine of 
 
 scene 
 
 the 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH. 
 
 39b 
 
 tain, was of a desperate character. Spion Kop is a precipitous 
 mountain, overtopping the whole line of kopjes along the upper 
 Tugela. On the eastern side the mountain faces Mount Alice and 
 Potgieter's Drift, standing at right angles to the Boer central posi- 
 tion and Lyttleton's advanced position. 
 
 " The nek was strongly held by the Boers, who also occupied 
 a heavy spur, parallel with the kop, where the enemy was con- 
 cealed in no fewer than thirty -five rifle pits, and was thus enabled 
 to bring to bear upon our men a damaging cross fire, the only pos- 
 sible point for a British attack being the southern side, with virtu- 
 ally sheer precipices on the left and right. 
 
 APPALLING FIRE FROM UNSEEN ENEMY. 
 
 " A narrow footpath, admitting men i'l single file only to the 
 summit, opens into a perfectly flat table land, probably of three 
 hundred square yards area, upon which the Boers had hastily 
 commenced to make a transverse trench. Our men were able to 
 occupy the further end of this table land, where the ridge descended 
 to another flat, which was again succeeded by a round, stony emi- 
 nence, held by the Boer^ in great strength. 
 
 "The ridge held by our men was faced by a number of strong 
 little kopjes at all angles, whence the Boers sent a concentrated 
 fire from their rifles, supported by a Maxim-Nordenfeldt and a big 
 long range gun. With the rifles, the machine gun and the big 
 gun, the summit was converted into a perfect hell. The shells 
 exploded continually in our ranks, and the rifle fire from an abso- 
 lutely unseen enemy was perfectly appalling. 
 
 " Reinforcements were hurried up by General Warren. They 
 had to cross a stretch of flat ground, which was literally torn up 
 by the flying lead of the enemy. The unfinished trench on the 
 summit gave very questionable shelter, as the enemy's machine 
 guns were so accurately ranged upon the place that often sixteen f 
 shells fell in the trench in a single minute. Mortal men could 
 not permanently hold such a position. Our gallant fellows held 
 it tenaciously for twenty-four hours and then, taking advantage 
 of the dark night, abandoned it to the enemy. 
 
 
 
 *♦ ■.''•>.,:; ft; J, fei 
 
 il 
 
 hm^ 
 
 [TV 
 
ivh 
 
 m 
 
 t: ' 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Thrilling Stories of the Battles in South Africa. 
 
 BY far the most interesting account of the condition of affairs in 
 Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, was brought by a 
 refugee named D. Storran, who reached Cape Town on December 
 15th, after being detained in Johannesburg and confined with the 
 British military prisoners at the race-course on suspicion of being 
 a spy. In telling his story, Mr. Storran said : 
 
 " I left Pretoria on November 12. On that date there were at 
 least 1,400 British prisoners of the rank and file and fifty-two 
 officers. Some were prisoners from Dundee, many from Lady- 
 smith, after the Nicholson's Nek affair ; fifteen from Mafeking 
 (the armored train) and some from Crocodile river. We learned 
 in Pretoria that these latter were part of one of Colonel Plummer's 
 patrol of twenty-five men, which was surprised and cut off, several 
 being killed and wounded. They had tethered their horses for 
 the night, and were surprised, but held their own for three hours. 
 The prisoners numbered eight. > 
 
 "One of the Mafeking party was a telegraphist, named Little, 
 who was captured after eluding the Boers for many days. They 
 tried to induce him to help them blow up the railway bridges, but 
 he refused at all costs. 
 
 " The officers are accommodated in the school house and are 
 allowed all reasonable liberty, including the obtaining of food 
 from the hotels. The men live in lean-to sheds, hitherto used for 
 the horses, but clean and fairly ^"omfortable ; the men have as 
 good food as if they were with thcxx fellows in the field ; in fact, 
 they are fed upon the provisions which were taken at Dundee 
 after it was evacuated. There were two months' supplies there. 
 The men are pretty cheerful. I have heard of 01^ or two cases of 
 * scurvy in the camp. When it rains there is some difficulty with 
 the sheds, but the rainy season does not set in until the new year. 
 
 396 
 
 (( 
 
BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 t97 
 
 lafFairs in 
 rht by a 
 December 
 [with the 
 of being 
 
 e were at 
 fifty-two 
 n I^ady- 
 fafeking 
 learned 
 iinimer's 
 » several 
 )rses for 
 - hours, 
 
 dl^ittle, 
 
 They 
 
 ?es, but 
 
 tnd are 
 of food 
 sed for 
 ave as 
 n fact, 
 Dundee 
 
 there, 
 ises of 
 Y with 
 
 year. 
 
 "The British wounded are in a separate building, which is 
 being used as a hospital, and when we were there they were being 
 attended by an English doctor — one of the prisoners — and a 
 number of men of the Red Cross Society as nurses. There were 
 no female nurses available. 
 
 " President Kruger, who is looking extremely well in health, 
 is preparing for eventualities. The race-course is being prepared 
 as a laager to be used in case of a siege. At present the fort guns 
 are trained upon it in case the prisoners should try to escape, and 
 a searchlight plays upon it at night. There is a Maxim mounted 
 at the gate. 
 
 BOERS CONCEAL THEIR LOSSES. 
 
 " I could only estimate the Boer losses approximately ; I 
 should place them at about a thousand, of whom probably half 
 were killed. The first official reports after Elandslaagte estimated 
 the killed and wounded at 400. Afterward the numbers were 
 reduced. It is practically impossible to get at Boer casualties, 
 because care is taken to conceal them, and the wounded, instead 
 of being treated at hospitals, are taken to the nearest farms. 
 Most of the men lost al Elandslaagte were Hollanders, Germans 
 and Irish. They are despised by the Boers and, therefore, are 
 always put well in front. 
 
 " From the President downward the Boers are fighting, and 
 they boast that they have won all along the line, pointing to their 
 annexations and the beleaguered towns and the prisoners as proof 
 positive. The burghers who are left are enrolling in crowds and 
 men are being given burgher rights with this object. There are 
 many English names. The flag of the Sou^h African Republic is 
 already to be had in Pretoria. It is the Vierkleur, with an orange 
 stripe running across it in the shape of a cross. I have seen these 
 flags. President Steyn has ordered some, but I think they were 
 stopped at Port Elizabeth. 
 
 " I may say that the Boers have a most complete plan of cam- 
 paign and an admirable intelligence department. The whole 
 thing has been worked out for months before the war broke out. 
 
 : i 
 

 398 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 I cannot estimate the Boer forces in the field. I believe there are 
 about 43,000 altogether, 35,000 of whom are Transvaalers, the 
 remainder Free Staters. Their reserves only number 3,000 or 
 4,000, at the outside." - " ' • 
 
 From Boer sources came interesting stories of the fighting 
 around Ladysmith. It seems that the remnants of German and 
 'Hollander corps returned to Johannesburg to reorganize, and indi- 
 vidual members gave de- 
 tails as to the circum- 
 stances which led to so 
 disastrous a result among 
 the Boers at Elandslaagte. 
 They said that the Ger- 
 mans, under Captain 
 Shell; the Hollanders, 
 under Commandant Lom- 
 baard, and the Johannes- 
 burg burghers, led by 
 Commandant Ben Viljeon, 
 were told oflf to hold a cer- 
 tain kopje and remain in- 
 active until further orders. 
 As a matter of fact they 
 seem to have located them- 
 selves on a kopje consider- 
 ably nearer the British 
 lines, and to have attracted 
 the attention of the troops by firing on them. As a result they 
 gradually became surrounded by the British and were raked by 
 shot and shell. 
 
 Reinforcements could not well be sent to their aid, as they 
 were too far within the British lines, and the detachment of a 
 commando to their assistance v/ould have interfered with the gen- 
 eral plan designed by the commandant — General Joubert. Con- 
 spicuous individual courage was displayed by Dr. Coster, Captain 
 Shell, Count Von Zeppelin, Lieutenant von Boreas and others, 
 
 CAPTAIN SHEIL, 
 
 THE GERMAN AUTILLKKIST CAITUKEO »Y THE 
 URITISH AT ELANDSLAAGTE. 
 
BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 39?» 
 
 there are 
 pers, the 
 bjOoo or 
 
 fighting 
 an and 
 nd indi- 
 ave de- 
 circuni- 
 to so 
 among 
 Islaagte. 
 he Ger- 
 aptaiu 
 mders, 
 It Loni- 
 hannes- 
 led by 
 Viljeon, 
 Id a cer- 
 lain in- 
 ■ orders, 
 ct they 
 i them- 
 >nsider- 
 British 
 tracted 
 It they 
 :ed by 
 
 s they 
 It of a 
 e gen- 
 Cou- 
 iptain 
 thers, 
 
 but most of them had to pay the penalty of their recklessness. 
 Count Von Zeppelin rode straight for the British lines, armed with 
 revolver and riding whip, and was at once shot dead. It is extra- 
 ordinary that any of the corps escaped. They had to run the 
 gauntlet of the British line, and were pursued by the lancers. 
 
 General Joubert addressed the men before they left for Johan- 
 nesburg, and assured them that the disaster would have been 
 averted had they obeyed orders. He stated that he had been 
 against the formation of separate German, Hollander and Scandi- 
 navian corps from the beginning, and held that it would have been 
 better to have distributed the 
 men among the commandos, so 
 that they could have become 
 initiated in Boer methods of 
 warfare. He impressed on the 
 men that the object of the war 
 was not the seeking of indi- 
 vidual honor, nor the making of 
 individual names for themselves, 
 but the defense of the independ- 
 ence of the country. 
 
 An eye-witness furnished 
 the following picturesque ac- 
 count of the battle of Magers- 
 fontein : -- 
 
 • " Our troops extended over general p. j. joubert, 
 
 many miles of country. Every commander-in-chief of the uoer forces. 
 
 move had to be made in full view of the enemy upon a level plane 
 where a collie dog could not have moved unperceived by those 
 foemen hidden so securely behind impregnable ramparts. During 
 the whole of Sunday our gunners played havoc with the enemy ; 
 the shooting of the Naval Brigade being of such a nature that 
 even thus early in the fight the big gun of the bluejackets, with its 
 42-pound Lyddite shell, struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. 
 But the Boers were not idle. Whenever our infantry, in manoeu- 
 vering, came within range of their rifles, our ranks began to thin 
 
 m' Wm 
 
 
 m'" ■"■'^ 
 
 ■i :■ ■■hi 
 
 m 
 
400 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 ■fii. 
 
 out, and the blood of our gallaut fellows dyed the sun-baked veldt 
 
 in richest crimson. 
 
 " During the night that followed it was considered expedient 
 
 that the Highland Brigade, about 4000 strong, under General 
 
 Wauchope, should get close enough to the lines of the foe to make 
 
 it possible to charge the heights. At midnight the gallant but 
 
 ill-fated General moved cautiously through the darkness toward 
 
 the kopje where the Boers were most strongly intrenched. They 
 
 were led by a guide, who was supposed to know every inch of the 
 
 country, out into the darkness of an African night. The brigade 
 
 marched in line of quarter-column, each man stepping cautiously 
 
 and slowly, ^or they knew that any sound meant death. Every 
 
 order was given in a hoarse whisper, and in whispers it was passed 
 
 along the ranks from man to man ; nothing was heard as they 
 
 moved toward the gloomy, steel-fronted heights but the brushing 
 
 of their feet in the veldt grass and the deep-drawn breaths of the 
 
 marching men. 
 
 STARTLING RIFLE SHOT. \ 
 
 "So, onward, until 3 o'clock in the morning of Monday. Then 
 out of the darkness a rifle rang, sharp and clear, a herald of dis- 
 aster — a soldier had tripped in the dark over the hidden wires laid 
 down by the enemy. In a second, in the twinkling of an eye, the 
 searcnlights of the Boers fell broad and clear as the noonday sun 
 on the ranks of the doomed Highlanders, though it left the enemy 
 concealed in the shadows of the frowning mass of hills behind 
 them. ' 
 
 "For one brief moment the Scots seemed paralyzed by the sud- 
 denness of their discovery, for they knew that they were huddled 
 together like sheep within fifty yards of the trenches of the foe. 
 Then, clear above the confusion, rolled the voice of the General : 
 'Steady, men; steady!' And, like an echo to the veterans, out 
 came the ciash of nearly a thousand rifles not fifty paces from 
 them. The Highlanders reeled before the shock like trees before 
 the tempest. Their best, their bravest, fell in that wild hail of 
 lead. General Wauchope was down, riddled with bullets ; yet 
 gasping, dying, bleeding from every vein, the Highland chieftain 
 
 w 
 
BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 401 
 
 
 veldt 
 
 raised himself on his hands and knees and cheered his men forward. 
 Men and oflScers fell in heaps together. 
 
 "The Black Watch (Royal 42d Highlanders) charged, and 
 the Gordons and the Seaforths, with a yell that stirred the British 
 camp below, rushed onward — onward to death or disaster. The 
 accursed wires caught them round the legs until they floundered 
 like trapped wolves, and all the time the rifles of the foe sang the 
 song of death in their ears. Then they fell back, broken and 
 beaten, leaving nearly thirteen hundred dead and wounded just 
 where the broad breast of the grassy veldt melts into the embrace 
 of the rugged African hills, and an hour later the dawning came 
 of the dreariest day that Scotland has known for a generation 
 past. 
 
 THE FLOWER OF SCOTTISH CHIVALRY CUT DOWN. 
 
 " Of her officers, the flower of her chivalry, the pride of her 
 breeding, but few remained to tell the tale, a sad tale truly, but 
 one untainted with dishonor or smirched with disgrace, for up 
 those heights under similar circumstances even a brigade of devils 
 could scarce have hoped to pass. All that mortal men could do 
 the Scots did ; they tried, they failed, they fell, and there is noth- 
 ing left us now but to mourn for them, and avenge them, and I 
 am no prophet if the day is distant when the Highland bayonet 
 will retrieve this sad disaster. 
 
 " All that fateful day our wounded men lay close to the Boer 
 lines under a blazing sun ; over their heads the shots of friends 
 and foes passed, without ceasing. Many a gallant deed was done 
 by comrades helping comrades ; men who were shot through the 
 body lay without water, enduring all the agony of thirst engen. 
 dered by their wounds and the blistering heat of the day ; to 
 them crawled Scots with shattered limbs, sharing the last drop of | 
 water in their bottles, and taking messages to be delivered to 
 mourning women in the cottage homes of far-off Scotland. 
 
 " Many a last farewell was whispered by pain-drawn lips in 
 between the ringing of the rifles ; many a rough soldier with 
 tenderest care closed the eyes of a brother in arms amidst the 
 
 26 
 
 r'n 
 
 r-:-m 
 
 '4h 
 
 \m 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 'if 
 
 ^^^' 
 
 %\ 
 
I 
 
 ».■-; 
 
 
 f! ?■. 
 ' it 
 
 :, ! . 
 
 ..'■ ■ - 
 
 It, 
 
 li 
 
 402 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 tempest and the stir of battle, and above it all, Cronje, the Boei 
 General, must have smiled grimly, for well he knew that where 
 the Highland Brigade had failed, all the world might falter. All 
 day long the battle raged ; scarcely could we see the foe — all that 
 met our eyes was the rocky heights that spoke with tongues of 
 flame whenever our troops drew near. We could not reach their 
 , lines ; it was murder, grim and ghastly, to send the infantry for- 
 ward to fight a foe they cpuld not see and could not reach. 
 
 SUPERB CHARGE OF BRITISH GUARDS. 
 
 " Once our Guards made a brilliant dash at the trenches, and, 
 like a torrent, their resistless valor bore all before them, and for 
 a brief few moments they got within hitting distance of the foe. 
 Well did they avenge the slaughter of the Scots ; the bayonets, 
 like tongues of flame, passed above or below the rifle's guard, and 
 swept through brisket and breastbone. Out of their trenches the 
 Guardsmen tossed the Boers as men in English harvest fields toss 
 the hay when Ihe reapers' scythes have whitened the cornfields ; 
 and the human streams were plentiful where the British Guards- 
 men stood. Then they fell back, for the fire from the heights above 
 them fell thick as the spume of the surf on an Australian rock- 
 ribbed coast. But the Guards had proved to the Boer that, man 
 to man, the Briton was his master. 
 
 " In vain all that day Methuen tried by every rule he knew to 
 draw the enemy; vainly the Lancers rode recklessly to induce 
 those human rock limpets to come out and cut them off. Cronje 
 knew the mettle of our men, and an ironic laugh played round 
 his iron mouth, and still he stayed in his native fastness ; but 
 death sat ever at his elbow, for our gunners dropped the Lyddite 
 shells and the howling shrapnel all along his lines, until the 
 trenches ran blood, and many of his guns were silenced. In the 
 valley behind his outer line of hills his dead lay piled in hundreds, 
 and the slope of the hill was a charnel house where the wounded 
 all writhed amid the masses of the dead ; a ghastly tribute to 
 British gunnery. 
 
 "For hours I stood within speaking distance of the great 
 
BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA, 
 
 4oa 
 
 naval gun as it spoke to the enemy, and such a sight as their 
 shooting the world has possibly never witnessed. Not a shell was 
 wasted ; cool as if on the decks of a pleasure yacht our tars moved 
 through the fight, obeying orders with smiling alacrity. When- 
 ever the signal came from the balloon above us that the enemy 
 were moving behind their lines, the sailors sent a message from 
 England into their midst, and the name of the messenger was 
 , destruction, and when, at 1.30 p. m., of Tuesday, we drew off to 
 Modder river to recuperate, we left a host of dead and wounded of 
 grim old Cronje's men as a token that the lion of Kngland had 
 bared his teeth in earnest." 
 
 After tracing the terrible loss suffered by the Highland 
 Brigade at Magersfontein, the same writer thus depicts the burial 
 of General Wauchope : 
 
 V OBSEQUIES OF THE GALLANT GENERAL. , 
 
 "Three hundred yards to the rear of the little township of 
 Modder river, just as the sun was sinking in a blaze of African 
 splendor, on the evening of Tuesday, the 12th of December, a 
 long, shallow grave lay exposed in the breast of the veldt. To 
 the westward the broad river, fringed with trees, ran murniur- 
 ingly; to the eastward the heights, still held by the enemy, 
 scowled menacingly ; north and south the veldt undulated peace- 
 fully. 
 
 "A few paces to the northward of that grave fifty dead High- 
 landers lay dressed as they had fallen on the field of battle. They 
 had followed their chief to the field, and they were to follow him 
 to the grave. How grim and stern those men looked as tl. y lay 
 face upward to the sky, with great hands clenched in the last 
 death agony, and brows still knitted with the stern lust of the 
 strife in which they had fallen. 
 
 "The plaids dear to every Highland clan were represented 
 there, and, as I looked, out of the distance came the sound of the 
 pipes; it was the General coming to join his men. There, right 
 under the eyes of the enemy, moved, with slow and solemn tread, 
 all that remained of the Highland Brigade. 
 
 if 
 
 :\ 
 
 i ;'*<«.> 
 
 ■irl 
 
f!l 
 
 :l 
 
 i{ 
 
 M 
 
 U 
 
 I'f!- 
 
 ii 
 
 ii 
 
 M . W 
 
 404 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 " III front of tliein walked the chaplain with bared head, dressed 
 in his robes of office; then came the pipers, with their pipes, 
 sixteen in all, and behind them, with arms reversed, moved the 
 Highlanders, dressed in all the regalia of their regiments, and in 
 the midst the dead General, borne by four of his comrades. 
 
 "Out swelled the pipes to the strains of 'The Flowers of 
 the Forest,' now ringing proud and high until the soldiers' heads 
 went back in haughty defiance, and eyes flashed through tears 
 like sunlight on steel ; now singing to a moaning wail like a 
 woman mourning her first born, until the proud heads dropped for- 
 ward till they rested on heaving chests, and tears rolled down the 
 wan and scarred faces, and the choking sobs broke through the 
 solemn rhythm of the march of death. 
 
 FACES FROWNING WITH VENGEANCE. 
 
 "Right up to the grave they marched, then broke away in 
 companies, iintil the General lay in the shallow grave with a 
 Scottish square of tirnied men around him. Only the dead man's 
 son and a small remnant of his officers stood with the chaplain 
 and the pipers, while the solemn services of the church were 
 spoken. ^ 
 
 " Then once again the pipes pealed out, and ' Lochaber No 
 More ' cut through the stillness like a cry of pain, until one could 
 almost hear the widow in her Highland home moaning for the 
 soldier she would welcome back no more. Then, as if touched by 
 the magic of one thought, the soldiers turned their tear-damp 
 eyes from the still form in the shallow grave toward the heights, 
 where Cronjc, the 'Lion of Africa,' and his soldiers stood. 
 
 "Then every cheek flushed crimson, and the strong jaws set 
 like steel, and the veins on the hands that clasped the rifle 1 mdles 
 swelled almost to bursting with the fervor of the grip, and that 
 look from those silent, armed men spoke more eloquently than 
 ever spoke the tongues of orators. 
 
 "For on each frowning face the spirit of vengeance sat, and 
 each sparkling eye asked silently for blood. God help the Boers 
 when next the Highland pibroch sounds. God rest the Boers' 
 
dressed 
 r pipes, 
 ved the 
 
 and in 
 
 owers of 
 s' heads 
 h tears 
 like a 
 ped for- 
 Dwn the 
 igh the 
 
 Lway in 
 with a 
 i man's 
 haplain 
 ;h were 
 
 ber No 
 e could 
 for the 
 :hed by 
 ,r-damp 
 leights, 
 
 aws set 
 
 'ndles 
 
 id that 
 
 y than 
 
 at, and 
 
 Boers 
 
 Boers' 
 
 5« 
 
 ►T3 
 
 W 
 
 C 
 
 tn 
 
 50 
 
 I— c 
 
 in 
 
 W 
 
 t/? 
 
 
 >'i«<tf)^j 
 
 ^* 
 
 ■;6^t!' 
 
 '*• 
 
 4W 
 
-\ 
 
 406 
 
 IJATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 :i'i 
 
 souls when the Highland bayonets charge, for neither death, nor 
 hell, nor things above, nor things below will hold the Scots back 
 from their blood feud. 
 
 " At the head of the grave, at the point nearest the enemy, 
 the General was laid to sleep, his officers grouped around him, 
 while in line behind him his soldiers were laid in a double row, 
 wrapped in their blankets. No shots were fired over the dead men 
 resting so peacefully. Only the salute was given, and then the 
 men marched campward as the darkness of an African night rolled 
 over the far-stretching breadth of the veldt." 
 
 Writing of the battle of Magersfontein a sergeant of the Sea- 
 forth Highlanders said : 
 
 "The Black Watch in front made an attempt to charge the 
 position, but we had to retire and simply run for it, the enemy 
 blazing at us all the way and dropping our fellows like skittles 
 from their splendid positions. There was nothing to do but to lay 
 down and pretend to be dead, and this I did about half-past 5 
 A. M., till, I suppose, 6 r. M., the sun pouring down on me all the 
 time, and not a drink of water all day, and dare not stir hand or 
 foot, expecting every instant to be my last. 
 
 IN A STORM OF BULLETS. 
 
 "I could hear nothing but the cries, moans and prayers of 
 the wounded all round me, but dared not so much as look 
 up to see who they were. Shot and shell were going over me all 
 ' day from the enemy and our side, and plenty of them striking 
 within a yard of me — I mean bullets, not shell — and yet they 
 never hit me. 
 
 " I believe some of the fellows lost their senses and walked 
 right up to the enemy's place, singing till they dropped dead. 
 One youngster lying close to me said he would make a dart for it 
 , about 3 P. M. I tried my best to persuade him not to, but he 
 . would go. A couple of seconds after I could hear them pitting at 
 him, and then his groans for about a minute, and then he was 
 quiet. 
 
 " About this time the sun began to get fearfully hot and I 
 
 ii 
 
., 11 or 
 l>ack 
 
 lemy, 
 
 him, 
 
 row, 
 
 men 
 
 h the 
 
 rolled 
 
 Sea- 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 bcf;:an to feel it in the legs, which are now very painfnl and 
 swollen; besides, I was parched with thirst. Most of the wounded 
 round me had ceased groaning by this time. As it ))egan to get 
 dark I managed to wriggle my body through the shrub further 
 back, and, after I had been at it some time, on looking up found 
 myself right in front of another intrenchment of the eucmv. 
 They sent a few rounds at me, but they struck just in front and 
 ricochetted over my head. After a bit, it getting darker, I got 
 up and walked back, and there was nothing but dead Highlanders 
 all over the place." 
 
 A Bulgarian ex-officer who joined the Boer army relates some 
 of his experiences in the following letter. It is dated Farmer's 
 Kopje, Natal, December 2, 1899, and is in these terms : 
 
 " Look at the heading of my letter — Natal. Can you imagine 
 that I should write you from South Africa, whereas you thought 
 me to be in Chicago ? I am now in the intrenchments of the Boer 
 army before Ladysmith. 
 
 OFF FOR THE WAR. 
 
 " As soon as war was declared, I made up my mind to go as 
 a volunteer, and at New York presented myself to the Dutch 
 committee there, who paid my traveling expenses, and I embarked 
 on the ' Sidonia Fitwe,' bound for Madeira. On November 4 we 
 landed at Lourenzo Marques, on the 6th I was in Pretoria, and on 
 the 7th already here. 
 
 "I had a company of no soldiers intrusted to me, and as a 
 pioneer officer my task is very important. Bearded, stalwart, 
 hardy fellows are these Boers. I speak English, and that with 
 the Boers is the universal language. Good people, but how 
 terribly they hate the English. We never hated the Turks so 
 much. All of them are good shots, good horsemen and zealous 
 Christians. Those of them who have finished their tasks of 
 digging sit down to rest with their Bibles in their hands ; they 
 know no other book. They believe in God and their rights. 
 
 "Our tactics here and everywhere along the fighting line are 
 'keep iu your trenches ;' we get ourselves intrenched and wait for 
 
 K>>*^i 
 
 ■ '■■?<■■'■ . t't 1 
 
408 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 ! I 
 
 h*! 
 
 the enemy. The English make their attacks in the open, think- 
 ing that the Boers are like the Soudanese. We fire volleys at 
 them and make havoc in their ranks. Hundreds are left on the 
 battlefield and the others retire. As we are all well mounted, we 
 do our movements quickly. The hardest things we have to en- 
 dure are the terrible heat, which keeps us in our shirt sleeves all 
 day, and the Siberian cold of the night, the heavy downpours of 
 I rain, and the dust storms." 
 
 A correspondent of Renter's Telegram Company, writing 
 from Cape Town under date of December 20, said: 
 
 ' SLOW OXEN AND MULES. 
 
 "It has been expected, certainly hoped, that the Boers may 
 be compelled to assume the offensive, not from any desire to come 
 into the open — quite the opposite is the case — ^but because it may 
 become absolutely necessary for them to bring the war to an 
 early conclusion, if they can. Not only cio the Boers find it diffi. 
 cult to keep up their supplies of food, but also of ammunition. 
 Their transport arrangements are of a primitive kind. The ox 
 wagon, even the mule wagon, is a very slow and cumbrous means 
 of moving heavy goods, such as projectiles and food stuffs, from 
 one point to another, with long distances between the base of sup- 
 plies and the army in the field. 
 
 " Again, the extent to which ammunition of all sorts has been 
 used must have made serious inroads even upon the heavy stocks 
 accumulated in the Transvaal and Free State capitals within the 
 last two years. A failure in the food supply or the supply of 
 ammunition is fatal to any army, and there are some signs that 
 
 ■ supplies are falling somewhat short, and that this fact is having a 
 demoralizing effect." 
 
 ' ■ Writing home to his wife in Nottingham, from Sterkstrooni, 
 a color sergeant in the vSecond Battalion, Fifth Northumberland 
 Fusiliers, said : - " 
 
 " I have been through my baptism of fire, and, my God ! what 
 a baptism it was! On our arrival at Molteno we were given half 
 an hour's rest, and then ordered on our night march, bayonets 
 
I 
 
 
 kn, think, 
 volleys at 
 -ft on the 
 runted, we 
 |ave to en- 
 sleeves all 
 mpours of 
 
 writing 
 
 oers may 
 e to come 
 se it may 
 ar to an 
 nd it diffi. 
 munition. 
 The ox 
 us means 
 -iffs, from 
 >e of sup- 
 has been 
 y stocks 
 ithin the 
 ipply of 
 g:ns that 
 laving a 
 
 :stroom, 
 berland 
 
 d ! what 
 en half 
 lyonets 
 
 BATTLLS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 409 
 
 fixed, no talking, no smoking— nothing but the tramp, tramp of 
 feet; over hills, through rivers, nullahs, kopjes, laagers, and on, 
 on, we marched through the long, weary night. 
 
 "At last day broke on as bright and sunny a morning as 
 ever broke on God's earth. Our General's idea was to give the 
 Boers a surprise and carry them at the point of the bayonet, but 
 we were disappointed. We were betrayed by some villain or 
 other and were led into as nice a trap as ever mortal was led into, 
 a veritable slaughter-house. As we commenced to march between 
 two large hills to begin operations, both of them became a blaze 
 of shot and shell, and how I am alive to tell the tale is a wonder. 
 We found it impossible to get at them. They were so strongly 
 intrenched that we had to retire, and, horror of horrors, to do this 
 we had to run the gauntlet of a terrible fire. 
 
 HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPES. 
 
 " I hadn't gone a hundred yards when my ankle gave out, and 
 I could only hop. Then I offered up a hearty prayer to God to 
 look after you and the children, and was about to give up when a 
 bullet tore my trousers. That gave me a fresh lease of life, and 
 off I went again. Awhile after the bullets flew around so that I 
 gave myself up entirely, but still the bullets would not hit me. 
 We managed to get clear at last, and marched fifteen miles to 
 Molteno. I forgot to mention that a cavalryman lent me his 
 mount, and it ran wild with me, and I again had a narrow escape 
 from death. But it was not to be. I must have had ninety lives, 
 to say the least, that day." 
 
 One of the war correspondents shut up in Ladysmith sent 
 interesting particulars of the cheery manner in which the people 
 in the besieged town spent Christmas Day. The children had an 
 especially good time. Two hundred of the little folk were enter- 
 tained at a feast, at which they had abundance of the customary 
 dainties and even luxuries. The feasL was under the chief control 
 of Colonel Dartnell and Major Karri-Davies, who gleefully dis- 
 tributed the good things with their own hands. 
 
 There were four Christmas trees, named respectively Britain, 
 
 

 ill 
 
 IJ'-8i 
 
 l^' 
 
 
 I 
 
 410 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Natal, Canada and Anstralia. Sir "George White and General 
 Hunter were among the numerous :ompany that witnessed the 
 festive proceedings. 
 
 One of the men of the Second Cornwalls, writing under date 
 of December 20 to his father and mother at Plymouth, said : 
 
 "After we disembarked at Cape Town, on November 29, we 
 went about five hundred miles up country to De Aar. Ten days „ 
 ago we left there for the Orange River Camp, and now we are | 
 waiting hourly and anxiously for orders to proceed to the front. 
 Two companies of ours have gone to Modder river to join Lord 
 Methuen's column. 
 
 " We have sent several trainloads of Boers as prisoners to 
 Cape Town, and now we have got fifty more here to send on. I 
 went to Cape Town with a party of twenty-eight Boers. They 
 seem a decent lot of men, and, in fact, could not do too much for 
 the six of us who were forming their escort. Why, they must 
 have spent quite ;^i2 ($60) on us. But they seemed verj'- glad to 
 be taken prisoners and thoroughly sick of the war. 
 
 A BOY SOLDIER. 
 
 " Among the prisoners we have one boy — a Boer boy. The 
 poor little fellow is not more than twelve years of age, and has 
 been fighting. He has had botn legs broken and shot through. 
 It is very pathetic ; but what a pity it is to see the poor little chap 
 suffering ! You bet he is being well attended to by us. His 
 father was killed in the same engagement and he has a brother 
 still fighting." 
 
 Further details of the fierce battle of Spion Kop, near Lady- 
 smith, revealed the fierceness of the Boer attack and the terrific 
 havoc wrought by the enemy's shells. When the Boers were first 
 seen they were 1000 yards away. They then descended into a , 
 hollow. When next it was possible to see them they were only j 
 seventy yards off, and the British foremost line sought shelter 
 behind the rocks. 
 
 At this stage the first Boer shell burst, and the order was 
 given for one regiment to retire to the edge of the kopje, where 
 
, BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 411 
 
 there was more cover. The order was misconstrued by some of 
 the foremost trenches, who fell back. The Boers seized this oppor- 
 tunity and rushed the trenches, capturing a few men. This mis- 
 take was soon observed ; a bayonet charge followed and the Boers 
 fled. ■ ■ 
 
 Two of their Maxim-Nordenfeldts commenced to drop shells 
 among the British, doing terrible J linage. The Boer riflemen, 
 noticing the havoc wrought, attempted to creep close up on two . 
 occasions, only to be driven back with loss. As the}, retreated, 
 they appealed to the British to surrender. The response was a 
 volley. ' 
 
 The formation of the hilltop is like a table, a mile long and 
 a quarter of a mile broad. The shorter side alone was available 
 for rifle fire. The firing party which responded to the Boer 
 attack was necessarily small. The remainder of the British force 
 was scattered about, seeking shelter. 
 
 THREE ATTACKS REPULSED. 
 
 After British reinforcements had reached the top of Mount 
 Tabanyama, at ii A. m., the crest of the hill was covered with 
 troops lying down and closely packed together. Until dark these 
 troops were under a terrific shell fire from Boer guns on three 
 sides. A destructive rifle fire also was poured in from the trenches 
 still held by the Boers on the further part of the crest. The 
 British replied with rifles only, as it was impossible to drag guns 
 to the summit in time. Three times the British charged the 
 Boers' trenches, but were met with a fierce fire from rifles as well 
 as from Maxim-Nordenfeldts. The British line of charge was 
 broken before the men got within stabbing distance, and bayonets, 
 accordingly, were useless. 
 
 The day was exceedingly hot, and the scanty supply of water 
 on the hill was barely sufiicient for the wounded. It was not 
 possible until noon to take to the rear any of those who had b-^en 
 wounded. Then they had to be carried down the steep spur, up 
 which the troops had been compelled to crawl on hands and knees. 
 - At 2 o'clock in the afteniv/on the Boers charged part of the 
 
 
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i 
 
 u 
 
 M 1 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 t! rl-, 
 
 .1 '< 
 
 i \ 
 
 it 
 
 i 1» ■■ 
 
 412 
 
 BATTLES IN SOUTH AFRICA^ 
 
 Britisli trenches held bv two battalions, and nearly succeeded in 
 carrying them, leaping the slimly defended breastworks. But 
 British supports were hurried up, and the defenders thus strength- 
 ened drove the Boers back with the bayonet. 
 
 The fight was fiercely contested until after dark, when the 
 British received orders to retire. All the wounded in the field 
 hospitals and the supply column recrossed the Tugela river at 
 Trichard's Drift, the movement being completed in an orderly 
 manner, without any attempt at molestation on the part of the 
 Boers. ' " 
 
 V . 
 
 
 AN ac 
 Bi 
 given b; 
 ground. 
 Clery, I 
 Barton' I 
 out as i 
 way, Iv< 
 part of 
 Co 
 guns, a 
 the T\\ 
 tiiraall] 
 awful : 
 seldom 
 Ai 
 at day] 
 the wr 
 of Boe 
 The n 
 tinuon 
 the ri-* 
 guiine 
 of t he 
 sent c 
 raine( 
 teariii 
 
 neith 
 Cann 
 
acceded in 
 )rks. But 
 
 strength. 
 
 when the 
 the field 
 river at 
 m orderly 
 irt of the 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Scenes and Incidents of the Great Struggle. 
 
 AN accijunt that furnished an adequate explanation of General 
 Buller's repulse at the Tugela River on December 15th was 
 given by an eye-witness of that blood}'- encounter who was on the 
 ground. It appears that the battle orders, drawn up by General 
 Clery, provided for the effective support of the artillery by Hart's, 
 Barton's and Dundonald's brigades. These orders were not carried 
 out as it was expected they would be. General Hart missed his 
 way. Lord Dundonald failed to support, and General Barton got 
 part of his forces in an untenable position. 
 
 Colonel Long, with tlie artillery, outpaced the escort of the 
 guns, and they were lost. Briefly, that seems to be the storj'- of 
 the Tugela River. But, through graphic columns, there con- 
 tinually recurs the discovery of unexpected entrenchments and 
 awful fusillades from hidden Boers and gallantry such as has 
 seldom marked British battlefields. 
 
 After describing how the British force began their advance 
 at daylight and how the Boers left them absolutely unmolested, 
 the writer says : " At 6.25 there suddenly burst an awful crash 
 of Boer musketry upon the batteries and advancing infantry. 
 The rattle of the Mausers swelled and was maintained as one con- 
 tinuous roar. From the buildings and lines of trenches south of 
 the river and from the river bank itself the Boers fired at British 
 gunners and footmen, and from the trenches on the northern side 
 of the Tugela River and from Fort Wylie and elsewhere they 
 sent out a hurricane of leaden hail, and the bullets venomously 
 rained upon the ground in all directions, raising puffs of dust and 
 tearing through the air with shrill sounds. 
 
 " Few have ever seen so heavy and so deadly a fusillade, but 
 neither the British gunners nor the infantry hesitated or winced. 
 Cannon were wheeled into position, although many of the horses 
 
 413 
 
 M^^j. 
 
 -^ly^t^*: 
 
 "^? y^ 
 
 iZ^"-^ 
 
i 
 
 rl 
 
 Ki 
 
 J 
 
 'lilil'l 
 
 i 
 
 ,f:. t; 
 
 414 
 
 SCENES ANP II^CIDENTS. 
 
 and men were shot down ere the manoeuvre was completed, and 
 the indomitable soldiers walked erect and straight onward. Not 
 e^en Rome in her palmiest days ever possessed more devoted sons. 
 "As the gladiators marched proud and beaming to meet 
 death, so the British soldiers, doomed to die, saluted, and then with 
 alacrity stepped forward to do their duty — * glory or the grave.' 
 Anglo-Saxon soldiers always advance that way. I asked an 
 American who had seen warfare at home, in Cuba and Manila, if 
 his owi countrymen generally did this, and he answered : 'Yes. 
 It is marvelous, but wasteful.' 
 
 MARCHING UP TO THE RIFLE PITS. 
 
 " Closer and closer walked the soldiers to the Boer trenches 
 ur'il within 400 yards of the nearest rifle pits. Then, lying 
 down, they returned the fire, but there was little or nothing to 
 aim at. By 7.15 the Irish Brigade had driven the Boers to the 
 north bank of the Tugela. They found that the enemy had 
 planted the ground with barbed wire entanglements. Even in 
 the bed of the river wire was laid down. Into the water went the 
 Dublin Inniskillins, Borderers and Connaughts, but it was found 
 at the ford that the Boers had cunningly dammed the river, and 
 there was ten feet of water where ordinarily it is but knee deep. 
 They strove to find the crossings, and many a fine fellow, with 
 his weight of ammunition and accoutrements, was drowned. 
 
 " It was a desperate and serious situation. The attack upon 
 the right was making no progress, and the men were disheartened. 
 But there were furious and angry Irishmen who had resolved to 
 get across somehow. By dint of scrambling from rock to rock 
 and swimming, a number won the other side. Yet, most of them 
 found that they had but passed across a winding spruit. The 
 Tugela still lay in front, and all the while the murderous fire of 
 cannon and Mauser crashed, and comrades fell weltering in their 
 blood. 
 
 " In the meanwhile Colonel Long had lost his guns, and 
 Generals Buller and Clery, with their staffs and escorts, had 
 ridden to the scene. The spouting hail of lead and iron snapped 
 
 m. 
 
SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 ilk 
 
 and spluttered, and the dust puffed more tliau ever. Lord 
 Robert's son, with Captains Schofield and Congrove, volunteered 
 to ride out and endeavor to save the two field batteries in the open. 
 Readily other volunteers were found. Corporals from the lines- 
 men and drivers of the ammunition wagons, taking spare teams, 
 galloped out, and men and horses again began falling on every 
 side. 
 
 " Young Robert's horse was blown up with a shell. Congrove 
 was hit with a bullet, and his clothes were cut by other missiles. 
 Schofield alone escaped untouched. Across that valley of death 
 quickly the surviving animals were rounded up and the guns 
 were hooked and dragged away. Again and again that day 
 attempts were made to haul off the remaining guns, but the Boer 
 fire was incessant and withering. At 4 the battle was over. 
 General BuUer abandoned the guns and retreated." 
 
 COLESBURG AGAIN IN BRITISH HANDS. 
 
 At the beginning of the New Year the chief interest of the 
 war situation did not lie either at Natal or the Modder River, 
 where things remained practically unchanged, but in the north of 
 Cape Colony, where General French had been doing good work 
 for the British by constantly harassing the Boers and finding 
 out their strong positions, then working round the flank and ever 
 and anon threatening their line of communication. General 
 French advanced, retired, manoeuvred and fought until by suc- 
 cessive steps he drove the Boers eastward, and Colesburg was once 
 more in British hands. 
 
 General French's successful action was not the only piece of 
 news from this region. Farther towards the east, and near Dord- 
 recht, lately occupied by the British, there was some fighting and 
 abundant promise of more. Captain Montmorency, with a recon- 
 noitering party, fell in with a body of Boers, estimated at 1500, 
 eight miles to the north of Dordrecht, on December 30th, For six 
 hours he managed to keep the Boers in check, until the arrival of 
 reinforcements with two guns made him retire. 
 
 General French's success again emphasized the absolute 
 
 t' 
 
 . '^U 
 
 ')l • 1^ 
 
 *-, ;■ 
 
 
416 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 i i! 
 
 i' ' it 
 
 i '■' ■!*■!" 
 
 necessity of a strong force of irregular cavalry and mounted infan- 
 try if the British were to be able successfully to cope with the 
 Boers. General French was fortunate enough to command a force 
 as mobile or more mobile than the Boers, and having this advan- 
 tage and being a born cavalry leader, he was the one British Gen- 
 eral who did not receive a check. He beat the Boers at their own 
 game, outflanking them continually. 
 
 His success was immensely significant, showing what was 
 possible when the British could move as quickly as the Boers 
 This was the first occasion during the war in which the Boers were 
 dislodged by a turning movement. General French was operating 
 in a country which was fairly favorable to the action of cavalry, 
 and his force was mainly composed of mounted men. If the other 
 British columns had been as well provided with mounted men less 
 would have been heard of frontal attacks. 
 
 GENERAL FRENCH'S BRILLIANT STRATEGY. 
 
 Following are the details of the recapture of Colesburg, 
 Cape Colony, which had fallen into the hands of the Boers. The 
 account is by an army officer who was on the ground : " By a 
 brilliant strategical movement General French drove the Boers 
 put of Colesburg, to which they had fallen back. We had occupied 
 Rensburg siding in strength, and had come into touch with the 
 enemy, who fired on our skirmishers from what appeared to be an 
 'ntrenched position. We had, however, only one man slightly 
 wounded, but the proximity of the Boers made all eager to advance. 
 :'" "A force of cavalry and infantry, with ten guns, the whole 
 under the personal command of General French himself, occupied 
 some hills three miles from Colesburg, where the Boers lay in 
 strength, confident because of the natural aid afforded them by the 
 hills around. The enemy's position extended for six miles round 
 the entire village. 
 
 " Promptly at daybreak our artillery opened the battle. The 
 Boers, though taken a little by surprise, replied vigorously with 
 their guns. The duel went on for two hours without cessation. 
 Our gunners showed marvelous accuracy, and it soon told. 
 
 o 
 
 of 
 
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 r 
 
 s 
 
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 H 
 
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d infan- 
 ith the 
 a force 
 advan- 
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 eir own 
 
 lat was 
 Boers 
 rs were 
 >erating 
 :avalry, 
 le other 
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 J. The 
 
 "By a 
 2 Boers 
 ccupied 
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 be an 
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 whole 
 :cupied 
 
 lay in 
 by the 
 
 round 
 
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 satioia. 
 
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 m 
 
418 
 
 SCENKS AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 M'i 
 
 # 
 
 " First the enemy's Hotchkiss collapsed, and then the Boers' 
 big gun was silenced, both early in the action, but the other pieces 
 of artillery held out until they gradually fell back. The Hotcli. 
 ki.ss was abandoned, and we captured it, but the other guns were 
 removed to the north as our cavalry closed in. As the guns were- 
 withdrawn they shelled our cavalry, but caused no damage. Our 
 advancing guns speedily silenced them. The Boers appear to be 
 retreating north, but we are harassing them, and our shells are 
 doing much damage. • -< 
 
 " Colesburg is now in our hands. The few loyalists who 
 remain there are jubilant. We have captured many of the enemy's 
 wagons and a considerable quantity of stores. Our losses are quite 
 slight, biit the Boers must have suffered heavily." 
 
 Extended accounts of the fighting in Cape Colony and Natal 
 show its desperate character. The following description of Gen- 
 eral Gatacre's repulse at Stormberg is by an eyewitness who was 
 with the British army : . . 
 
 SHARP FIRE AT SHORT RANGE. 
 
 " When General Gatacre ordered the advance it was hailed 
 with satisfaction Uy his men, and they were at work by 4 o'clock 
 next merning making preparations. The actual march occupied 
 seven hours, and it is therefore little to be wondered at that the 
 men were. wholly incapable of making a supreme effort when at 
 last they were surprised by receiving fire at short range while 
 marching in fours in fancied security. 
 
 " On receiving the enemy's fire the companies at hand rushed 
 at once against the kopjes from which it proceeded, and, advancing 
 from boulder to boulder, swiftly commenced to ascend. Indeed, it 
 is the fact that a considerable number actually reached within a 
 few yards of a lower line of defences, which could not, however, be 
 mounted without ladders. But at this juncture our own artiller}-, 
 failing to observe the ascent of the infantry, opened fire upon the 
 eneni}'^, and several shells falling short dealt destruction among 
 the assailants of the position. .- , 
 
 "A partial retirement instantly ensued, and, having been 
 
 m^ : 
 
5|i 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 4 It) 
 
 i Boers' 
 r pieces 
 Hotch. 
 IIS Ave re- 
 us were 
 Our 
 ar to l)c- 
 ells a re- 
 ts who 
 iieniy's 
 re quito 
 
 d Natal 
 of Geii- 
 ^ho was 
 
 hailed 
 o'clock 
 ccupied 
 hat the 
 '^lien at 
 i while 
 
 rushed 
 anciug 
 ieed, it 
 ithiu a 
 ver, be 
 tiller}', 
 ion the 
 
 among 
 
 been 
 
 brought to a standstill, the attack gnulually melted away until, 
 convinced that the case was hopeless, the General ordered the 
 I retire' to be sounded. (Had the order been promptly obeyed the 
 troops might not improbably have been withdrawn without very 
 serious loss, and a fresh attempt might even yeL have l)cen success- 
 fully prosecuted.) But it was not to be. Many men were loath to 
 retire, because they were anxious to go on, while not a few M'ere 
 so utterly exhausted that they simply preferred to slay where 
 they were, at all hazards, than 
 to undertake the ordeal of a 
 rapid retirement over the open 
 ground at the foot of the hills. 
 Eventually over 500 wounded 
 men were taken prisoners. 
 
 "So far as I can under- 
 stand the matter, the causes to 
 which this most lamentable 
 failure must be attributed are 
 as follows : . 
 
 " The map of the ground 
 was utterly misleading and 
 worse than useless. 
 
 " So far as I am aware, no 
 one among the responsible au- 
 thorities had taken any com- 
 pass bearings, and conse- 
 quently no one knew where he was being taken in the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 "The Berkshire Regiment, by whom the redoubts now occu- 
 pied by the Boers at Stormberg had been built, and to whom 
 every inch of the ground was familiar, were left at Queenstown 
 instead of being employed to recapture the w^orks which they had 
 so unwillingly evacuated about a month previously. 
 
 " Over 500 men, afterwards made prisoners, had fallen into a 
 trap, from which they failed to extricate themselves. Conse- 
 quently, when the rest of the force had been rallied upon a 
 
 GENERAL W. F. GATACRE. 
 
 DIVISION COMMANDIllt OK 
 liKITISH FOKCKS IN CAl'li: COl.ONV. 
 
 Ii'i^ll!^'^^ 
 
 1; s''*U, 
 
 , ^^4%^ 
 
 a™ 
 
1120 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 defensive' position in the rear, the General had not forces sufficient 
 to warrant a fresli attempt upon some selected point of attack. 
 
 " In any case, the men, who had been by this time on the 
 move for over 24 hours on the stretch, who had just completed 
 seven hours' niarchinj; throuj^^h the night, and who had actually 
 been under arms for upwards of sixteen hours, were so dead beat 
 that severe hill fighting v/as beyond their powers. During the 
 actual retirement from the hills men were falling asleep in the 
 open ground, under fire, after or before using their rifles. No 
 sooner did they halt to fire than they fell forward sound asleep. 
 An officer told me that he awoke several such men by kicking 
 them soundly, and thus insisted upon their continuing their 
 retreat to a place of safety. 
 
 A RETREAT OF TEN MILES. 
 
 '' The guns were at first in the same trap as the infantry, 
 and were compelled to retreat some distance over very difficult 
 ground before they could come into action upon, even then, a poor 
 position, with most inferior command. During this movement a 
 gun was lost in consequence of being stuck fast, and the struggling 
 horses were shot down by the enemy." 
 
 Descri1)ing the retreat from Stormberg to Molteno, another 
 army officer at Sterkstroom writes : 
 
 " Then we had the humiliating experience of being chased 
 back all those weary ten miles to Molteno, retreating as fast as 
 we coiild in small groups, sometimes crouching against the right 
 side of the road — the Boers being on our left flank — sometimes 
 making our way into the cornfields, or along the interminable 
 veldt, or, now and again, falling prone on the ground as a shell 
 came hissing overhead, waiting with breathless suspense until we 
 heard its dull thud as it struck the ground ; then, with an excla- 
 mation of thankfulness, as we found the uncanny thing did not 
 burst, up and off again, ravenously hungry and utterly fatigued 
 as we were, harassed and hiirried by the Boers, who accompanied 
 us for a distance of eight miles with the attentions of their artillery. 
 
 "At last, when the majority of our force, which had left 
 
t 
 
 SCKNKS AND INl IDKN IS. 
 
 •l^l 
 
 ifficicnt 
 ack. 
 
 on the 
 iiipletcd 
 ictually 
 ad beat 
 ing the 
 
 ill the 
 es. No 
 
 asleep, 
 kicking 
 ig their 
 
 nfantry, 
 difficult 
 1, a poor 
 emeut a 
 •uggling 
 
 another 
 
 chased 
 fast as 
 le right 
 netimes 
 tninable 
 a shell 
 mtil we 
 I excla- 
 did not 
 atigued 
 ipanied 
 •tillery. 
 ad left 
 
 the night before .so full of promise and so brimful of eager- 
 ness, had straggled into Molteiio, about 1 1 o'clock, and when 
 we all generally found our feet again, uc foruied up and 
 got into line for the roll call. When mime after name 
 was called, when silence — dead silence — was the only answer 
 when 366 men of the sturdy Northumberlauds were missing, and 
 when some 294 of our gallant Irish comrades failed to give 
 response, then the grim reality of the disaster came home to us, 
 and we silently thanked God that we were safe, and thou^lil very 
 sadly of the comrades, dead, wounded and missing, left bcliiiul in 
 the terrible trap at Stormberg from which we had just escaped." 
 
 GENERAL BULLER SPARES HIS MEN. 
 
 A correspondent of one of the prominent London journals 
 adds some interesting details to the account of the battle of 
 Colenso. "General Buller," he declared, "is astern fighter, an 
 indomitable man, of more than bulldog pertinacity. Once 
 launched into a fight, it is gall and wormwood to him to let go. 
 I have seen him often in battle and recognized his many admir- 
 able qualities as soldier and leader. How great, then, his courage 
 must be — couraige which subjugated his own temperament — when 
 seeing (at Colenso) that as things had shaped themselves the con- 
 test must drive from bad to worse, he, with bold resolution, decided 
 to stop the action. Men were being sacrificed, more would fall, 
 and the Boer position could not be taken before nightfall." 
 
 Dealing once more with Colonel Long's daring but unfor- 
 tunate artillery movements at that battle, this writer said : " The 
 Boer guns began a little later throwing shrapnel, and the machine 
 gun fired solid shot at them. But the gunners never flinched or 
 winced, buckling to their work like men who grip a heavy load. 
 Nay, more, some of them in derision began to 'field' as at cricket 
 with the badly aimed, spent shot of the machine cannon. Run- 
 ning aside, they would make a catch, and call, 'How's that, 
 umpire?' Boisterous and high, indeed, leaped the gunners' 
 spirits. 
 
 "But their guns were all the while served accurately and hotl^, 
 
 ■i^-m' 
 
 
 • fM^ 
 

 "!■ isf 
 
 422 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 and the ridge of Fort Wylie rang and hissed with the rush, burst 
 and splutter of shrapnel, mightily unsteadying and thinning the 
 Boers' fire from there. Captains Goldie and Schrieber fell, struck 
 dead. Within a quarter of an hour Colonel Long, their chief, was 
 knocked over, shot through the arm and body, a bullet passing 
 through his liver and kidneys. He was carried aside 200 yards 
 into a shallow ravine where lay several of the Devons and others. 
 There, wounded as he was. Colonel Long sent for help to over- 
 come the enemy's rifle fire. But it did not come, for there was a 
 difficulty about quickly finding either General Buller or General 
 Clery. 
 
 " Colonel Hunt next fell, shot through both legs, and he also 
 was carried to the ravine. As the men were being shot down very 
 rapidly — for the Boer fire was by that time increasing — Colonel 
 Hunt advised that it would be better to abandon the guns, but 
 Long's characteristic reply was, 'Abandon be hanged. We never 
 abandon guns.' Subsequent!}' Colonel Hunt called attention to 
 ihe fact that it was no use firing. There was scarcely any men 
 left, and next to no ammunition. After that an order was given 
 to abandon the guns, which, for over an hour, had fought in the 
 face of the fiercest fusillade a battery ever endured. 
 
 GUNNERS WHO FELL AT THEIR POSTS. 
 
 "Yet, even then, all wat^ not over, for four men persisted in 
 serving two guns and remaining beside their cannon. One of 
 either pair carried the shell, the others laid and fired their beloved 
 15-pounders. But two men were left. They continued the unequal 
 battle. They exhausted the ordinary ammunition, and finally 
 drew upon and fired the emergency rounds of case, their last shot. 
 Then they stood at 'attention' beside the gun and an instant later 
 fell pierced through and through by Boer bulletr. These, I say, 
 by the light of all my experience in war — thcFe gunners of ours 
 are men who deserve monuments over their graves and even Vic- ' 
 toria crosses in their coffins." 
 
 For many weeks Ladysmith resisted the siege of the Boers, 
 General White and his intrepid garrison standing by their 
 
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 423 
 
424 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 defenses with unflinching firmness. The assault of the Boers 
 upon the town, on January 6th, was of a most determined 
 character. They had evidently gathered and massed their best 
 strength for an attack which had been carefully planned, and 
 which they confidently expected to result in the overthrow of the 
 British defenses and the capture of the beleagured town. 
 
 The first main assault was made in the middle of the night, 
 upon two positions to the southwest of the town, known as Caesar's 
 Camp and Wagon Hill, from which, if the Boers had been able 
 to seize and hold them, they could have poured a deadly fire into 
 Ladysrnith. Caesar's Camp, held by the first battalion of the 
 Manchesters, was the first object of the enemy's attack. Making 
 their way under cover of darkness through the thorn brush which 
 filled the ravine at the foot of the kopje, the Heidelberg commando 
 of the Boers succeeded in evading the British pickets and reaching 
 the foot of the slope. 
 
 RUSHING TROOPS INTO ACTION. 
 
 Before the extent of the danger had been realized by the 
 British, the outlying defenses had been rushed and their defenders 
 slain. Two companies of the Gordon Highlanders went to the 
 assistance of the Manchesters, and as soon as the force of the 
 attack was realized other troops were brought into action. 
 Ivieutenant Col. Dick Cunyngham, who was leading the Gordons 
 out of the camp, fell mortally wounded by a stray bullet while 
 still close to the town. At daybreak artillery was brought to bear 
 effectively upon the enemy. The Boers fought with most 
 desperate courage, being evidently determined to take .the camp 
 or to die in the attempt. But their impetuous bravery was out- 
 matched by the disciplined courage of the defenders, and the 
 Boers were finally driven back with heavy Iohs. Meanwhile a 
 still more exciting conflict had been in progress in the direction 
 of Wagon Hill. 
 
 At 2 o'clock a storming ptirfy "f the rnemy trept hi'/wly and 
 cautiously along a ravine in the vallej' which divided the British 
 posts from the Boer camp, killing the phk-cts with a few well- 
 
|e Boers 
 jermiiiccl 
 leir best 
 \^d, and 
 of the 
 
 e night, 
 Caesar's 
 en able 
 re into 
 of the 
 Making 
 h which 
 nmando 
 caching 
 
 by the 
 ifenders 
 to the 
 of the 
 action, 
 rordons 
 : while 
 to bear 
 most 
 s camp 
 IS out- 
 id the 
 hile a 
 'ection 
 
 ly and 
 
 British 
 
 well- 
 
 SCEI'ES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 120 
 
 aimed -shots, and then gradually reaching the crest of the heights, 
 where they encountered a body of the Briti.sh Light Horse, which 
 they forced to retire, and continued to advance until they reached 
 an emplacement where they encountered a working party of the 
 Gordon Highlanders and the 6oth Rifles, who made a brave 
 defense but were overpowered by numbers. Here it was that 
 Lieutenant McNaughton and thirty Gordons were captured, 
 though not until every man of them was wounded. The British 
 artillery was now brought into play, and prevented the storming 
 party from being reinforced from the Boer camp. 
 
 But the enemy succeeded in making good the foothold they 
 had secured, and held their ground with the utmost determination 
 against the efforts of the British to dislodge them. At length a 
 charge of the Gordons, under Major Walnutt, drove them back, 
 but they returned to the attack, and though repulsed were able 
 still to maintain a murderous lire. 
 
 D/1.RING CHARGE THROUGH A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 The final blow was struck when three companies of the 
 Devonsliires, led by Captain Lafone and Lieutenants Field and 
 Masterson, made a brilliant charge across the open ground, under 
 a terrific fire, and fairly hurled the enemy down the hill at the 
 point of the bayonet. In this charge Captain Lafone and Lieu- 
 tenant Field were killed, and Lieutenant Masterson received no 
 fewer than ten wounds. The result of the battle was thoroughly 
 disheartening to the Boers, v/ho had been confident of their ability 
 to capture the town. 
 
 According to the official report, the battle raged for seven- 
 teen hours. It began at 2.45 Saturday morning, Januar}- 6th, 
 and did not end till 7.30 in the evening. Some British entrench- 
 ments on Wagon Hill were taken three times b\' the Boers, and 
 as often regained by the defenders. One point of the British 
 position, which General White did not specify, was occupied by 
 the Boers during the whole day, but at nightfall, under cover of a 
 heavy rain-storm, the Devonshire Regiment succeeded ui turning 
 them out at the point of the hayonet. 
 
 If:.:.' 
 
 
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 ■ k 
 
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 w 
 
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 11 4lii? 
 
 
 
 1{ IS 
 
426 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 i'^ 
 
 iir!' 
 
 m 
 
 The chief Boer attack was directed at Csesar's Camp and 
 Wagon Hill, and defended by the Manchester Regiment and the 
 Gordon Highlanders. Coming np from the south, perhaps by 
 Fouries Spriiit, the Boers assaulted three times with the greatest 
 obstinacy and vigor, sometimes obtaining a foothold and again 
 falling back before the British bayonet charge. Meanwhile tlie 
 battle, as commando after commando came up from Colenso to 
 reinforce the fighting lines, gradually spread itself over the whole 
 circle of entrenchments, including the great Boer forts at Isini- 
 bulwhana and Lombard's Kop. The result, as already stated, 
 was that Ladysmith held out gallantly and its defenders beat 
 back the stubborn enemy. 
 
 DRESSED IN A PECULIAR COLOR. 
 
 The British War Office did all in its power to provide for the 
 safety and success of the defenders of the empire. Clothing was 
 furnished of a peculiar color — a color resembling the vegetation in 
 South Africa —hi order to present as little distinction as possible 
 between the men and their surroundings. This color was called 
 khaki. In the British portions of South Africa it finally became 
 actually monotonous. Even the horses were dyed the popular hue 
 by means of a mixture of permanganate of potash and water so 
 that Boer sharpshooters should be puzzled to distinguish between 
 the ghostly steed and the veldt on which he stood. Barrels of 
 paint were used in taking the shine off swords, scabbards, lances, 
 accoutrements and buttons. A touch of paint on a button might 
 mean the saving of a wearer's life, for that little piece of polished 
 metal had the power to attract a IMauser bullet. In this adoption 
 of neutral color the British showed commendable caution. 
 
 It is safe to say that had the forces fighting the Boers been 
 made up of an equal number of colonists, well-mounted and able to 
 shoot straight, as were the men comprising the gallant little band 
 at Mafeking, the war would have been ended in the defeat of tlic 
 Boers. Ordinary tactics arc of little account when giddy heights 
 have to be scaled in the face of a sleet of bullets. Gallant " Tommy 
 Atkins " does his best, biit he is not seen at his best in this kind 
 
 I- 'm^m. 
 
SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 427 
 
 amp and 
 it and the 
 ^rhaps by 
 |e greatest 
 md again 
 iwhile tlie 
 ^olenso to 
 the whole 
 
 at Isini- 
 |dy stated, 
 ^ders beat 
 
 de for the 
 :liing was 
 lactation in 
 s possible 
 *vas called 
 ly became 
 •pillar line 
 
 water so 
 1 between 
 Barrels of 
 s, lances, 
 on might 
 
 polished 
 adoption 
 
 ers been 
 d able to 
 :tle banci 
 t of tli. 
 heights 
 Tommy 
 lis kind 
 
 of fighting. The Boers are foemen worthy of " Tommy's" steel, 
 but unfortunately for Tommy the steel had few opportunities to 
 get in its fine work. Here are the personal accounts of some of 
 the men themselves, giving a graphic and life-like account of mod- 
 ern fighting that no descriptive writing of a historian, however 
 talented his pen, can equal. , 
 
 •Speaking of the terrific fighting with General ^lethuen's 
 column, an officer of the Guards says : " We had no cover except 
 little scrub brushes, about six inches high, and the ground sloped 
 gently down to the Boers from about two thousand yards. I don't 
 suppose troops have ever been in a more damnable position. I sat 
 up occasionallj'^ to see how things were going, but only for a 
 moment, as it was always the signal for a perfect stf)rni of bullets. 
 My ammunition bearer had his head blown to bits by a one-pound 
 shell from a 37-millimetre Maxim, a most infernal gun. I hap- 
 pened to be in the line of it just before dark, and thev pumped six 
 rounds at me. The first four pitched in a line aboui twenty, ten 
 and fifteen, and the fourth four yards in front of me, and threw 
 dirt all over me, and the next two just pitched behind me. 
 
 HE HAD ENOUGH FIGHTING. 
 
 " I didn't like it a bit. It was the worst day I have ever 
 spent in my life. Twelve hours under a c6nstant and heavy fire 
 of Maxims, 12-pounders, and other ruick-firing guns ar.d rifles, a 
 hot sun, no cover, no water, and no food, is more than enough for 
 yours truly. The 'guns yesterday fought magnificently, and 1 
 believe fired more rounds per gun than have ever been fired in a 
 battle before. We had a much-needed wash this morning. I 
 washed shirt and drawers, besides myself" 
 
 Describing the storming of the Boer entrenchments at Belmont 
 and Modder River, a corporal of th ^ Coldstream Guards said : "In 
 our fight at Belmont we charged a hill three times with the bay- 
 onet. It was almost impregnable. The Boers lost a number of 
 killed and wounded, and we captured all their stores and camp. 
 We burned the camp and took aboiit one hundred prisoners. They 
 are afraid of the bayonet. As soon as they saw us they flew for 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 :''m. 
 
 
428 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 Ml' 
 
 their lives ; some dropped on tlieir knees and cried for men-y. 
 You should have seen us go at them with a real British cheer. We 
 lost a lot of men ; the fight lasted four and a half hours. 
 
 " Our next fight was at Gras Pan ; it was all long-'Jvitduce 
 firing — about i,ooo yards — until the Naval Brigade came up with 
 'their guns, and then we advanced under cover, and we. cleared 
 them out and killed a lot of them and got two of th'iir chief 
 officers prisoners. The Naval Brigade loss was fifty kUled and 
 wounded. You cannot tell the real number of Boers killed. As 
 soon as any one of them falls they pick him up and gallop off to 
 their hospital with him. 
 
 HARD STRUGGLE AND HEAVY LOSSES. 
 
 " Our next fight was at Modder River — one of the greatest 
 fights in British history. We attacked the Boers, about 2,000 
 strong, in trenches. They had six guns with them. We were 
 under fire thirteen hours and had no food for nearly forty-eight 
 hours. It was a stubborn fight ; it hung on a thread for a long 
 time. The river was ^.ill of dead horses and men. There was a 
 heavy loss on our side. W^e had our colonel killed, poor fellow. 
 We had to wade through the river up to the waist. It was dark 
 when we got them our of their trenches. How we did batter them ! 
 They are not half so good shots as they are made out to be." 
 
 Here is an interesting item from the camps of General Gatacre 
 that did not find its way out of South Africa by cable : " We have 
 a lot of Boer pri^.. . s in camp here, and over the hill in front of 
 us a number of Boer women are searching for their husbands. 
 They say they are told that their losses are small, and that ours 
 are great ; but they cannot find their husbands and believe they 
 are killed. The women think that the Boer commanders -are con- 
 cealing their losses, and I think this is about the truth of the 
 matter. The Boer prisoners are a ragged lot, but they look like 
 men who can do a good day's work. 
 
 " Prisoners are continually arriving here in small batches, 
 prizes taken during the little skirmishes in which it is give and 
 take, with honors about even. One batch, nine in number, arrived 
 
 il'l: 
 
SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 42d 
 
 )r merry, 
 leer. IVe 
 
 ■'J '''stance 
 [e up witli 
 k cleared 
 J'iir chief 
 nied and 
 iHed. As 
 1 lop off to 
 
 : greatest 
 out 2,000 
 We were 
 jrty-eight 
 for a long 
 ere was a 
 or fellow, 
 was dark 
 ter them ! 
 be." 
 
 1 Gatacre 
 We have 
 I front of 
 usbands. 
 hat ours 
 eve they 
 ^re con- 
 fi of the 
 ook like 
 
 batches, 
 
 ^ive and 
 
 arrived 
 
 yesterday by the transport " Servia" from Frere Camp. The men 
 
 were of the back-veldt type, wearing slovenly clothes and slouch 
 
 hats adorned with the usual crape. One of them had an enormous 
 
 Red Cross badge sewn on his hat, and this caused much laughter 
 
 among the small crowd who witnessed the landing — although it 
 
 must be said there were some ugly murmurs about 'the Red Cross, 
 
 men with rifles.' The prisoners were marched under armed escort 
 
 to the Breakwater Convict Station." 
 
 In the latter part of December, England called Sir Horatio 
 
 Kitchener and Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts to her aid in the 
 
 Transvaal. Each in his own fashion is a remarkable man. Each 
 
 has seen more fighting, more bloodshed, more facings of death in 
 
 combat than ever Sir Garnet Joseph Wolseley dared to dream • of 
 
 It is something more than opportunity which makes a man. The 
 
 mother's milk which sustained him in infancy must have had 
 
 certain potential qualities for him to be genuinely great in after 
 
 life. 
 
 CAME FROM A STURDY STOCK. 
 
 Kitchener and Roberts both came from old English stock, 
 with a fair mixture of Irish. Kitchener was born in Ireland, 
 while Roberts was born in India of English parents. They call 
 the Sirdar "the man of certainties." In India Roberts is called 
 " Bobs Bahadur," that is, " Bobs," the hero or champion. Kitch- 
 ener is more than six feet in height, a strapping big fellow, with 
 phenomenal endurance and a will power that knows no master. 
 
 Roberts is small, wiry, nervously energetic, more of a diplo- 
 mat than the other, but none the less a fighter. This was the 
 second time he had been supreme in •ommand in South Africa. 
 When General George Colley was kiP . at Maju1)a Hill in 1882 
 Roberts was ordered out to succeed hi.n, but saw no fighting, as 
 peace came quickly. He was now to be commander in chief of all 
 the English forces in South Africa, and Kitchene ' was to be his 
 chief of staff. What each has accomplished in tn 2 past for Eng- 
 land falls little short of the marvelous. 
 
 Roberts was 67 years old when he was ordered to South 
 Africa ; Kitchener was 48, and his glory rests on his exploits in 
 
 
 
480 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 the Soudan. Field Marshal Roberts won his fame at Candahar 
 in India. 
 
 General Roberts, in the event of the death of Sir Garnet 
 Wolseley, is in direct line to become the head of the English 
 army. He is popnlar with the rank and file of the empire — the 
 people who pay the taxes and fnrnish the fighting private. There 
 was a time in 1878 when the Afghan uprising appeared to threaten 
 as serionsly the integrity of the British Empire as the Transvaal 
 war does now. Roberts was in India, and in the campaign against 
 the Afghanistans performed a series of feats which showed him to 
 be one of the ablest commanders and most brilliant soldiers in the 
 service of his country. He commanded the column sent to 
 operate through the Kurani Valley, and, surmounting the dangers 
 and diificulties of the Peiwar Pass, gained a decisive victory at 
 Charasiah and entered Cabul. 
 
 m 
 
 It:- i 
 
 '• 
 
 ROBERTS' PHENOMENAL MARCH. 
 
 At the end of July, 1880, another British column under Gen- 
 eral Burrows, which Avas attacking Ayoob Kahn, was defeated 
 and literally cut to pieces at Maiwand. Burrows barely managed 
 to save a small remnant of his force, who fought their way to 
 Candahar, where they joined the garrison under command of 
 General Primrose. Ayoob Kahn prepared to attack the city, and 
 if he had done so on the instant probably would have taken it 
 and caused England greater loss than she had experienced since 
 the Indian mutiny. 
 
 General Roberts, who was several hundred miles awaj'^, was 
 apprised of the danger at Candahar and gathered a force of 9,000 
 picked men. These he marched with almost incredible rapiditj^ 
 across the trackless region between Cabul and Candahar and 
 descended upon Ayoob Kahn before the latter was aware of his 
 presence. The Afghans received a defeat from which they have 
 not recovered to this day and England a respite from rebellions for 
 many a month. Roberts fought his Afghan battles with weak- 
 ened forces. 
 
 In order to strengthen a column sent through the Khyber 
 
 .^i^-itf^**^ 
 
SCENKS AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 4.11 
 
 Pat« many companies were detached from liis command, and what 
 he accomplished was with less men than any other commander 
 in Afghanistan had at that time. It is indicative of the courage 
 of the man that before he moved his forces he represented to the 
 authorities that he considered the number of troops at his disposal 
 inadequate .to the task they were expected to perform. He did 
 not receive the re-enforce- 
 ments desired. 
 
 One must know the 
 mountain fierceness of the 
 Peiwar Pass to appreciate 
 what General Roberts con- 
 fronted when with his 
 handful of men he arrived 
 there to attack the enemy. 
 The pass is a rugged, 
 forest-clad elevation rising 
 2,000 feet above Kurani 
 Valley and forming a tre- 
 mendous obstacle to ad- 
 vance into the enemy's 
 country beyond. The 
 summit was occupied by 
 an Afghan torce consist- 
 ing of eight regiments, or 
 
 . ° ^ 1 . , FIELD MARSHAL LORD ROBERTS, 
 
 lullv Q.ooo men and eigli- 
 
 •' ^' ° COMMANUEK-IN-CHIKF OK THF. lUUTISlI FORCES IN 
 
 teen guns. The entire south afrjc a. 
 
 force commanded by Roberts consisted of 5,325 men, of whom only 
 1,345 were British. The remainder consisted of more or less unre- 
 liable native troops. 
 
 Roberts made no hasty attack upon this high mountain crest. 
 He halted his men, and two days were spent in examining the 
 momitain front. As a result of this Roberts found a path three 
 miles north of the enemy by which he could reach their rear, and 
 he resolved to deliver his attack by this route. He marched from 
 his camp during the night and reached the j)oin <.f attack at day 
 
 
 ?i 
 
 M 
 
 
m 
 
 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 break. Much anxiety was felt durii'i^ tke march by the fact that 
 some of the native troops were Pathans, two of whom, when tlie 
 position was nearcd, fired shots as a warning to their Afghan 
 kinsmen. The warning came too late. 
 
 The Afghan posts, thongh not surprised, were stormed, and 
 the main force retreated in confusion. The Briti.sh loss was about 
 lOO killed and wounded. The coolness which Roberts displaytd 
 in making this attack, the well considered nature of his plans, 
 gave evidence that he possessed the highest kind of generalshij), 
 and if Wolseley did not recognize this, England did. 
 
 GREW TO BE A HERO. 
 
 He is the man who lived forty-one years in India as an Eng- 
 lish soldier, rising from the position of subaltern to that of com- 
 mander in chief of all the English forces there. He was 20 
 when he landed at Madras. His father for years was commander 
 of the Lahore division. In the Indian mutiny of 1857 ^'^ ^^'^^ '^*^"" 
 spicuous by being found wherever there was heavy fighting. His 
 gallantry was always conspicuous.. He has seemed to lead a 
 charmed life. Friends and comrades have been killed by his side, 
 but he has always escaped. 
 
 H« won the Victoria Cross by recapturing from several Sepoys 
 a British flag. In 1892 he was elevated to the peerage, aud in the 
 following year resigned his Indian command and returned to Eng- 
 land. He was then placed in charge of the forces in Ireland. The 
 privates of the English army call him "Little Bobs." 
 
 When future generations come to read the history of modern 
 Egypt and the story of the Soudan, no name will figure in it more 
 prominently than that of Kitchener, the third Sirdar of the Egypt- 
 ian army. His father was a colonel in the British army, and the 
 son chose soldiering for his profession. He was educated at Wool- 
 wich and entered the Royal Engineers as a lieutenant in 1871. 
 Love of adventure caused him to leave the army in 1874 to join in 
 the survey of Western Palestine, under Major Condor, but after the 
 attack on the party at Safed, he returned to London. The roving 
 life of surveying an ^ exploring suited Kitchener's nature admira- 
 
 m 
 m 
 
 !",. 
 
SCKNKS AND INCIDKNTS. 
 
 m 
 
 fact that 
 |vIi(Mi tile 
 Afghan 
 
 ^"cd, and 
 f'as aboni 
 
 lispla^-cd 
 h'« plans, 
 Icralsliij), 
 
 .'•11 Kiig- 
 of com 
 was 2() 
 iimaiider 
 was coii- 
 ng. His 
 
 lead a 
 ■ liis side, 
 
 l1 Sepoys 
 id ill tlie 
 
 1 to Kng- 
 nd. Tlie 
 
 modern 
 . it more 
 Kgypt- 
 md the 
 t Wool- 
 n 1871. 
 join in 
 fterthe 
 roving 
 idmira- 
 
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 bly, and lie went on to tlic Holy Land on surveying expeditions 
 three times, on the last occasion as sole commander of the expedi- 
 tion for the survey of Galilee. 
 
 In 1888 he defeated Osnian Digna at the siege of vSuakin. He 
 commanded only native Sudanese battalions, but his faith in them 
 was unbounded. He led them within 200 yards of formidable 
 breastworks without firing a shot, but when he did give the word 
 to go they poured a wither- 
 ing hail of lead in the 
 Arabs' position and then 
 carried the trenches with a 
 rush that would have done 
 credit to the Guards, min- 
 pleting with their ba3^onets 
 the destruction of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Kitchener fought again 
 at Gamaizah, at the battle of 
 Toski and at Doiigola. He 
 has been twice shot at by 
 Bedouins, nearly murdered 
 in Palestine, narrowly es- 
 caped being hanged as a 
 spy, besides the ordinary 
 risks in a dozen different 
 battles. 
 
 At Omdurmaii, in his 
 eagerness to get where he could see the progress of the fight, 
 he came a trifle too near the lines of fire of his own men, 
 and a bullet cut through the sleeve of his coat. The scene 
 after the battle, which he won, is described by eyewitnesses 
 as frightful. The dead of the Dervishes lay around in thickly 
 piled masses. The Martini bullets and the quick-firing guns had 
 cut them down in such heaps that the ground was white with the 
 flowing robes where it was not dyed with blood. No quarter 
 was given. A wounded Dervish is more dangerous than one 
 
 28 
 
 GENERAL LORD KITCHENER, 
 
 ClIIKF OK FII!LU MARSHAL ROIiERTS' STAFF. 
 
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 (716)872-4503 
 
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 SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 not wounded, especially if lie is wounded to the deatli and 
 knows it. 
 
 This victory of Kitchener left him the controlling power of 
 the region that comprises the bases of the Niger, Lake Tchad and 
 the branch of the Nile that is called Bahr-el-Ghazal. His sphere 
 of influence covered an area of-950,000 square miles, with a popu- 
 lation of over 10,000,000. The highest praise paid Kitchener is 
 that he never neglects the condition of his men ; but when they 
 fight they must fight as men never fought before. It is said 
 that men serving under him are better cared for than if they 
 were the pampered pets of a wealthy household ; but that when 
 they go into battle he compels them to take chances from which 
 less daring commanders would shrink. An English authority, 
 writing of him, said : "The military genius of Kitchener is simply 
 beyond criticism." 
 
 The same apparently may be said of General Roberts. It is 
 to be distinctly remembered, though, that neither man has ever 
 been pitted against white men in his fighting career. Wolseley 
 was in the Crimea, but Lord Roberts has made his reputation 
 fighting Sepoys and Afghanistans, while Kitchener's battlefield 
 record rests upon the slain bodies of howling Dervishee. Pitted 
 against the talents of these two were the mountain walls of a 
 country as rugged as India, the science of German artillerymen, 
 the skill of Frenchmen in the trenches, the tactic alability of 
 American officers, and the unyielding obstinacy of Boer generals. 
 
iatli and 
 
 power of 
 chad and 
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 1 a popii- 
 :hener is 
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 is said 
 
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 Pitted 
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 bility of 
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 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The British End the Siege of Kimberley. 
 
 'T'HE London War Office received intelligence on Febrnary 15, 
 A 1900, which indicated that the long series of disasters suf- 
 fered by the British had ended and the tide of battle had turned. 
 The news produced general rejoicing throughout Great Britain 
 and the Colonies. - 
 
 It was known that Lord Roberts upon his arrival in South 
 Africa at once formed his plan of campaign. This included opera- 
 tions in connection with General Methuen's arni}^ and the relief 
 of Kimberley at the earliest possible moment. There was intense 
 suspense in view of the preparations made for a British advance. 
 General Cronje, in command of the Boers investing Kimberley, 
 was prepared to dispute every inch of ground and oppose a stub- 
 born resistance to his enemy, such as had hitherto been successful 
 everywhere in repelling the British advance. 
 
 On February 15th it was learned that Lord Roberts had begun 
 the attack on the Boer army between the Modder river and Kim- 
 berley by initiating a flanking movement, which up to that date 
 had proved successful. The drifts referred to in Roberts' official 
 messages are marked on but few maps. They are all to the east 
 of the point where the British camp was located on the Modder 
 and within the Free State territory. 
 
 For the information of the reader it should be stated that a 
 
 "drift" is, in the Boer language, a ford. In making these fords 
 
 the Boers showed great ingenuity. Usually in the widest and 
 
 shallowest part of a river, they are made by spreading bed stones 
 
 right across the stream to the width of about thirty feet. Thus the 
 
 water running over the drift may be about two and one-half feet 
 
 deep, while on each side it may be much deeper. So much, by 
 
 way of explanation, and we will now return to the history. 
 
 The first move made by the mounted infantry brigade, under 
 
 486 
 
436 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 h 
 
 Colonel Hannay, was to Ramdam on February I2tli. On tlie 
 same day General French took Dekil's Drift, clearing the way for 
 the Sixth and Seventh Divisions. On Tuesday, the 13th, French 
 forced a passage of the Riet at Klipt Drift, occupying the hills to 
 the north, while General Gordon seized Rondeval Drift and another 
 between it and Klipt. In the meantime, the Sixth Division, which 
 was supposed to be in the neighborhood of Colesburg, appeared on 
 the north bank of the Riet, at the Waterval Drift, moving to the 
 support of the cavalry. 
 
 Ramdam is ten miles almost due south of Jacobsdal. With 
 two divisions and the cavalry division threatening the Boer left on 
 the position stretching from Spytfontein by Magersfontein to 
 Jacobsdal, Roberts forced Cronje to decide whether to retire or 
 stay. If he elected to go, Kimberley would be relieved ; if he 
 chose to stay, he would have to entrench in the rear, or his works 
 would be carried. If the rear was entrenched he would be held 
 while Kimberley was relieved. 
 
 IMPORTANT DESPATCH FROM LORD ROBERTS. 
 
 General Methuen, with the First Division, was left to hold the 
 entrenchments on the Modder, but Roberts had three infantry 
 divisions, the Sixth, Seventh and Ninth, some ten batteries and 
 6,000 or 7,000 mounted men ; altogether, the force mustered 
 about 37,000. . , 
 
 The War Office in London received a message from Lord 
 Roberts, giving details of his brilliant strategy which resulted in 
 relieving Kimberley. It was as follows : 
 
 "Dekil's Drift, Feb. 14, 8.10 A. m. — General French left this 
 point at 11.30 yesterday morning with three brigades of cavalry, 
 horse artillery and mounted Infantry, including several colonial 
 contingents, in order to seize a crossing of the Modder, distant 
 about twenty-five miles. He reports, b) despatch, dated 5.35 p.m., 
 that he has forced a passage at Clip Drift, and occupif the hills 
 north of the river, capturing three of the enemy's laagers, with 
 their supplies, while General Gordon, of the Fifteenth Hussars, 
 with his brigade, who had made a feint at Rondeval Drift, four 
 
 (33 
 
 
On the 
 
 : way for 
 French 
 e hills to 
 I another 
 n, which 
 )eared on 
 ig to the 
 
 I. With 
 tr left on 
 mtein to 
 retire or 
 d ; if he 
 lis works 
 be held 
 
 TS. 
 
 hold the 
 
 infantry 
 
 iries and 
 
 mustered 
 
 om Lord 
 suited in 
 
 left this 
 
 cavalry, 
 
 [ colonial 
 
 r, distant 
 
 J.35P-M., 
 the hills 
 ers, with 
 Hussars, 
 rift, four 
 
 487 
 
438 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 miles west, has seized it and a second drift between that and Clip 
 Drift, together with two more laagers. 
 
 " General French's performance is brilliant, considering the 
 excessive heat and a blinding dust storm which raged during the 
 latter part of the day. 
 
 " Owing to the rapidity of his movements, General French 
 met but slight opposition, and his losses were small. Lieutenant 
 Johnson, of the Inniskillig Dragoons, is the only oiEcer reported 
 severely wounded. 
 
 " Monday, Feb. 12, thecal airy division under General French 
 
 seized the crossing of the Reit river at Dekil's Drift, on the east 
 
 bank of which the Sixth and Seventh Divisions are encamped. 
 
 The casualties were two troopers killed, and Captain Majendie, of 
 
 the rifle brigade, wounded. He has since died. One trooper was 
 
 wounded. 
 
 ATTACK RESULTING IN CASUALTIES. 
 
 /'The General commanding at Rensburg reports that on 
 Monday, February 12th, he was attacked in force by the Boers. 
 Lieutenant Coningham, of the Worcester Regiment, was wounded, 
 and has since died. There were other casualties. The Sixth 
 Division was last night on the north bank of the Reit, at Water- 
 val Drift, and is moving to support the cavalry. The Seventh 
 Division is here, and will go on this afternoon. Four officers and 
 fifty-three men had to be sent last eveniixg in ox wagons to the 
 railway prostrated by heat and exhaustion." 
 
 The following despatch was received at the War Office in 
 London from General Roberts, under date of Reit River, Febru- 
 ary 13th : 
 
 "Colonel Hannay, in command of a brigade of mounted 
 infantry, marching from Orange River to Reniah, had a slight 
 engagement February nth (Sunday) with the Boers holding the 
 hills and threatening his right flank. With a detached part of 
 his force Colonel Hannay detained the enemy while he pushed 
 his baggage and main body through to Remah. The object of 
 the march was successfully carried out. Four men were killed, 
 twenty-two wounded, and thirteen are missing." 
 
m^^ 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 439 
 
 On the 13th the column continued its march to Klip and 
 Rondaval Drifts on the Modder river, where again a short engage- 
 ment ensued, General French shelling the Boers vigorously and 
 forcing a passage. The Boers precipitately retired, leaving five 
 laagers, or depots of supplies, in the hands of the British, besides 
 a great quantity of cattle and 2000 sheep. The rapidity of Gen- 1 
 eral French's march and the overwhelming nature of his force 
 enabled him, in spite of the difficulties of water transportation, to 
 thoroughly accomplish his object. 
 
 An announcement that thrilled the British people everywhere 
 came to London February i6th, being contained in a telegram 
 from Jacobsdal, near Kimberley, and stating that on the evening 
 of that day General French, with a force of artillery, cavalry and 
 mounted infantry, reached Kimberley, and that the siege of the 
 "diamond city" was practically raised. This was the most 
 important success that had attended the British arms up to this 
 time. General French's report from Jacobsdal under date of Feb- 
 ruary 1 6th was as follows : 
 
 CAPTURE OF AMMUNITION AND SUPPLIES. 
 
 " I have completely dispersed the enemy from the southern 
 side of Kimberley, from Alexandersfontein to Oliphantsfontein, 
 and am now going to occupy their ground. Have captured the 
 enemy's laager and store depot supplies and supplies of ammuni- 
 tion. Casualties, about twenty of all ranks wounded. 
 
 " Kimberley cheerful and well. 
 
 "I have good reason to believe the Magersfontein trenches 
 have been abandoned, and that the Boers are endeavoring to 
 escape. General French is scouring the country north of Kim- 
 berley. One of General Kelly-Kenny's brigades of infantry is 
 in pursuit of a large Boer convoy moving towards Bloemfon- 
 tein. / 
 
 " Much gratified on arrival here to find admirable hospital [ 
 arrangements, made by the German ambulance corps under Drs. 
 Kaettner and Hildebrand, who, with their staffs, have shown the 
 greatest kindness to our wounded, as they have to the Boer 
 
 1! -& 
 
440 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OI KIMBERLEY. 
 
 i^. I 
 
 wounded. Some of our wounded hav^ been here since December. 
 Some were brought in yesterday." 
 
 The following despatch from Gem.Tal Roberts fills the gaps 
 in the earlier despatches : 
 
 "Modder River, February i6. — The Sixth Division left 
 Waterfall Drift early on the morning of the 15th, and marched 
 here, going on the same evening to Rondeval Drift, to hold the 
 crossing of the Modder river and leave General French free to 
 act. Shortly after arriving here the mounted infantry visited 
 Jacobsdal and found it full of women and children, with four of 
 our wounded men, doing well. 
 
 , CAVALRY PRESSING ON. 
 
 " On the way back the mounted infantry were attacked and 
 nine men were wounded. Colonel Henry and Major Hatchell 
 and ten men were missing. Both officers were subsequently found 
 at Jacobsdal, slightly wounded. The cavalry division is moving 
 in a northerly direction, and has apparently already reduced the 
 pressure on Kimberley, as Kekewich signals the enemy has 
 abandoned Alexandersfontein, and that he has occupied it. 
 
 " French has advanced as far as Abonsdam with slight loss, 
 and is pushing on the posts, his rear being held by mounted 
 infantry. Clements, having been pressed by the Boers, has retired 
 to Arundel to cover Naaupoort." 
 
 (The termination " fontein," which ends so many names of 
 towns, villages, etc., means a spring. Water being scarce, the 
 places where springs abound are given names accordingly.) 
 
 The road between Modder River and Jacobsdal was now open 
 
 and was available for sending reinforcements and supplies. When 
 
 the Boers evacuated Jacobsdal they were obliged to pass over a 
 
 ridge, where they afforded a splendid mark for the British guns, 
 
 J which showered shrapnel upon the retreating enemy. 
 
 The convoy which was attacked at Riet River had been coun- 
 termanded, but the order did not arrive in time, and the skirmish 
 was a very warm one, although the Boers did little material dam- 
 age. As General French, with the strengthened division, pushed 
 
END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMlJKRLEY. 
 
 441 
 
 2n coiin- 
 
 forward toward Kimberley, he found the beleaguering Boers 
 deserting their position at Alexandcrsfontcin, tlius allowing a 
 portion of the Kimberley garrison to occupy and entrench the 
 place. 
 
 Jacobsdal was. now in possession of the British. A small 
 cavalry patrol entered the place and found it full of wounded, 
 including several British from Rensburg. The place was only 
 occupied by a small force, which fell back before the patrol, after 
 a series of small skirmishes. A battery of artillery shelled the 
 environs q,nd drove out the last of the Boers. 
 
 General French's division seized three drifts on the Modder 
 river. At the third drift the Boers were fairly strongly entrenched. 
 General French bombarded them and drove them off. He then 
 moved rapidly in the direction of Kimberley. The Boers left 
 Alexandersfontein, and the British at once occupied it. 
 
 The hardships and rapid marching appeared to agree with the 
 whole British army, who were in splendid spirits under the lead- 
 ership of General Roberts. 
 
 GENERAL CRONJE IN RETREAT. 
 
 On February i6th General Kelly-Kenny's brigade captured 
 seventy-eight wagons laden with stores, two wagons of Mauser 
 rifles, eight boxes of shells, ten barrels of explosives and a large 
 quantity of stores, all belonging to Cronje'? laager, which was 
 still being shelled by British artillery. 
 
 General Cronje, with ten thousand men, was in full retreat 
 toward Bloemfontein. General Kelly-Kenny fought a rear guard 
 action and harassed the retreat. The Boers left Spytfontein, 
 going in a northwesterly direction. They captured a large con- 
 voy as a result of the fighting at Riet River. The British casual- 
 ties were comparatively slight, in view of the tremendous bom- 
 bardment. Less than thirty men were wounded aiid but one 
 killed. 
 
 Lord Roberts' combinations for the movements of the corps 
 dovetailed with precision, although obstacles that had not been 
 foreseen had to be overcome. The execution of his design began 
 
 m 
 
442 
 
 IND OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 at 3 A. M. on Sunday, the nth. General French rode into Kim- 
 berley Thursday afternoon, just when he was due according to 
 Field Marshal Roberts* time table, having, in four and a half 
 days, marched ninety miles with artillery and having fought two 
 engagements. 
 
 Th* relief of Kiinberley was accomplished with the loss of | 
 only fifty men. Twenty thousand infantry made splendid 
 marches under a sub-tropical sun and through a dust storm to 
 hold the positions which General French took. Lord Kitchener 
 was with General Tucker's division. In consequence of his 
 transport arrangements, the four divisions moving over the sandy 
 veldt were fed and watered. It is hardly possible to appreciate 
 adequately the mathematical precision with which every part 
 of the transport department worked, marching through the day, 
 toiling almost sleeplessly throughout the night, victualling the 
 army and evolving every hour results from seeming chaos. 
 
 A WEARISOME MARCH. 
 
 Everybody did what was expected of him cheerfully, though 
 enduring frightful fatigues. Few slept more than three hours. 
 The battalions, hour after hour, toiled through the heavy sand 
 uncomplainingly, and when now and then a man fell out of the 
 ranks exhausted, he would rejoin his company later after he had 
 rested. Some fifty or sixty were overcome by the heat and had 
 to be sent to the rear in the backward defile of empty wagons. 
 The rapidity of Lord Roberts' movements away from his base 
 solved one of the problems, perhaps the chief problem, of the war. 
 He and Lord Kitchener created a mobile force, able to move in 
 exterior lines and to outflank the Boers, themselves so wonder- 
 fully mobile and quick in movements. 
 
 Further details of the Boer retreat show that Cronje's army 
 fought a good rear guard action, and occupied successive kopjes 
 (hills), in order to allow the moving of the convoy, which, how- 
 ever, went at a very slow pace, the animals apparently being 
 exhausted. 
 
 General French's magnificent march was the subject of admi- 
 
END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 44t 
 
 ito Kim- 
 
 )rding to 
 
 a half 
 
 ^ight two 
 
 loss of) 
 splendid 
 storm to 
 itchener 
 of his 
 e sandy 
 Jpreciate 
 ery part 
 the day, 
 ling the 
 s. 
 
 , though 
 e hours, 
 •vy sand 
 It of the 
 r he had 
 md had 
 wagons, 
 lis base 
 he war. 
 iiove in 
 wonder- 
 
 s army 
 kopjes 
 
 ti, how- 
 being 
 
 r admi- 
 
 ration, especially in view of the dust storms and thunder storms 
 that all experienced. The work of shelling the Boers proceeded 
 vigorously. Owing to the style of the action, the Hoers were 
 bound to show in the open field, whenever they were obliged to 
 leave the kopjes or hills where they could get behind rocks and 
 other natural defenses. 
 
 Enthusiastic demonstrations followed the announcement at 
 Cape Town of the relief 
 of Kimberley. Govern- 
 ment House was sur- 
 rounded by great crowds, 
 and the Governor of Cape 
 Colony, Sir Alfred Mil- 
 ner, received an ovation. 
 The house which Lord 
 Roberts occupied on his 
 arrival at Cape Town 
 was similarly feted, there 
 were parades through the 
 city, cheering for "Bobs" 
 (Lord Roberts), flag fly- 
 ing, and hostile demon- 
 strations outside the 
 newspaper offic(;s sympa- 
 thetic to the Boers and 
 before the residences of 
 Ministers supposed to be 
 in sympathy with the 
 burghers. The relief of Kimberly was similarley celebrated in 
 other towns of Cape Colony. 
 
 The War Office in London was highly pleased at the receipt 
 of cabled congratulations on the relief of Kimberley from the 
 Mayor of Toronto, Canada, in behalf of the corporation and 
 citizens of that city. 
 
 The siege of Kimberley was begun really when the war in 
 South Africa opened in October, 1899. At that time General 
 
 MAJOR ALBRECHT. 
 
 IN COMMAND OF BOER AKTILLERY. 
 
 m 
 
 ^inlii 
 
 ifli fi 
 
 i r^^s ^H 
 
 f^^i ' ■ 
 
 'vmA Q 
 
 iHil 
 
 ^ll 
 
 m^ 1 
 
I * 
 
 i 
 
 ! 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 444 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 Cronje, the commander of tha Boer forces under General Joiibcit, 
 arranged a line of entrenchments around Kimberley in the form 
 of a complete circle, and all the efforts of General French to 
 break through were unavailing. It is understood that 5,000 
 were locked up in Kimberley, and various reports came out of 
 the suffering in consequence of the scarcity of food. The siege 
 was in force 123 days. 
 
 The inspiring motive which prompted the Boers to make 
 such a desperate effort to get into Kimberley was the hope of 
 capturing Cecil Rhodes. President Kruger officially said the 
 Transvaal Republic regardad Rhodes as being responsible for all 
 the trouble in South Africa. The movement to relieve Kimberley 
 began on Monday, Febrfiary 12th, when General French swooped 
 down on Dekil's Drift, and having crossed, moved his forces twenty 
 miles in a little over six hours, capturing three Boer laagers at 
 Klip Drift, on the Modder river. The march was accomplished 
 during a severe sand storm and while the heat was terrific. 
 
 HARDSHIPS OP THE SIEGE. 
 
 Among the twenty thousand people cooped up in Kimberley 
 throughout its siege of 123 days were two or three who could 
 recall their personal experiences of the siege of Paris. Beside 
 the terrible privations endured in the hard winter of 1870-71, the 
 hardships of the Kimberley besieged sink into insignificance. 
 Yet there were some strange vicissitudes in the prolongation of 
 the investment. Nobody would have hazarded a prediction that 
 the town would have lain almost helpless under the shells of the 
 Boer guns for seven or eight weeks with a British army immov- 
 able only twenty-five miles away. Such was the case, however, 
 for Kimberley, after Lord Methuen withdrew from the fatal rifle 
 trenches of Magersfontein to intrench himself at Modder river, 
 was condemned to a monotonous period of waiting. 
 
 The garrision was not strong enough to make a divertise- 
 ment, while the Boer besieging force contented itself with the 
 expectation of being able to starve the place into submission. 
 Methuen' s intrenchment at Modder river, however, had the 
 
£Nt> OF THE SICGE OF KiMnERLEY. 
 
 445 
 
 important effect of preventing General Cronje from weakening 
 his line to exert pressure on the town. As time went on the 
 confidence expressed at the beginning of the war, that Kimbcrlcy 
 could defy the Boers for any length of time, was seen to be 
 completely justified. 
 
 The investment began in October, when Kimberley was 
 isolated, the Boers cutting the Bulawayo Railway north and south. 
 The garrison had been organized by Colonel Kekewich, aided by 
 Captain O'Mara and Lieutenant Maclnnes, both of the Royal 
 Engineers. Major Scott-Turner was a fourth officer, responsible 
 for the defence in the early days. He lost his life in a sortie from 
 the town. Under these ofiicers were placed four companies of the 
 Loyal North Lancashire regiment, a battery of Royal Garrison 
 artillery, under Major Chamier, and a detachment of Royal 
 Engineers. Some troops of Cape police, the Kimberley Light 
 Horse and the town guard were welded into a compact force, 
 which showed itself eager in keeping the Boers at a distance from 
 the town. The garrison thus consisted of about seven hundred 
 imperial troops, and with the colonial and other forces reached a 
 total of about twenty-seven hundred. A detachment of the Royal 
 Army Medical Corps, with ambulances, was also included in the 
 garrison and gave effective service. 
 
 A RENOWNED COMMANDER. 
 
 Lieutenant Colonel R. G. Kekewich, the Colonel of the Lan- 
 cashire regiment and commandant of the town, gained a reputa- 
 tion on the staff in Egypt from 1884 to 1890, and has been 
 military secretary to two commanders in chief of Madras. A few 
 days before the formal declaration of war by the Republics, 
 Colonel Kekewich held a review of his garrison. The brave show 
 put heart into the inhabitants. The town was well supplied with 
 cattle and provisions, and elaborate defences had been constructed, 
 with earthworks made out of the rubbish heaps of the mines, sixty 
 feet high, and with miles of barbed wire. 
 
 For the Boers, Kimberley was a prize worth almost any cost. 
 There were the diamond mines to begin with, and the loot to be 
 
 
446 
 
 END OF THE SlEGE OF KiMBERLEY. 
 
 p\l 
 
 i>'-u 
 
 ■^inffl 
 
 obtained in the most important town of Upper Cape Colony. 
 From a military point of view its capture would be tbe prevention 
 of its being utilized as a base for any British army operating 
 against the Orange Free State. More piquant interest, however, 
 was given to the siege by the fact that almost the last arrival in 
 the town before its isolation, in October, was that of Mr. Cecil 
 Rhodes, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Rochfort Maguire. 
 
 Mr. Rhodes had determined to cast in his lot with the town 
 
 so closely identified with his 
 fortunes. Rumor was busy 
 with tales of the fate in store 
 for one regarded by the Boers 
 as their arch enemy, should 
 he fall into their hands. It 
 was said that President Kru- 
 ger had set a price on Mr. 
 Rhodes' head with a reward 
 of a large grant of land to the 
 fortunate captor. To avoid 
 ^ such a fate Mr. Rhodes, so 
 the story went, had provided 
 himself with a balloon as a 
 means of escape at the last 
 moment. Whatever basis of 
 truth lay in these picturesque 
 
 GENERAL LORD METHUEN. ^^^^^^3^ ^^ Rj^^^^g ^^^ ^^^_ 
 
 self to aid the defence with characteristic energy. He raised 
 and equipped a corps of Kimberley light horse. 
 
 The white employes of the De Beers Company were specially 
 armed and drilled for the defence of the mines. The machinery 
 was utilized for the manufacturing of shells, and a great cannon 
 was actually cast. It was named " Long Cecil," and the first shot 
 was fired by its namesake. The Boers made special rejoicing 
 when its career was cut short by its bursting. The thousands of 
 Kaffirs in the compound were given work^ and a "Siege Avenue" 
 and other public improvements were executed under the direct 
 
END OF THE SIIIGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 441 
 
 Colony, 
 evention 
 perating 
 bowever, 
 irrival in 
 ^r. Cecil 
 e. 
 
 ;he town 
 witli his 
 ras busy 
 in store 
 he Boers 
 should 
 mds. It 
 snt Kru- 
 on Mr. 
 reward 
 ad to the 
 Lo avoid 
 lodes, so 
 provided 
 oon as a 
 the last 
 basis of 
 turesque 
 set him- 
 e raised 
 
 specially 
 ichinery 
 cannon 
 irst shot 
 ejoicing 
 sands of 
 I venue" 
 le direct 
 
 personal supervision of the former Premier of Cape Colony and 
 fouiider of Rhodesia, Cecil Rhodes. 
 
 During the first few weeks sharp fighting took place between 
 the garrison and the investing Boers. The reconuoissances and 
 sorties were successful in preventing the enemy approaching the 
 town too closely, though they were found to be somewhat expen- 
 sive luxuries. But they served to dissipate the apprehensions 
 that the place might be rushed before the arrival of the relief 
 column. They were renewed as Lord Methuen approached the 
 Modder River, twentj^-five miles south of Kimberley, and on the 
 days of the battles of Belmont, Gras Pan and the Modder severe 
 losses were inflicted by the garrison on the besiegers. On 
 November 23, simultaneously with the defeat of the Boers by 
 Lord Methuen, the Kimberley garrison captured a laager, but 
 lost a gallant leader in Major Scott-Turner of the Black Watch. 
 
 CHRISTMAS BANQUETS IN KIMBERLEY. 
 
 Hopes now ran high in the town, as Colonel Kekewich was 
 in constant communication with the advancing army by means of 
 the electric flashlight. The battle of Magersfontein, early in 
 December, with its unwelcome check and the withdrawal of Lord 
 Methuen to an intrenched position at the Modder River, dispersed 
 these expectations, though Colonel Kekewich was soon informed 
 of the reasons for the enforced delay. Lord Methuen' s settled 
 position served to occupy the attention of General Cronje, and no 
 deliberate attack was made on Kimberley. The shell fire, though 
 occasionally heavy, did little damage. At Christmas the priva- 
 tions were not extreme, though typhoid and scurvy were on the 
 increase. 
 
 Mr. Rhodes again came to the rescue with the distribution 
 among the various camps of plum puddings, cooked at his resi- 
 dence, the Sanatorium. At the end of the year the Mayor and 
 Council dispatched a message to the Queen, sending New Year's 
 greetings and assuring Her Majesty that the trouble they had 
 passed through and were still enduring only tended to love and 
 loyalty toward her throne and person. An answer reached the 
 
 ; ir 
 
 
 PMti 
 
448 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 town in whicli Queen Victoria said slie watched with admiration 
 the determined and gallant defence of the inhabitants, though she 
 .regretted the unavoidable loss of life incurred. 
 
 There were still six weeks of tedium to be passed before any 
 indications were made that the British were to assume the offen- 
 sive, with Kimberley again as the immediate objective. Early in 
 the siege the military authorities had put an embargo on all the 
 stores. No storekeeper was allowed to take advantage of the siege, 
 and the community was thus enabled to live at normal prices, so 
 far as the absolute necessaries of life were concerned, though 
 famine prices ruled in the case of fowls, vegetables and fruit A 
 statement that the garrison had been reduced to a diet of horse 
 flesh probably required qualification. Large herds of cattle are 
 known to have been grazing in the outskirts of the town, 
 
 THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE IN ACTION. 
 
 At length there must have been a stir in the air foretelling 
 the end. On February 8th General Hector Macdonald, with the 
 Highland Brigade, made his reconnoissance to Koodocs Drift, a 
 movement which it is clear was merely a feint to draw the Boers 
 to the westward while the way was left open for French to cut 
 through between Cronje's intrenchments at Modder River and 
 Jacobsdal on the eastward. On Lord Roberts' arrival at the 
 Modder everything was in train for the execution of the neat 
 piece of strategy which completely circumvented the Boers. 
 General French, once in motion, swept his squadrons onward, 
 and, brushing aside the parties of Boers who attempted to bar his 
 progress, rode into Kimberley from the southeast on February i6tli. 
 
 The forces investing Kimberley were under command of the 
 famous Boer General, Cronje, some account of whom may fitly be 
 given in this connection. 
 
 With Field Marshal Lord Roberts' advance into the Orange 
 Free State, General P. A. Cronje became the most important of 
 the Dutch commanders, for he was the supreme chief of the 
 whole Boer force engaged in the siege of Mafeking and Kim- 
 berley, and in the other operations in the Orange River region — 
 
%iv\>\ 
 
 EMD OF THE siEc.E or kimijerlky. 
 
 449 
 
 the force that the British invaders had to encoiintcr. Cronje is 
 described as a typical Boer, but, at the same time, if all that has 
 been said of him be true, he is of a different type from Kruj^er 
 and Joubert. These two men, uncouth in appearance though 
 they are, may be described as gentlemen. 
 
 Cronje, on the other hand, has the appearance, and, if what 
 is said of him by his English detractors be even in a measure 
 true, the habits and manners of a savage. He is a heavy, thick- 
 set man of stolid countenance, with bushy eyebrows, a stern, set 
 mouth, scarcely concealed by a grizzled moustache, and dark, 
 thick beard streaked with gray. As he appeared on one historic 
 occasion — the capture of the Jameson raiders in January, 1896— 
 he was thus described by an Englishman who was present, and 
 must be taken as prejudiced: 
 
 THE GENERAL'S GROTESQUE APPEARANCE. 
 
 " At the head of the advancing horde rode a burly figure in a 
 dirty slouch hat, stooping in his saddle, unclean and unkempt, 
 everything about him betokening neglect ; the wretched-looking, 
 ungroomed horse, the antiquated saddlery, the rusty steel trap- 
 pings. Yet one could, see that his was the master mind directing the 
 hordes which were gradually enveloping the unfortunate body of 
 men lying at their mercy. In arrogant, truculent tones he dicta- 
 ted the terms of surrender." 
 
 The animus of this description is manifest, but it is equally 
 manifest that there is some substantial foundation for the personal 
 description of the hero of Dorukop. Before the surrender an inci- 
 dent occurred which revealed the fatalistic creed to which Cronje 
 pins his fate. When the bullets were whistling rather too loudly 
 around the spot where the Dutch commander was seated, a Field 
 Cornet suggested that he retire to a more sheltered place. " No," 
 said Cronje; "I'm in the hands of God, and if I have to be shot 
 I shall be hit just as soon in one place as in another." 
 
 His creed is as merciless as it is fatalistic, and the man is 
 utterly relentless, even if not unscrupulous, as his enemies have 
 charged, in all his dealings with the foes of his country and his 
 
 29 
 
 ) 1V'« 
 
 m 
 
 [W 
 
460 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 race. He is as brave as lie is burly, and as a tactician in guerilla 
 warfare is not surpassed even by his old mentor, " Slim Piet" 
 Joubert, himself. 
 
 Cronje lives on a farm near Potchefstroom, a town just beyond 
 the Vaal River, about sixty miles southwest of Johannesburg. He 
 is fairly worshipped by his neighbors, who tell wonderful stories 
 of the courage and resource which he displayed in the old days, 
 when the Boers were trekking north, fighting their way through 
 swarms of hostile savages and defending the camp against their 
 fierce onslaughts. Cronje has been a soldier from his youth. He 
 began his military career in the ranks, and worked his way up to 
 the second place in the Boer army solely by his merits as a fighter 
 and tactician. 
 
 CHARGED WITH BRUTAL MURDER. 
 
 He was already a Field Cornet at Laing's Nek in 1881, and 
 was second in command to Joubert in the notable affair of Majuba 
 Hill. His chief distinction in the Boer war of independence was 
 gained, however, in the siege and capture of Potchefstroom, the 
 town near which his homestead is situated, as already stated. The 
 place was defended by a small British garrison under Colonel 
 Winslow. Cronje led the Boer forces to the attack, and, according 
 to fairly reliable accounts, resorted to devices which have justly 
 given him an unsavory reputation. It is said that he ordered 
 several non-combatant Britishers to be arrested, and afterwards 
 had them shot as spies on wholly insufficient evidence. 
 
 He is also accused of having, in the Potchefstroom campaign, 
 caused prisoners of war to be placed in the forefront of the besieg- 
 ing force, and compelled to work there in trenches, where they 
 w«re exposed to the fire of their friends, it is said, with fatal effect. 
 He is also accused of having refused Colonel Winslow' s request to 
 allow one or two ladies, who were in poor health and had suffered 
 greatly during the attack, to pass through the Boer lines in search 
 of food and medical attendance, and one of them is said to have 
 died in consequence. 
 
 It will be recalled, however, that during the earlier stages of 
 
END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 451 
 
 the siege of Kimberley, Cronje allowed two English women to 
 enter the Boer lines to attend their husbands, who had been 
 wounded and made prisoners. It was at the close of the siege of 
 Potchefstroom that the Dutch commander's conduct was most 
 reprehensible. He deliberately withheld from the beleaguered gar- 
 rison the news that an armistice had been arranged between the 
 British and Boer forces, and threw fresh energy into his assaults 
 upon the place, compelling Colonel Winslow finally to surrender. 
 Cronje' s behavior in this re- 
 spect was bitterly denounced, 
 and the Transvaal govern- 
 ment, at the demand of Sir 
 Evelyn Wood, permitted a 
 British regiment to march up 
 from Natal, on the conclusion 
 of peace, and re-occupy Pot- 
 chefstroom as a formal ac- 
 knowlegment of this repre- 
 hensible action. 
 
 As time passed, Cronje 
 rose in rank, and when the 
 Jameson raid occurred, in the 
 closing days of 1895, he was 
 placed in the responsible posi- 
 tion of commander of the Boer 
 force which was sent to head 
 it off. This he did most effect- 
 ually, and again earned the detestation of the British by his relent- 
 less dealings with filibusters. Cronje rounded up Dr. Jameson and 
 his followers in the little village of Dornkop. He had no artillery, 
 but his whole force was armed with rifles, and was made up of first- 
 class marksmen. By their commander's orders the Boers picked off 
 the British artillerists, thereby rendering their guns useless, and 
 bringing the raid to a premature close. 
 
 Dr. Jameson surrendered on condition that, if the raiders paid 
 the expenses of their suppression and gave up their arms, their 
 
 GENERAL W. P. SYMONS, 
 
 KILLKD AT THE UATTLE OF DUNDEE. 
 
462 
 
 END OF THE SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY. 
 
 lives would be spared. To these terras Cronje subscribed in 
 writing, but it is charged against him that he afterwards repii- 
 diated them on the plea that his promise held good only until the 
 filibusters were handed over to Commandant-General Joubert. On 
 the ground of this action, also, Cronje has been accused of treach- 
 ery only less heinous than that which marked his conduct at the 
 capture of Potchefstroora. 
 
 As a reward for his masterly management of the Jameson 
 affair Cronje was appointed to succeed General Joubert as Super- 
 intendent of Native Affairs. Immediately upon the declaration of 
 war, in October, 1899, he was made second in command of the 
 united forces of the two Dutch republics, and was assigned to the 
 district on the western border of the Transvaal and Orange Free 
 State. It was by the forces under his command that the little 
 British garrisons in Mafeking and Kimberley were shut in. 
 
 But General Cronje' s operations were not confined to the 
 investment and occasional bombardment of these two British towns. 
 When General Lord Methuen started to the relief of Kimberley, 
 in November, he encountered Cronje' s force at Gras Pan on the 
 25th of that month. The resulting encounter was practically an 
 undecisive battle. Three days later there was another and more 
 desperate encounter on the Modder River, which Lord Methuen, 
 in his despatch to the Queen, described as the " bloodiest battle of 
 the century." This encounter brought Methuen' s advance to a 
 halt, and two weeks later — on December 12 — Cronje defeated Lord 
 Methuen in the decisive battle of Magersfontein, in which the 
 Highland Brigade was almost annihilated, and its commander, 
 General Wauchope, killed. In the two months and more which 
 followed, the British advance to the relief of the beleaguered garri- 
 son was not only kept at a standstill, but time and time again pon 
 tions of the relieving force were defeated in set encounters. 
 
bed in 
 repu- 
 itil the 
 rt. On 
 treach- 
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 imeson 
 Super- 
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 to the 
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 i garri- 
 in por* 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 Surrender of General Cronje and His Entire Force. 
 
 GENERAL CRONJE, the stubborn Boer commander, con- 
 tinued his frantic eflforts to escape from Lord Roberts and 
 retreat toward Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. 
 His retreat began when it was apparent that General French was 
 master of the situation and it was no longer possible for the Boers 
 to threaten Kimberley with capture. 
 
 Although the rapid march of General French's division was 
 marked by a number of conflicts, his actual entry into Kimberley 
 was unopposed. When the British were still eight miles off the 
 Signaling Corps intercepted a heliograph message from the belea- 
 guered garrison to Modder river, saying : " The Boers are shell- 
 ing the town." 
 
 The advancing column replied: "This is General French 
 coming to the relief of Kimberley." 
 
 The garrison was incredulous and thought the message was a 
 Boer ruse, and flashed the query: " What regiment are you?" 
 
 The reply satisfied the defenders of Kimberley that the 
 anxiously awaited succor was at hand, and a few hours later Gen- 
 eral French, at the head of a column, made a triumphant entry 
 into the place, the people surrounding the troops and interming- 
 ling with them, cheering wildly, grasping the soldiers' hands, 
 waving flags, hats and handkerchiefs, and exhibiting in a hundred 
 ways the intensity of their joy. The inhabitants had been on 
 short rations for some time, eating horse flesh and living in bur- 
 rows under heaps of mine refuse. Diminishing rations were served 
 out daily, at ii o'clock, in the market square, under the shell fire 
 of the enemy, whose guns opened on the square whenever the 
 inhabitants assembled. No horse food was left. 
 
 Throughout the siege Cecil Rhodes provided the natives with 
 work and food, and thus kept them quiet. The miles of convoy 
 
 453 
 
m 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 bearing provisions for the relief column and the town, slowly wind, 
 ing its way across the plain in the direction of Kimberley, was the 
 gladdest sight which greeted the eyes of the besieged for four 
 months. General French's march was so rapid and the heat so 
 intense that many of his horses died of exhaustion. 
 
 At the crossing of the Modder river the Boers bolted, leaving 
 their tents, guns, oxen, wagons and large quantities of ammunition 
 in the hands of the British. Moving northwards, the Boers again 
 attempted to stem the advance, but General French turned their 
 flank and reached his goal with insignificant losses — seven men 
 killed and thirty-five wounded during three days from Wednesday 
 February 14, to Friday, February 16. After a night's rest at 
 Kimberley General French's column pursued the Boers to Bront- 
 veld, surrounded the hillocks on which they were posted and 
 shelled them till nightfall, when the Boers fled, leaving many 
 dead. 
 
 General Cronje left a gun, his tents, food and clothes at 
 Magersfontein. 
 
 An ofiicer who was on the ground thus describes General 
 Cronje' s retreat with the Boers at Magersfontein, on learning of 
 General French's success : 
 
 HURRYING TO ESCAPE. 
 
 " On Thursday at midnight, headed by General Cronje, 5,(X)o 
 Boers, with their heavy guns and ox wagons, evacuated the 
 Magersfontein lines. At dawn on Friday the retreating Boer 
 army was seen from the British naval gun station on Klip Drift 
 Kopje trekking eastward across the British front, at a distance of 
 5,000 yards. Our guns opened upon them, and a force of mounted 
 infantry, crossing the river, made a dashing charge in the attempt 
 to cut off the head of the enemy's column. But in half an hour 
 their whole force had gained shelter under a line of hillocks. 
 
 " Meanwhile two of our batteries had come up. Our infantry 
 crossed the drift, and for three hours were engaged with the enemy 
 while our batteries shelled his position. The mounted infantry 
 kept hard at work. Unable to stand our galling fire, the enemy 
 
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 5 heat so 
 
 , leaving 
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 led their 
 :ven men 
 ;dnesday 
 s rest at 
 to Bront- 
 sted and 
 ag many 
 
 lothes at 
 
 General 
 iruing of 
 
 nje, 5,000 
 lated the 
 ing Boer 
 lip Drift 
 [stance of 
 mounted 
 i attempt 
 f an hour 
 >cks. 
 
 ■ infantry 
 lie enemy 
 . infantry 
 le enemy 
 
406 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 ■ is 
 
 retired, disputing every inch of the way, and took up a second 
 position on the hills to the eastward. It was a magnificent spec- 
 tacle to see the Boer army thus at bay. Their rear guard, 2,000 
 strong, fought us, while the main body trekked (moved) farther 
 east, and then brought their guns into action, while the rear guard 
 retired. 
 
 " The action lasted through the day. Our infantry fought 
 splendidly, but the enemy held his ground under the continued 
 bombardment. Later on the Boer commander ventured on a bold 
 stroke. Leaving 2,000 of his men under cover he withdrew the 
 rest from his main position and headed for Klip Kraal Drift, six 
 miles to the east. The movement was soon discovered. Our 
 mounted infantry came back across the drift and marched along 
 the south bank to endeavor to head off the enemy. When they 
 reached the neighborhood of Klip Kraal Drift night had fallen, 
 and half the Boers were already across to the south side. Our 
 mounted infantry harassed their movements. 
 
 DESPERATE FIGHT BY REAR GUARD. 
 
 "Meanwhile the Boer rear guard, having covered the crossing 
 of the main body, retired slowly and successfully passed the drift. 
 The rear guard fought desperately, and as it fell back to the river 
 it was harassed on the flank and rear by the British. Having 
 thus passed the Modder under cover of darkness, the Boers 
 trekked throughout the night in the direction of Bloemfontein. 
 General Kelly-Kenny, with the Sixth Division, pursued them at 
 daylight, General McDonald, with the Highlanders, following 
 him. McDonald reached Klip Kraal Drift bj'^ forced marches 
 Sunday. General Kelly-Kenny, moving from Klip Kraal Drift, 
 endeavored to outflank the enemy, and to cut them off from 
 Bloemfontein, so as to drive them back into General McDonald's 
 hands." 
 
 Under date of February 2 2d, it was reported that a great 
 battle was raging along the line of the Modder river, between 
 Paardeberg and Koodoosrand, and had been for four days. The 
 genius of Roberts was pitted against the strategy of Cronje. No 
 
 no 
 
second 
 lent spec- 
 
 kd, 2,CXX) 
 
 f) farther 
 ^ar guard 
 
 y fought 
 ontinued 
 n a bold 
 drew the 
 rift, six 
 Ed. Our 
 ed along 
 len they 
 id fallen, 
 de. Our 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 467 
 
 crossing 
 the drift, 
 the river 
 
 Having 
 le Boers 
 afontein. 
 them at 
 bllowing 
 marches 
 al Drift, 
 )flF from 
 Donald's 
 
 a great 
 between 
 5. The 
 ie. No 
 
 official accounts of the engagement were received in London, 
 except an incomplete list of casualties among the officers, which 
 was exceedingly heavy, and indicated fierce fighting. Despatches 
 from Cape Town stated that the Boers had been surrounded, and 
 their discomfiture was assured ; but the official meseages pub- 
 lished from Pretoria, the Boer capital, stated that Cronje was 
 holding his own, and had repulsed all the British attacks so far, 
 inflicting heavy loss while suffering only slightly himself. In 
 the absence of definite news from Roberts and Kitchener, and the 
 correspondents with them, the result of the fighting was enveloped 
 in doubt. 
 
 GENERAL CRONJE'S UNEXPECTED STRENGTH. 
 
 From the scattering despatches from both British and Boer 
 sources, it appeared that Roberts' plan worked excellently so far 
 as his troops were concerned, but that Cronje, who had been rein- 
 forced from Natal and Northern Cape Colony, was also to put up 
 a much stronger resistance than was expected. When the Boers 
 marched east from Kimberley towards Bloemfontein, Kitchener 
 and Kelly-Kenny started to head them off, and succeeded in doing 
 so by reaching Paardeberg first. Cronje then turned toward 
 Koodoosrand Drift. It appears that McDonald forestalled him 
 there, but the appearance of De Wet with a force of burghers, 
 probably on the Highland Brigade's flank, gave the Boers a 
 chance. 
 
 The fighting, which seems to have begun at Koodoosrand, 
 just north of the Modder and due south of Boshof, was transferred 
 to the south by the Klip Kraal Drift. Cronje held his own with 
 an inferior force. It was confidently stated that he had not more 
 than 8000 men with him from Magersfontein, but was reinforced 
 from Spytfontein and also from Colesberg. It was conceded that 
 no reinforcements could make long headway against the three 
 British divisions of infantry and one of cavalry. But he made 
 the British pay severely for getting him in this trap. 
 
 One of the costliest actions of the war occurred at Paardeberg 
 Drift Sunday, February i8th. General Kelly-Kenny, in his pur- 
 
 I 
 
458 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 III 
 
 1^' 
 
 suit of General Croiije, caught lii>i rear guard at Klip Drift, and 
 followed the burghers to the Boers' laager at Koodoosrand. The 
 drift action began at daybreak, the mounted infantry driving the 
 Boer rear guard up the river towards the main body, while another 
 body of mounted infantry manoeuvred on the right front and flank 
 of the Boers. The British main body advanced to outflauk the 
 Boers on the north bank of the river. General Kelly-Kenny hav- 
 ing seized two drifts, found the Boers strongly enclosed, and 
 ordered an attack, with the Highland Brigade on the left and 
 General Knox's Brigade on the centre and right, while General 
 Smith-Dorien's brigade crossed the river and advanced along the 
 north bank. On both the north and south banks the ground is 
 level, and the advance across this was deadly, and the British 
 losses were heavy. 
 
 HEAVY LOSSES OF THE BOBRS. 
 
 The battle was an exact duplicate of the Modder river. The 
 soldiers were under fire all day long, and all the fighting had no 
 definite result, as the Boers were well barricaded. The British 
 guns shelled them vigorously, and the Boers confessed to a loss 
 of over 8cx) men. General Cronje's magnificent night march from 
 Magersfontein now appeared likely to end in disaster. The main 
 body of the Boers was enclosed in a terrible death trap. They 
 were hiding in the bed of the Modder, commanded by the British 
 artillery, and enclosed on the east and west by the British infan- 
 try. 
 
 Sunday witnessed a gallant stand on the part of the retreat- 
 ing foe. Tired, harassed, they still maintained a bold front. It 
 is somewhat difficult to explain the Sunday action, in which all 
 the British force was engaged, and in which General Cronje, under 
 difficult conditions, managed to hold his own. On Saturday night 
 the British mounted infantry came into touch with Cronje's rear 
 guard, driving them back on the main body. On Sunday morn- 
 ing the action was renewed, but the Boers, who had entrenched 
 the river bed during the night, prevented a further advance of the 
 mounted infantry in this direction. 
 
 ■•f* 
 
SURRENDER OF GENKUAI. CKONJM 
 
 4A9 
 
 Prift, and 
 id. The 
 viug the 
 |e another 
 "id flank 
 auk tile 
 liny hav- 
 sed, and 
 left and 
 General 
 long tlie 
 ground is 
 ? British 
 
 ^er. The 
 g had no 
 e British 
 to a loss 
 rch from 
 ^he main 
 >. They 
 e British 
 h infan- 
 
 retreat- 
 ont. It 
 hich all 
 e, under 
 Ly uight 
 e's rear 
 V niorn- 
 'enched 
 e of the 
 
 Meanwhile the Highland Brigade, consistiii.v; ..f the vSeafortlis, 
 the Black Watch and the Argylls, advanced from the sonth l)ank, 
 and the Essex, Welsh and Yorkshires formed ;l long line on the 
 left, which rested on the river, the extreme right being the Welsh. 
 The whole line was ordered to envelop the Boers, who lined i)t)tli 
 banks of the river. The firing soon Ijecame heavy. Tlie Boers, 
 holding a splendid position, covered the left of the Ilighhmd 
 Brigade, which advanced partly up the river bed and partly in the 
 open, while the rest of the brigade, with the other regiments, 
 swung round the front of the Higliland Brigade on the level, eov- 
 erless ground, exposed to a terrible fire, which obliged tlie men to 
 lie upon the ground, as they did for the remainder of the day, suf- 
 fering from hunger and thirst. 
 
 CANADIANS IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT. 
 
 This began at half-past 7 in the morning. Through the 
 dreadful heat and a terrible thunderstorm the British hung to 
 the position, answering the Boer fire and shooting steadily. In 
 the meantime the rest of the infantry completed the enveloping 
 movement, the Welsh regiment having succeeded in seizing the 
 Drift, thus closing in the Boers,' who had fought throughout with 
 splendid courage. General Cronje's laager, full of carts, ammuni- 
 tion and stores, could be plainly seen near the north bank. 
 
 General Sniith-Dorrien collected a large body of men, includ- 
 ing the Canadians, and crossed the river by Paardeberg Drift, 
 advancing toward the laager, which was being vigorously shelled. 
 This force make a gallant attempt to charge into the laager, but 
 failed. Before seizing the western drifts the Boers occupied a 
 hillock on the south bank, running down the river. Therefore 
 their force was cut in two. The Boers hold the hill. 
 
 Toward evening the battery on the south side opened, co-op- 
 erating with the battery on the north side. A M^onderful sight 
 followed. The shells fell with amazing precision along the river 
 bed, opposite the laager, which was shelled thoroughly, damaging 
 everything it contained. One shell set on fire a small ammunition 
 wagon, which burned nearly all day. Many other wagons were 
 
460 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 i <! 
 
 set on fire, and the glare was visible at a considerable distance far 
 into the night. 
 
 The infantry also maintained a terrible fire, which was 
 answered vigorously. The scene toward nightfall was terribly 
 picturesque, with the blazing wagons, the roaring artillery and the 
 crackling rifle fire. 
 ' The terrific shelling was resumed Monday, February 19th, 
 
 when, at 8 o'clock A. m.. General Cronje asked an armistice of 
 twenty-four hours, which was refused. Later he sent a mes- 
 senger to say that he would surrender. The British General 
 sent a reply, telling him to come into camp. Cronje refused, say- 
 ing there had been a misunderstanding, and that he would fight 
 to the death. The bombardment was then reopened, and British 
 lyddite shells set fire to the Boer wagons. The British contin- 
 ued shelling the laager through the night, and in the morning 
 resumed with Maxims and rifles, principally from the north sidt. 
 
 A POPULAR BRITISH GENERAL. 
 
 On Sunday there was much waste of life in attacking. Dur- 
 ing Monday night seven Boers made an attempt to break through 
 the British lines, but they were captured and their leader was 
 killed. Four were carrying letters. Other prisoners said that 
 General Cronje marched from Magersfontein, a distance of thirty- 
 three miles, without halting men or teams. Had he succeeded in 
 escaping it would have been' one of the finest performances in the 
 annals of war. The Canadians made a gallant charge at the 
 laager, but were driven back with loss. General MacDonald and 
 General Knox were slightly wounded. 
 
 The wounding of MacDonald produced a painful sensation 
 throughout Great Britain. Hector MacDonald to the multitude is 
 the man of the war. The public surrounds him with a halo of 
 heroism. It considers him lion hearted and invincible, and, 
 above all, one of its own; for MacDonald is a self-made man. 
 The populace talk of him proudly as having been a draper's 
 assistant. People tell one another how, when he occupied a 
 minor position in an Inverness establishment, he was fired with 
 
SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 4ei 
 
 Istance far 
 
 jhich was 
 js terribly 
 fy and the 
 
 [lary 19th, 
 istice of 
 t a mes- 
 General 
 "used, say- 
 mid fight 
 id British 
 •h contin- 
 t morning 
 orth sidt. 
 
 ng. Dur- 
 k through 
 eader was 
 said that 
 of thirty- 
 iceeded in 
 ces in the 
 le at the 
 maid and 
 
 sensation 
 Ititude is 
 I halo of 
 ble, and, 
 ide man. 
 draper's 
 :upied a 
 red with 
 
 the enthusiasm of martial ardor, how he learned his drills there 
 from a retired corporal, and how gradually he worked himself to 
 perfection in all matters relating to drill tactics and manceuvres. 
 Then he started out and enlisted in the ranks. So when the 
 placards, especially of half penny papers, in all the large English 
 towns came out with flaring type that "Fighting Mac" had been 
 seriously wounded, the " man in the street " was very much dis- 
 tressed. When the Boers wounded "Fighting Mac" they hurt 
 the British public keenly, for they disabled the people's man. 
 
 CRONJE'S STUBBORN RESISTANCE. 
 
 The War Office in London received from Lord Roberts the 
 following message, dated Paardeberg, Wednesday, February 21: 
 "Yesterday afternoon I was satisfied, by a careful reconnoissance 
 in force of the enemy's position, that I could not assault it without 
 very heavy loss, which I was most anxious to avoid. Accordingly, 
 I decided to bombard him with artillery, and turn my attention to 
 the enemy's reinforcements. The result was most satisfactory. 
 The Boers were driven off in all directions, losing a good many 
 killed and wounded, and about fifty prisoners, who say they 
 arrived from Ladysmith two days before by railroad. They also 
 say it was our artillery fire which caused them to abandon the 
 kopje they were occupying." 
 
 The following graphic account of the terrific conflict on Mod- 
 der River is from the pen of an eye-witness, who was within the 
 lines of the British army. It is dated Tiiesday, February 20th : 
 
 "This was the third day of General Cronje's imprisonment 
 and grim resistance. Early this morning the infantry engaged 
 the enemy in the bed of the river, driving him back a short dis- 
 tance. The morning sun disclosed the Boers toiling like ants on 
 entrenchments around their laager. A few shells were fired to pre- 
 vent them from continuing the work, but most of the day was 
 quiet. General French's artillery was heard off to the east, pre- 
 sumably engaging the Boers' reinforcements. 
 
 "Every opportunity was given the Boers to surrender, but 
 when towards afternoon there was no sign of any such intention. 
 
 ■ -, if St-* 
 
4B2 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 Lord Roberts determined to crush General Cronje's resistance. 
 On the south bank of the river, at a range of about 2000 yards 
 three field batteries and two naval 12-pounders were positioned. 
 On the north bank, enfilading the whole river, one howitzer, three 
 field batteries and three naval guns were placed. 
 
 ''Then followed the most wonderful scene it was ever my lot 
 to witness. Once before, in Thessaly, I had seen no guns in 
 action, but never such a number of powerful guns concentrating 
 their fire upon a spot about a mile square. The exploding lyddite 
 shells raised great clouds of green smoke, completely filling the 
 bed of the river. 
 
 DREADFUL EXECUTION BY ARTILLERY. 
 
 • "The shrapnel burst on the edge of each bank, except for a 
 short space, where the proximity of the British infantry made it 
 dangerous. Our shells searched every bush and every ravine of 
 the river bed. The enfilading guns must have done terrible exe- 
 cution. The roar was deafening, yet with a spirit of desperate 
 madness, now and again, the Boers would attempt to capture the 
 naval guns, which were firing at a range of 1000 yards. The 
 long line of three batteries belched forth death, while on each side 
 lay two battalions of infantr}^, whose Maxims sounded petty 
 beside the roaring big guns. What loss the Boers suffered is not 
 yet known. I am writing in the middle of a sleeping camp. Not 
 a sound disturbs the heavy slumber of tired soldiers. Down the 
 river bed not a fire is seen ; not a cry heard. 
 
 "There is something tragic in the stern resistance which 
 General Cronje is hopelessly offering. It is impossible not to 
 admire his pluck, but all condemn the wickedness of uselessly 
 sacrificing the lives of his brave followers. Monday morning 
 broke finding the Boers in the same place, they having during 
 the night constructed entrenchments around the laager, which 
 was still threatened by General Smith-Dorien. The infantry 
 rested after the terrible hard day's fighting on Sunday. 
 
 "The mounted infantry and a battery of horse artillery 
 started to observe the enemy, who was holding a hillock ; but 
 
sistance. 
 30 yards, 
 )sitioned. 
 ?er, three 
 
 sr my lot 
 guns in 
 ^ntrating 
 ig lyddite 
 lling the 
 
 :ept for a 
 y made it 
 ravine of 
 rible exe- 
 desperate 
 pture the 
 ds. The 
 each side 
 led petty 
 red is not 
 mp. Not 
 Down the 
 
 ce which 
 le not to 
 uselessly 
 
 morning 
 g during 
 er, which 
 
 infantry 
 
 artillery 
 ock ; but 
 
 ! ) 
 
 7 
 
 4(i3 
 
464 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 while riding around the southern side of the hill they received a 
 heavy fusillade and were obliged to move further out. They sus- 
 tained no casualty, another proof of the bad Boer marksmanship. 
 Pushing on, the detachment found that the hill extended a con- 
 siderable distance west, sloping gradually to the plain. They 
 seized a good defensive position, which was garrisoned. They 
 continued the movement and completely turned the Boers, whose 
 left was held strongly by a farmhouse, which was vigorously 
 shelled. The detachment returned to camp at nightfall, leaving 
 a garrison on the ridge. Meanwhile a desultory bombardment of 
 the Boer position was kept up, and a good deal of rifle fire concen- 
 trated where the Essex was attempting to rush up the river. 
 
 "About midday the cry that General French had arrived was 
 passed down the ranks, but his division operated out of sight of 
 our force. When Lord Roberts arrived, he addressed several 
 regiments and was vigorously < heered. 
 
 CRONJE ASKS FOR AN ARMISTICE. 
 
 " Early in the day. General Cronje asked for a twenty-four 
 hours' armistice, in order to bury his dead. Lord Kitchener 
 refused, and a little later came another messenger with word to 
 the effect that if the British were inhuman enough to refuse an 
 armistice for the purpose of burying the dead. General Cronje 
 saw no other course but to surrender. Upon receipt of this mes- 
 sage. Lord Kitchener proceeded to the Boer laager, in order to 
 arrange the capitulation, but he was met by a messenger, who 
 announced that General Cronje said that the whole thing was a 
 mistake ; that General Cronje had not the slightest intent^'on of 
 surrendering, but would fight until he died. 
 
 " General Kitchener returned and ordered a bombardment of 
 the Boer position. Three field batteries and a howitzer battery 
 took position directly in front of the laager and began a terribly 
 accurate fire, the howitzers using lyddite shells freely. The 
 Boers were seen retiring from the trenches to the river bed, in 
 order to seek cover, but no cover could protect them from such 
 accurate and deadly fire. The howitzers especially dropped 1yd- 
 
 wea 
 
 one 
 
 old 
 
 ittol 
 
 the 
 
 cou 
 
 the 
 
SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 466 
 
 dite shells with marvelous precision into the very bed of the river, 
 and the trenches were soon filled with terrible fumes and green 
 smoke, but again the enemy held on. 
 
 "Again during the night deserters arrived. They were 
 terribly frightened and shaken by their awful experience. They 
 reported that they had water in abundance, but were only able to 
 draw scanty supplies from their laager during the night." 
 
 At Magersfontein the Boers demonstrated the fact that given 
 a level battlefield, field glasses, modern magazine rifles and quick- 
 firing small guns, and the whole British army itself could not 
 dislodge the 65,cxx) men of the two Boer republics by a frontal 
 attack on those grass-edged trenches. Not 50,000 British could 
 beat 15,000 Boers, except at such a sacrifice of life as no com- 
 mander would require or could be pardoned for occasioning 
 
 DANGERS OF ATTACKING THE FRONT. 
 
 For a frontal attack the old military manuals declared that 
 the attacking force must be three times that of the defending 
 force, but at the present time, with the new weapons, ten men 
 must attack one. One of the most formidable new conditions of 
 war is one that we have never, or next to never, known before, for 
 there were men in the British army who bad never seen a Boer in 
 battle. 
 
 The British threw themselves upon the ground and fired for 
 hours at a time at the noise or flame at the trenches of the enemy, 
 whom they could not see. At Modder river there were whole 
 battalions that did not know at the end of the day whether the 
 enemy was north or south of the river. 
 
 A European army fighting under European rules is a clumsy 
 
 weapon against the Boer, who opposes with weapons which render 
 
 one man as good as ten, and all ten invisible. We remember the 
 
 old saying that an army moves upon its belly, and we paraphrase 
 
 it to make it read "a modem army must fight upon its belly." If 
 
 the British got in a trench that could not be turned, all the world 
 
 could advance and be slaughtered, but not all the world could oust 
 
 the British from that trench, 
 so 
 
ill 
 
 W J! 
 
 i til 
 
 • illy r i 
 
 ■ afl I'liiifi''' "HM, ' 
 
 II III HI i 
 
 WlilH '' 
 mmmi 
 
 406 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 The essential qualities of the army of twenty years ago are 
 no longer the supreme necessities for success. The man belli lul 
 the gun stands more supreme than ever. Dig a trench and line 
 it with good shots, supported by modern artillery, and no enemy 
 can advance in the face of them. They may be outflanked or 
 starved, but, while their ammunition holds out, none can oust 
 them, for they can fill the whole plain over a radiiis of at least 
 four thousand yards with such a withering blast of shrapnel and 
 rifle bullets that no troops can stand in the open before it. 
 
 But the fighting east of Kimberley turned in favor of tlic 
 British and their success electrified Great Britain and the Colonics. 
 The War Office in London received the following despatch from 
 Lord Roberts : 
 
 AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 
 
 "Paardeberg, Feb. 27, 7.45 a. m. — General Cronje and all 
 his force capitulated unconditionally at daylight and is now a 
 prisoner in my camp. The strength of his force will be communi- 
 cated later. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will consider 
 this event satisfactory, occurring, as it does, on the anniversary 
 of Majuba." 
 
 In the War Office lobbies, when a clerk posted the news of the 
 surrender, quite a crowd was waiting, and the tidings were hailed 
 with enthusiasm, and in an incredibly short space of time the 
 news had spread to all parts of London. At the Mansion House 
 the news posted was read with great excitement by the crowds of 
 business men hurrying to their offices, and cries of " Bravo, Rob- 
 erts !" and "Majuba!" were heard. 
 
 The Lord Mayor of London said that while the surrender of 
 General Cronje had been a foregone conclusion, the new;; was 
 received with a great sense of relief, and the result of the capitu- 
 lation, he thought, would be the rapid conclusion of hostilities. 
 At the Stock Exchange there was much excitement and cheering, 
 but this quickly subsided when the house opened. 
 
 Late despatches from Paardeberg, dated previous to the time 
 of Roberts's despatch announcing Cronje's surrender, indicated 
 
 tv- 
 
SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE 497 
 
 that the Boer army which, entrenched in the river bed, had held 
 50,000 British soldiers at bay for ten days, had been so decimated by 
 the rain, of British shells, Maxim gnn fire and rifle balls that only 
 about half of them remained alive and unwonnded when the white 
 flag was hoisted over their earthworks. 
 
 With a force placed by English correspondents at 8000 to 
 9000 men, Cronje began his last stand. Abont 4000 men, it was 
 estimated, surrendered to the British. Even then, it seems likely 
 that surrender was brought about by the exhaustion of the Boer 
 ammunition. Otherwise, the Federal forces probably would have 
 fought it out until none was alive to fight. This idea is based upon 
 Cronje's defiant reply to Kitchener's demand for surrender and on 
 the indomitable courage and tenacity exhibited by the Boers all 
 through the war. 
 
 BOER COMMANDER REPULSED AT MAFEKING. 
 
 The first repulse which Cronje met with in the war was at 
 Mafeking, where Colonel Baden-Powell from the first set him at 
 defiance. In the middle of October Cronje assaulted the town in 
 force, but was driven off at all points. Neither his summons to 
 the garrison nor the shells which he threw into the town had the 
 effect he desired. He was joined by his son, fresh from the cap- 
 ture of Vryburg, and the younger Cronje, impatient at his father's 
 want of success, persuaded him to let him lead an assault on Mafe- 
 king. In this attack his son lost his life. It is one of the melan- 
 choly coincidences of the war that the two generals confronting 
 each other at Paardeberg should have met with the same bereave- 
 ment by the fortune of war. 
 
 Though, like other Boer commanders, Cronje failed in his 
 attempt upon a fortified position, Modder river, Magersfontein, 
 and particularly the masterly retreat from the Modder to his last 
 position, where he fought a desperate rear guard battle, redound to 
 his credit as a military leader of a high order. He failed to cap- 
 ture Kimberley, but his defeat of the British at Magersfontein 
 condemned the most famous regiments of the British army to 
 several weeks of inglorious inactivity. 
 
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468 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
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 If III 
 
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 At the beginning of the war he was intrusted with the main 
 command of the Boer forces on the western border, and made 
 Mafeking his first point of assault. When the British relief 
 column of Lord Meth'ien began its march to Kimberley he moved 
 south personally to oppose his progress, and, after Magersfontein, 
 remained at Modder river until forced by Lord Roberts to beat 
 a retreat into the Orange Free State. 
 
 Then near Paardeberg he began one of the hopeless and won- 
 derful defenses in military history. Hemmed in by General 
 French on the north and east, by Kelly-Kenny and Kitchener and 
 Roberts and Methuen on the other sides, he took his position in 
 the dry river bed near that point, dug entrenchments, and endured 
 the united continuous fire of the British heavy artillery and more 
 than 40,000 riflemen ; he held out till overwhelmed, and surren- 
 dered only when annihilation stared his sturdy warriors in the 
 face. 
 
 GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF FIGHTING BY ROBERTS. 
 
 Later in the day on February 27th the War Office in London 
 received the following despatch from Lord Roberts : 
 
 " From information furnished daily to me by the intelligence 
 department it became apparent that General Cronje's force was 
 becoming more depressed, and that the discontent of the troops and 
 the discord among the leaders were rapidly increasing. This feel- 
 ing was doubtless accentuated by the disappointment caused when 
 the Boer reinforcements which tried to relieve General Cronje were 
 defea^«d by our troops on February 13th. I resolved, therefore, to 
 bWng pressure to bear on the enemy. 
 
 " Each night the trenches were pushed forward toward the 
 enemy's laager so as to gradually contract his position, and at the 
 same time I bombarded it heavily with artillery, which was yester- 
 day materially aided by the arrival of four six-inch howitzers which 
 I had ordered up from De Aar. In carrying out these measures a 
 captive balloon gave great assistance by keeping us informed of 
 the disposition and movements of the enemy. 
 
 "At 3 A. M. to-day a most dashing advance was made by the 
 
SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 469 
 
 Canadian regiment and some engineers, supported by the First 
 Gordon Highlanders and Second Shropshires, resulting in our 
 gaining a point some six hundred yards uearer to the enemy 
 and within about eighty yards of his trenches, where our men 
 entrenched themselves and maintained their positions till morning 
 a gallant deed worthy of our Colonial comrades, and which, I am 
 glad to say, was attended by comparatively slight loss. 
 
 " This apparently clinched matters, for, at daylight a letter 
 signed by General Crcnje, in which he stated he surrendered uncon- 
 ditionally, was brought to our outposts under a flag of truce. lu 
 my reply I told General Cronje he must present himself at my 
 camp, and that his force must come out of their laager after laying 
 down their arms. 
 
 GENERAL CRONJE'S REQUEST GRANTED. 
 
 "By 7 A. M. I received General Cronje and despatched a tele- 
 gram to you announcing the fact. In the course of conversation 
 he asked for kind treatment at our hands, and also that his wife, 
 grandson, private secretary, adjutant and servants might accom- 
 pany him wherever he might be rent. I reassured him, and told 
 him his request would be complied with. I informed him that a 
 general officer would be sent with him to Cape Town, to insure his 
 being treated with proper respect on the way. 
 
 "He will start this afternoon under charge of Major General 
 Puttyman, who will hand him over to the general commanding 
 at Cape Town. The prisoners, who number about 3,000, will be 
 formed into commandos under our own officers. They will also 
 leave here to-day, reaching the Modder river to-morrow, when 
 they will be railed to Cape Town in detachments," 
 
 The above despatch was read in both the House of Lords and 
 the House of Commons to-day. The reference to the Canadians 
 evoked immense and prolonged cheering. The gallantry and 
 heroism that had been expected from the Canadian troops were 
 shown to splendid advantage at a critical moment, and a large 
 share of the glory of the victory must be awarded to the hardy 
 sons of Canada who went to South Africa to defend the empire. 
 
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470 
 
 SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 
 The news of General Cronje's surrender was received witH 
 unbounded satisfaction at Windsor. The Queen immediately 
 telegraphed her congratulations to Lord Roberts and the troops. 
 
 It would be difficult even with the most eloquently inspired 
 pen to convey adequately or give sufficient realism to the feeling 
 that prevailed in London over the news that Cronje and his forces 
 had capitulated. The first symptom was that shown by one who' 
 has thrown off a great nightmare. A vast sigh of relief, as if the 
 sufferer had been suddenly released from great pain, ran from 
 one end of the capital to the other. Those not in London during 
 the progress of the war can little realize the strain which had 
 been upon all Englishmen despite their calm exterior. 
 
 PUBLIC ANXIETY RELIEVED. 
 
 At a quarter past lo o'clock the news first reached the clubs. 
 For a week Cronje had been lying low, like a partridge in the 
 stubble. An intolerable stench arose, owing to the number of 
 dead carcasses of oxen and horses and decomposing bodies of men, 
 and the British troops surrounding the Boers had suffered more 
 from that than from anything else. 
 
 Up to the very last moment there lurked a fear of the out- 
 come, based upon the realization of the great wiliness of the Boer 
 leader and a dread that he might escape in some extraordinary 
 manner. Thus, while the news of the surrender was expected by 
 many, it came as a surprise to all. It was the news of the war, 
 and was immediately accepted with a full appreciation of its great 
 importance. "Good, old Bobs!" "Bravo, Bobs!" were the gen- 
 eral expressions. The service clubs were very soon crowded with 
 members, who turned away from the news boards, their faces filled 
 with delight. 
 
 The first thing most of the clubmen seemed instinctively to 
 do was to sit down and write telegrams to relatives and friends 
 out of town. Club pages were kept on the run to the telegraph 
 offices. At a telegraph office in St. James street there was a 
 scene remarkable to look upon. Girls whose duty it was to take 
 in telegrams were simply overwhelmed, and the aid of all the 
 
Xi* 
 
 SURRICNDF.R OF GENERAL CRONJE. 
 
 471 
 
 other assistants was called in. The office itself was crowded with 
 people, forming a line like that seen outside a [theatre when a 
 popular piece is being played. The scene also reminded one of 
 that at the Epsom telegraph office just after the Derby winner is 
 known. This rush lasted for a couple of hours. 
 
 Meanwhile a great roar of excited newsboys had risen outside. 
 Runners and bicyclists raced one another to get ahead, but all 
 were yelling, yelling, yelling, and bore placards in big type 
 telling of Cronje's fall. At the War Office the attendance beat 
 all previous records. All felt like cheering, but decorum and the 
 big policemen forbade such indulgence in sentiment. Ladi< s 
 came by the scores. Many an eye was dimmed with tell-tale tears 
 of joy. ^ i 
 
 It was not so quiet in the business part of the city. There 
 great occasions are usually celebrated by vocal accompaniments. 
 So it was in this case. At the side of Mansion House, where the 
 telegrams were posted up, a crowd cheered and sang scraps of 
 "God Save the Queen." In the Stock Exchange there was a 
 large attendance of members, who sang the national anthem. 
 
 
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CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Brave Garrison at Ladysmith Saved by General 
 
 Buller's Army. 
 
 AFTER four months of fighting with Boers, and with disease 
 and starvation toward the last, General White's brave gar- 
 rison at Ladysmith greeted the vanguard of their rescuers on 
 February 28th. London and the British Empire generally went 
 wild with joy upon the receipt of the news. For four months 
 Ladysmith had been besieged and General White's garrison, 
 together with the populace, was reduced to terrible straits. The 
 welcome intelligence of relief was conveyed to the War Office in 
 London by the following despatch from General Buller: 
 
 "Lyttleton's Headquarters, March i — 9.05 morning. — Gen- 
 eral Dundonald, with the Natal Carbineers and a composite regi- 
 ment, entered Ladysmith last night. The country between me 
 and Ladysmith is reported clear of the enemy. I am moving on 
 Nelthorpe." 
 
 Later General Buller cabled from Nelthorpe : 
 
 "I have just returned from Ladysmith. Except a small 
 guard north of Surprise Hill the whole of the enemy lately besieg- 
 ing the town have retired in hot haste, and to the south of the 
 town the country is quite clear of them. The garrison were on 
 half a pound of meal per man a day and were supplementing the 
 meat ration by horses and mules. The men will want a little 
 nursing before being fit for the field." 
 
 In this connection the following despatch from the war corre- 
 spondent, Richard Harding Davis, is of interest as showing the 
 difficulties encountered by the British army : 
 
 " The attack of the Inniskilling Fusiliers on Friday night, 
 
 February 23d, on Railway Hill and the stand made throughout 
 
 the night was one of the most gallant and stubborn effijrts yet 
 
 made toward the relief of Ladysmith. For several days the battle 
 
 472 
 
GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RKLIKVKD. 
 
 478 
 
 wn.« continuous, by night as well as by day, and this was one of 
 its supreme moments. The Inniskillings joined this column with 
 twenty-four officers. They had five remaining. That tells the 
 story. 
 
 " No map, no penned account, can give a correct idea of the 
 difficulties of these hills and ridges, which succeed each other like 
 waves in a heavy sea. One gives way only to another. Kach can 
 be enfiladed, and until one is taken it is impossible, even with the 
 keenest scouting, ^o know what fortunes lie beyond it. The mili- 
 tary problem changes as the column advances, each kopje refusing 
 to give up its secret until the troops have touched its crest. 
 
 IN MUD AND SLUSH. 
 
 " To add to the difficulty, the tropical rainy season has set in. 
 For twelve hours the uniforms of the men clung to them like wet 
 seaweed, mud caught them under foot, mist closed down and shut 
 out the position of the enemy. This discomfort was borne by all 
 alike. Buller and his staff are virtually living the life of the 
 private. There has not been even a tent to cover the commanding 
 generals. They eat from their knees with their shoulders against 
 a rock. They sleep where they can, and their field work is carried 
 on under » transport wagon." 
 
 One ot the thousands who were besieged in Ladysmith and 
 suffered all the horrors of war, kept a diary of the principal events 
 that transpired during the siege, from which it will be seen that 
 the courage and endurance of the garrison and populace were a 
 match for the stubborn and persistent warfare of the Boers : 
 
 "Relief came to Ladysmith in the nick of time. Another 
 few days, perhaps, and sickness might have accomplished what 
 neither short rations nor Boer shells could avail. Fevers of all 
 kinds have wrought more devastation than the engines of war. 
 
 " With singular craftiness, the Boers used the river towards ac- 
 complishing their ends. First we were warned that it was to be 
 dammed and Ladysmith' s garrison drowned out. Then, when our 
 guns prevailed against this engineering, we found that they 
 sought, virtually, to poison our only adequate supply of water. 
 
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474 
 
 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
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 All the impurities of the Boer encampment were drained into tlie 
 Klip river, with immediate effect. There is little wonder that 
 Ladysmith went mad with joj'^ when BuUer's advance galloped in 
 
 the town. 
 
 " This summary of our sufferinr^r; — a diary of daily doings in 
 the beleaguered town — will show what we have been through. It 
 is an incomplete record, written as chance dictated, but it does 
 tell the story. 
 
 " October 29 — The enemy has closed in. We are besieged. 
 With a good glass one can easily make out the Boers gathering on 
 every hill within range of the town. They have mounted two big 
 guns at Tinta Ingoni — only 4500 yards from the British lines. 
 We are all virtually under martial rule, and khaki is the prevailing 
 style. The outposts were driven in by the enemy, and reported 
 that the Boers were dragging the two guns to emplacements 
 on the hill. We are all waiting now for the first crash that will 
 tell us they are in action. After that — what ? 
 
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 m if 
 
 MEN STANDING AT THE GUNS. 
 
 "A pitched battle is immineiit. All our men are at the guns. 
 From what we have heard we know the Boers are congregating at 
 Klandslaagte. Within Ladysmith we are all on our nerves. Sus- 
 picion seems pointing a finger in every direction, and many 
 important civilians have been warned to leave. There is no fooling 
 now. Later news tells us that Joubert's army corps, advancing in 
 two columns, has effected a junction nearby, and that his force is 
 in full communication with the Free Staters. 
 
 " October 30 — A scouting party having reported the Boers in 
 force on the Helpmakaar road, an advance was made by our forces 
 this morning. It was General White's object to shell the Boer 
 position, but on arriving at the point where the Boers were believed 
 to be intrenched, we found it evacuated. On attempting to advance, 
 there was a strong flanking movement on our right, and artillery 
 was brought up in a hurry. 
 
 " The column charged, and the engagement became general. 
 A brief view of the situation showed that our forces were heavily 
 
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 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
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 outflanked, a rather disquieting discovery. General White ordered 
 a withdrawal, and tte British retired on ivadysmith. Six officers 
 killed, nine wounded, fifty-four non-commissioned officers and men 
 killed, and 250 wounded. Our first interview with the Boers dis- 
 plays the fact that they are fighters. One of our big guns got the 
 range of a field battery on a nearby hill, and with a glass 
 we could see the Boers flying into the air as each of our shells 
 burst. 
 
 "October 31 — Fuller reports of yesterday's fight show that 
 Lieutenant Colonel Carleton's column, sent out to turn the Boer 
 flank, has been captured. Consternation is visible everywhere in 
 Ladysmith. Military activity prevails ever}- where. Soldiers and 
 officers are on every side. There is hardly a moment when the 
 sound of firing does not beat upon the air. If the Boers really be- 
 gin to shell the town we are in for a hot time. 
 
 BOERS FIRE FROM HIDING PLACES. 
 
 " November 3 — We are in the midst of war. Yesterday's 
 battle showed the Boer strength. The rocks we had persistently 
 shelled crackled and hammered from end to end with rapid fire. 
 The Boers had hidden behind the ridge, and now crept back again. 
 Perhaps no infantry could have taken that position only from the 
 front. I watched the volunteers advance upon it in extended lines 
 across a long, green slope studded with ant hills. I could see the 
 puffs of dust where the bullets fell thick around their feet. It 
 was an impossible task. Some got behind a cactus hedge, some 
 lay down and fired, some hid behind ant hills or little banks. 
 
 "Suddenly that moment came when all is over but the run- 
 ning. The men began shifting uneasily about. A few turned 
 around, then more. At first they walked and kept some sort of 
 line, then some one began to run. Soon they were all running, 
 isolated or in groups of two or three. And all the time those 
 puffs of dust pursue their feet. Sometimes there was no puff or 
 dust, and then a man would spring in the air or spin around, or 
 just lurch forward, with arms outspread, a mere yellowish heap, 
 hardly to be distinguished from an ant hill. 
 
 i.iM ''■: 
 

 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 47? 
 
 "I could see many a poor fellow wandering hither and thither, 
 as though lost, as is common in all retreats. A man would walk 
 sideways, then run back a little, look around, fall. Another came 
 by. The first evidently called out, and the other gave him a hand. 
 Both stupibled on together, the puffs of dust splashing around 
 them. Then down they fell and were quiet. A complacent cor. 
 respondent told me afterward, with the condescending smile of 
 higher light, that only seven men were hit. I only know that be- 
 fore evening twenty-five of the Light Horse alone were brought in 
 wounded, not counting the dead, and not counting the other 
 mounted troops, all of whom suffered. 
 
 "It was all over by a quarter past 2 o'clock. The Dragoon 
 Guards, who had been trying to cover the retreat, galloped back, 
 one or two horses galloping riderless. Under the Red Cross flag 
 the Dhoodies then began to go out to pick up the results. For 
 one hour or so that work lasted, the dead and dying being found 
 among the ant hills where they fell. Then we all trailed back, 
 the enemy shelling our line of retreat. 
 
 COMPLETELY HEMMED IN. 
 
 " November 9 — Dawn discovered to us to-day that the Boers 
 had moved in their works. We are more tightly beleaguered than 
 ever before. It looks like a fight to the death. As soon as the 
 light showed, the Boers made an attack in force. We repulsed 
 them at every point. They have a complete line about the town, 
 and it is difficult to get either in or out without falling into their 
 hands. Food is plentiful, cheerfulness is supreme, and we eagerly 
 await Buller's coming. We have had no explanation or apology 
 from the Boers for their shelling of the convent. Fortunately it 
 han not been resumed, and the damage done by the two shells 
 that struck it has been repaired. The wounded in the convent 
 are progressing favorably. To-day's demonstration was against 
 the western defenses. 
 
 "November 14 — There was another big skirmish to-day, 
 thirteen guns being out with the forces. We routed the burghers 
 on a small kopje, and could have held the position. Shortly after- 
 
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 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
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 ward the Boers opened on us with a big gun, so all the troops 
 hunted cover. The sensation of being bombarded is still new 
 enough to give one quivers. One can tell by the shriek of a shell 
 where it comes from, and from what sort of a gun. We usually 
 dodge. 
 
 "November 17 — Hurrah! the relief column has arrived at 
 Estcourt. We can note already a different method in the 
 manners of the Boers. Joubert, we hear, has gone south. 
 The Boers are doing their little best to scare uc out of our sleep. 
 They have begun plumping shells into the town at midnight. 
 But no harm done. The daily battering is only desultory. 
 
 SHELLS FELL THICK AND FAST. 
 
 " November 25 — Heaven knows how many shells the Boeis 
 have fired into Ladysmith. The result from the casualties, how- 
 ever, are meagre. All told the number is eighty-three killed and 
 wounded, including civilians. Eleven men, however, were 
 wounded yesterday in the Gloucester battalion. Bicycling has 
 almost come to a standstill. It used to be the regular thing to ride 
 out to the front, but the shells and artillery have spoiled the 
 roads. 
 
 " November 28 — Artillery practice still seems to be the thing. 
 Otherwise everything is quiet. A gun on Middle Hill keeps on 
 banging away. It is only 2cxx) yards off, but never hits anything 
 but the landscape. We are too bored to fire back, as long as it 
 doesn't get wicked. The Gordons continue to play football, to the 
 great scandal of the town, many shells falling into the game. 
 Poor Stark, the naturalist, seems to have been most unfortunate. 
 A warning cry told a shell was coming, but Stark was out looking 
 for his cat. The shell tore off both his legs just as he caught his 
 pet. " Mind my cat," he cried, and the next instant was dead. 
 
 " November 30 — We have been attacked again. The whole 
 Boer force turned out at 7 a. m. and began a terrific bombardment. 
 At the same time there was an attack in force from the north. 
 They stayed outside the dead line, however, and we never got a 
 chance at them inside 900 yards. Our loss was nothing to speak 
 
ever, were 
 
 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 479 
 
 of, but the way the Boer ambulauces have been trundling about we 
 must have accounted for some of the beggars. Lombard's Kop 
 has a new gun. We have discovered that ' Long Tom ' has been 
 wrecked by one of our naval shells They have retaliated by 
 wrecking our streets. The pavement is full of holes, and it's worth 
 one's leg to walk around. 
 
 "December 2 — Three big Creusot guns are being brought to 
 ,bear on us from neighboring hills. There is one big gun 4000 
 yards away, three six-inch rifles at a greater distance, four 4.7-inch 
 howitzers at the edge of their works, and two batteries of big field 
 guns at their left. The shops are beginning to close up. Trade 
 is dull, and provisions not plentiful. The authorities have grabbed 
 all provisions for the common good, and the last tin of milk on 
 record brought seventy-five cents. Eggs are a dollar and a half 
 a do/en, meat is rather shy, and a quart of champagne is worth a 
 share of Rands. 
 
 MACHINE GUN CAPTURED. 
 
 " December 8 — General Hunter and a hundred men have just 
 covered themselves with glory and Lombard's Kop with wreckage. 
 They destroyed a six-inch Creusot, a 4.7-inch howitzer and a 
 i2-pounder, and captured a machine gun. Our casualties were 
 one man killed and Major Henderson wounded. 
 
 "December 11 — Whiskey is $5 a bottle. Last night Colonel 
 Metcalfe and 500 of the Second Rifle Brigade sortied to capture a 
 Boer howitzer on a hill. They reached the crest without being 
 discovered, drove off the enemy, and then destroyed the howitzer 
 with gun-cotton. When returning Metcalfe found his retirement 
 barred by the Boers, but he forced his way through, using the 
 bayonet freely. 
 
 " December 16 — Buller tried to cross the Tugela yesterday and 
 was defeated. It is a sad day in Ladysmith. 
 
 " December 25 — This is a slim Christmas here. Very few 
 were fortunate enough to get turkeys or geese, and they were pop- 
 ular persons. Most of us had to be content with stringy beef and 
 worte goat's flesh. On Saturday the town turned out to the pro- 
 
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 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 vision auction. Potatoes brought twenty-five cents each, eggs 
 were a shilling, carrots seven pence, ducks a half guinea and cig- 
 arettes sixpence a pack. Whiskey sold at $35 a bottle. Three of 
 the Boer shells that fell into the square \vere opened and fouud 
 filled with plum pudding. More guns are being mounted by the 
 Boers. Cricket, foot-ball and dodging shells were the principal 
 Yuletide amusements. General White had a narrow escape from 
 a shell that hit the house where he was lying ill. 
 
 GUNS ALL BANGING. 
 
 "January 6 — The enemy tried to capture Caesar's camp 
 and Wagon Hill to-day, and got defeated. There was an awful 
 banging. Nearly every gun and almost all the troops were en- 
 gaged. Major Bowen and Lieutenant Tod were killed in a heroic 
 charge of the Gordons. Lord Ava was mortally wounded, and 
 Colonel Dick Cunningham is also reported to be dying — if not 
 already dead. The Boer loss was heavy. We eagerly await Bul- 
 ler, and are hard pressed. 
 
 "January 17 — We have heard iBuller's guns, and are wild 
 with joy. We can see his shells bursting occasionally. 
 
 "January 21 — General Buller's advance from the west is 
 plainly visible. We can see nearly every one of his shells 
 bursting. 
 
 "January 28 — It is almost a certainty here that Buller has 
 again been repulsed, but we can still hear his guns, and hope 
 runs high. 
 
 " February i — Twenty deaths from disease to-day. Food is 
 getting scarce and fever plenty. 
 
 " February 3 — Another attack. Beat them off as usual. 
 
 " February 4 — We can hear Buller's guns again. 
 
 " February 6 — Saw one of Buller's shells burst an ammuni- 
 tion wagon. The Boers are beginning to get out. We have heard 
 of Buller's two reverses at the Tugela, but we have still not lost 
 heart. Although sickness is increasing in camp, we are de- 
 termined to hold out to the last man. 
 
 February 15 — ^The Boers are trying to dam the Klip river. 
 
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 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 481 
 
 ad are wild 
 
 Our gtrnsi are now being moved to shell their engineering works. 
 The siege is relaxing and the garrison is growing hopeful. Horse 
 and mule meat appears on every menu, and we are growing tired 
 of eating man's best friend. Dr. Jameson is very ill with enteric 
 fever. 
 
 " February i8— A heliograph says that Buller is again ad- 
 vancing. We can hear his cannonading, and the message tells us 
 that he is making way. Relief is confidently expected this week. 
 One hundred and thirty Boer wagons were seen treking northward 
 this afternoon. 
 
 "February 19 — We can see Buller' s troops. They are occupy- 
 ing the crest of Monte Cristo, and are a fine sight. 
 
 WELCOME RELIEF IN SIGHT. 
 
 "February 21 — We fear that Buller has again withtlrawn. 
 There is no news, and communication by heliograph is almost im- 
 possible. 
 
 " February 26 — Relief is in sight. Buller's men can be seen 
 plainly. His advance is only six miles away. There is heavy 
 cannonading at the southward. Our naval guns are co-operating 
 with Buller's advance. 
 
 " February 28 — General Dundonald galloped into Ladysmith 
 this evening. We are relieved at last. The town has gone mad 
 with joy." 
 
 The foregoing graphic account of what went on at Ladysmith 
 during the siege conveys a distinct impression of the dangers by 
 which the town was beset, and also of the resolute courage and 
 cheerfulness of those whose lives were in constant danger. No 
 wonder there was great rejoicing when Buller's army arrived and 
 the pangs of starvation were subdued. 
 
 Early on the morning of March ist, the Queen received with 
 feelings of joy and thankfulness the happy news of the relief of 
 Ladysmith, accomplished by the troops under the command of 
 Sir Redvers Buller. Her Majesty telegraphed her congratula- 
 tions to him and to Sir George White. 
 
 The following, was the text of Her Majesty's despatch to 
 
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482 
 
 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 ? l/'l 
 
 General Buller : — " I thank God for the news you have tele- 
 graphed me, and I congratulate yon and all under you with all 
 my heart." 
 
 The despatch to Sir George White read thus : — " I thank 
 God that you and all those with you are safe after your long, try- 
 ing siege, borne with such heroism. I congratulate you and all 
 under you from the bottom of my heart. I trust you are all not 
 very much exhausted." 
 
 Sir George White sent the following reply : — " Your Majesty's 
 most gracious message has been received by me with the deepest 
 gratitude and with enthusiasm by the troops. Any hardships and 
 privations are a hundred times compensated for by the sympathy 
 and appreciation of our Queen ; and your Majesty's message will 
 will do more to restore both officers and men than anything else." 
 
 The Queen received the following despatch from General 
 Buller : "The troops much appreciate Your Majesty's kind tele- 
 gram. Your Majesty cannot know how much your sympathy has 
 helped to inspire them." 
 
 LORD ROBERTS TO VICTORIA. 
 
 Telegraphing from Osfontein, thanking the Lord Mayor of 
 Liverpool for his congratulations, Lord Roberts said : 
 
 "I trust Her Majesty's soldiers in this country will gain such 
 further success^as will speedily restore the freedom and prosperity 
 of South Africa"." 
 
 Lady White, wife of Sir George Stewart White, commander 
 of the garrison which for four months was penned up in Lady- 
 smith, in reply to messages , of congratulations, said: "All the 
 world is in sympathy with me to-day, and I am in sympathy with 
 all the world. I am delighted at the joyful news of the relief and 
 am happy at the intelligence that my husband is well and safe ai 
 last. As a wife I can say no more. What happy wife could say 
 less?" 
 
 Colonel Rhodes, the brother of Cecil Rhodes, describing the 
 entry into Ladysmith of Lord Dundonald and three hundred men 
 of the Imperial Light Horse and Natal Carb^'neers, said : 
 
 'Mi 
 
 pfi ■ 
 
GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 488 
 
 "It is impossible to depict the eiithusiasni of the beleaguered 
 garrison. Cheer upou cheer ran from post to post, aud staff 
 officers, civilians and soldiers flocked to greet them. At the ford 
 of the Klip River women with children in their arms tearfully 
 pressed forward to grasp the hands of the gallant band. Sisters 
 and brothers, friends and relatives met again. It was the most 
 moving scene I have ever witnessed. The contrast between the 
 robust troopers of a dozen battles and the pale, emaciated 
 
 ARMORED TRAIN USED BY THE BRITISH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 defenders of lyadysmith was great. The hour for which we had so 
 patiently waited had come at last. 
 
 " General White and his staff met the troops in the centre of 
 t lie town. He was cheered with heartfelt enthusiasm. He addressed 
 the civilians, and thanked them and the garrison for their mag- 
 nificent support through trials which we alone can realize. We 
 could possibly have hung on for six weeks longer, but sickness 
 and the paucity of our ammunition would have limited the number 
 of assaults we would have been able to resist. 
 
 
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484 
 
 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
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 "We originally started the siege with 12,000 troops, 2,C)oo 
 civilians and 4,000 natives. Between casualties and sickness 8,ocx) 
 soldiers passed through the hospital. It is impossible to over 
 emphasize the privations of the sick. Since the middle of January 
 a man once down was practically lost. The reduced rations of the 
 soldiers. just sufficed for their subsistence. Daily thirty old horses 
 and mules were slaughtered and converted into soup and sausages. 
 From January 15 to now (March 2d) there have been over two 
 hundred deaths from disease alone. The last fortnight .saw the 
 majority of the field batteries unhorsed and the guns permanently 
 posted in our defences. The cavalry and drivers were converted 
 into infantry and sent to the trenches. A line of defences had 
 been constructed with a view of possible final contingency, if the 
 watei^works should be carried by the investment." 
 
 LONDON WILD WITH JOY. 
 
 '%■ 
 
 ' When the news of the relief of Ladysmith became generally 
 known London literally went mad with joy, and throughout Eng- 
 land the scenes witnessed had no parallel in the memories of this 
 generation. The pent up jubilation at the relief of Kimberley 
 and the defeat of Cronje could no longer be controlled, and with 
 the crowning triumph the national trait of self-restraint was 
 thrown to the winds. The Lord Mayor of London immediately 
 telegraphed his congratulations to Generals White and Buller. 
 When the Queen received the news at Windsor the bells on the 
 curfew tower of the castle were rung in honor of the event. 
 
 This storm of jubilation centred around the Mansion House 
 in London, and by noon thousands of persons blocked the many 
 approaches to that grim building. It was a dense, black mass, 
 composed chiefly of business men, the majority of them carrying 
 little union jacks. Never before was there such a sale of flags as 
 on that day. Through this cheering throng there was only one 
 avenue open to traffic, and this was utilized by the 'busses going 
 from east to west. All traffic in other directions was stalled for 
 hours. 
 
 The only way to get past the Mansion House was by mount- 
 
ras by mount- 
 
 „ • GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RF.I.IF.VED. 
 
 iug the 'busses, which soon began to rcscnibk- chariots in a tn 
 uinphal pageant. Stockbrokers, bankers, clerks and workingnien 
 clambered on top, and as the 'busses lumbered past the historic 
 building, stood up, waving flags, hats and handkerchiefs, and call- 
 ing for cheers for BuUer and Roberts. A mighty shout answered 
 them from the crowds through which they were passing. 
 
 The procession became continuous, yet the crowd never tired 
 of cheering every time the name of White, Duller or Roberts was 
 mentioned, and off came hats and up went the little flags. Grave 
 old financiers waved and yelled as frantically and as often as the 
 urchins who had clambered the Mansion House steps, by reason of 
 the news that England's honor had been saved. The strain that 
 for ii8 days had kept the nation in terrible anxiety was removed. 
 The Lord Mayor showed himself at a window, out of which hung 
 a huge City Imperial Volunteer flag, and the crowd yelled itself 
 hoarse. Staid magnates grabbed flaring posters from newsboys 
 and brandished " Ladysmith Relieved" to the roaring throng. 
 All thought of business was forgotten. 
 
 ' " BROKERS SING NATIONAL Al^THEM. 
 
 Nothing could be done on the Stock Exchange except sing 
 " God Save the Queen " and cheer. Business closed at i o'clock. 
 No one wanted to trade on such a day as this. The stores put up 
 their shutters and gave their employees a holiday. Great ensigns 
 floated in the sunlight from hundreds of buildings and little union 
 jacks lit up the murky city windows. 
 
 The Lord Mayor telegraphed Lady Duller as follows : 
 "My sincerest congratulations on your gallant husband's achieve- 
 ment." 
 
 He also ordered a holiday for the city schools. Later, he an- 
 swered the demands of the crowd, that increased as the day wore 
 on, by a speech, in which he said: "This news makes our hearts 
 leap with joy. We are now satisfied that our sacrifice of blood 
 and treasure is not in vain." 
 
 The reports which came through from Ladysmith showed that 
 the relief was effected not a day too soon. With amiL-vjii^'oil 
 
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 GAKRIMON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 and stores at their lowest ebb, with troops worn and exhausted by 
 disease and from want of nourishing food, had the Boers made 
 another attempt to storm the garrison in half as determined a 
 manner as that at the beginning of January, there is little question 
 that the fall of Ladysmith would have resulted. Fortunately for 
 White's force, Joubert did not know that and kept at a respectful 
 distance. One of the most pathetic incidents of the Boers' hurried 
 flight was that many children were found in the trenches lost, if 
 not forgotten by their parents. 
 
 CHURCHILL'S TELEGRAM. 
 
 Mr. Winston Churchill, who accompanied the Ladysmith re 
 lief column, telegraphing his experience said: 
 
 *' During the afternoon of February 28 the cavalry brigade 
 pressed forward under Colonel Burn-Murdoch toward Bulwaua 
 Hill, and under Lord Dundonald in the direction of Ladysmith. 
 The Boers fired on both with artillery from Bulwana. About 
 4 o'clock Major Gough's regiment, which was in the advance, 
 found the ridges surrounding and concealing Ladysmith appar- 
 ently unoccupied. He reported the fact to Lord Dundonald, who 
 determined to ride through the gap with the Light Horse and 
 Carbineers. 
 
 *' The rest of the brigade was sent back to General Buller's 
 picket line. It was evening when we started to enter the town. 
 About an hour of daylight remained. We galloped on swiftly, in 
 spite of the rough ground, up and down hill, through scrub and 
 rocks, and dongas, until we could see the British guns flashing 
 from Wagon Hill; but on we went faster, until suddenly there 
 came a challenge from the scrub, 'Who goes there ? ' 'The Lady- 
 smith relieving army, ' we replied, and then the tattered and al- 
 most bootless men crowded around, cheering very feebly. Even 
 in the gloom we could see how thin and pale they looked ; but hov 
 glad they were ! " • 
 
 The once dashing British cavalry brigade practically ceased 
 to exist. At the beginning of the year the British had 5,500 
 horses and 4,500 mules. Before the end of January they could 
 
GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RF.LIKVF.l). 
 
 4W 
 
 only feed i,ioo horses, the others had cither been converted into 
 joints, soups and sausages, or had been left to fora^'e for them- 
 selves. These poor, emaciated animals — mere phantoms of horses 
 —were among the most painful sights of the siege. 
 
 " Had the besieged possessed an unlimited amount of heavy 
 guns and ammunition, they might have made the position more 
 bearable, although not a shot was fired except in dire necessity. 
 There were on February ist only forty rounds left for each naval 
 gun, while the supply for the field artillery would have been ex- 
 hausted in a couple of minor engagements. Fortunately, the 
 Boers were ignorant of the true state of affairs. Had they known 
 the real weakness of the town they might have displayed greater 
 daring. The British were victorious solely because of masterly 
 inactivity. 
 
 TONS OF DEADLY EXPLOSIVES. 
 
 The bombardment was heavy, but on the whole ineffective. 
 It is estimated that during the investment about i2,cxx) shells 
 were thrown into the town, an average of three tons of explosives 
 daily. Yet comparatively few were killed and wounded. The 
 largest losses were from disease. 
 
 Further accounts of the relief of Ladysmith state that at 
 noon on Tuesday, February 27th, the firing of General BuUer's 
 army seemed to recede, instead of approach, and the garri- 
 son was consequently depressed. Everybody was startled 
 to hear the garrison's 4.7-gun firing. It had not been 
 used much of late, owing to the diminishing ammunition. On 
 hurrying out it was found that the Boers were trying to remove the 
 big gun on Bulwana by the erection of a derrick. This proved 
 that something extraordinary was happening. The other garrison 
 guns then directed their fire on Bulwana, and the Boers were 
 compelled to abandon the attempt with the derrick. 
 
 Later on they placed the gun on a wagon, which capsized in a 
 donga ^ravine). During the afternoon, whenever the Boers were 
 seen approaching, the British resumed the shelling on Bulwana. 
 About four o'clock a terrific thunder storm broke over the town, 
 
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 488 
 
 GARRISON AT LADYSMITH RELIEVED. 
 
 just after a message had been heliograplied from Wagon Hill tLal 
 the Boers were in full retreat. Officers said they believed they 
 could descry British cavalry, but most people supposed that the 
 
 . "wish was father to the thought. As soon as the storm ceased the 
 British guns re-opened on Bui wana, gradually concentrating the fire 
 on the left, and driving the Boers before them, with the object of 
 preventing the enemy from hampering any British approach. 
 
 An hour later a party of British horsemen could be seen 
 crossing the flat below Bulwana at a distance of som6 miles. It 
 
 ' is impossible to describe the excitement and enthusiasm among 
 the troops that followed. Most of the town's people had been 
 ^ven into the houses by the storm and did not learn the good 
 news until later. The storm began again at seven o'clock in the 
 evening and continued until two o'clock the next morning. It 
 seriously hampered the retreating Boers. The British gunners 
 kept a sharp watch to prevent any further attempt to remove the 
 Bulwana gun. The British naval gun was fired at intervals through 
 the night and in the morning a force was sent out to look after the 
 gun and to occupy Bulwana. 
 
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 lieved they 
 ied that the 
 ceased the 
 ting the fire 
 he object of 
 iproach. 
 |uld be seen 
 6 miles. It 
 asm among 
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 im the good 
 clock in the 
 loming. It 
 sh gunners 
 remove the 
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 ook after the 
 
 '^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Rapid Advance of General Roberts' Column. 
 
 yHE raising of the siege of Ladysmith, an account of which has 
 1 already been detailed, was one of the most significant events 
 of the war up to this time. Newspaper correspondents who 
 reached Durban from Ladysmith said that the enthusiasm of the 
 garrison and inhabitants of the besieged town \yas intense when 
 the relieving column entered. Men left the hospital, and even the 
 women and children went forth to greet the newcomers. It was 
 noticeable, however, that the latter were the most demonstrative, 
 cheering the women and children whom they were proud to have 
 saved. 
 
 The correspondents believed that the garrison could have 
 held out a month longer, though rations had necessarily been 
 reduced to the minimum. The men of the garrison required a 
 rest, and the horses were much wasted. 
 
 The correspondents paid a high tribute to the courage and 
 heroism of the women. Never a complaint was heard from them 
 in spite of their unexampled privations and their endurance and 
 courage were beyond praise. 
 
 Sad scenes were often witnessed when the sparse rations were 
 being drawn. Children would pathetically seek milk for their 
 sick mothers. The women and children were estimated at 500. 
 Though there was much sickness arising from the horse meat 
 diet and the absence of farinaceous food, the epidemic period was 
 passed safely. • 
 
 General BuUer entered the town at noon, escorted by his 
 staff only. His bronzed appearance was striking. He said he 
 had not been in bed for three weeks. The Boers exchanged shots 
 with the relieving force, which saw a few corpses lying in the 
 road. It was believed the Boers were retreating to Glencoe. The 
 correspondents eulogized Generals White and Hunter. 
 
 .^. 489 
 
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 490 
 
 APVANCE OF ROBERTS* COLUMN. 
 
 A detailed account of the stirring scenes attending the arrival 
 of the British forces at Ladysmith furnishes items of information 
 which help to complete the thrilling story. On February 28, fol- 
 lowing the battle of Railway Hill, the Boers retreated towr'.rd 
 Dundee in confusion. Dundonald's mounted infantry was sent 
 out to reconnoiter the country ahead to the left. With his 
 mounted troops he pushed cautiously forward, but found no oppo- 
 sition. By evening this advance movement had reached the 
 British lines at Caesar's Camp. Lord Dundonald immediately 
 sent back word to General Buller that the country so far was clear 
 of Boers. Half an hour later the troope rode into Ladysmith. 
 
 WELCOMED BY A CHEERING CROWD. 
 
 As the troops entered the town they were met by a feebly 
 cheering crowd consisting of the entire population of the besieged 
 garrison. They had seen the Boers in retreat, but thought that 
 they would certainly make a stand on Bulwana Hill. At first 
 they had no idea that they had been relieved. As soon as the 
 news became known, the most tremendous excitement prevailed. 
 In spite of the enfeebled state of the garrison shouting and rejoic- 
 ing continued till long after dark in all parts of the town. The 
 first request made by the soldiers to their relievers was for tobacco. 
 Those in the trenches of Ladysmith had been reduced to smoking 
 dead pear leaves as a substitute for their favorite weed. 
 
 The Natal Carbineers and Imperial • Light Horse were the 
 first troops to enter the town. These were parts of the regiment 
 shut up in Ladysmith. They were able to rejoin their regiments 
 after nineteen weeks of separation. Early next morning, March 
 I, the relief coi mn left its bivouac on Railway Hill, and on the 
 last day of its three mouths' march to the beleaguered town, 
 General Buller arrived in Ladysmith at the head of his gallant 
 column. 
 
 Apparently there were few in the camp who knew General 
 Buller by sight. He and General White met quietly near the 
 Intelligence Ofiice and proceeded to General White's headquarters. 
 Relief did not arrive a moment too soon. The troops had been on 
 

 ,K 
 
 
 
 GORDON HIGHLANDERS ASSAULTING A ROCKY BLUFF BEHIND 
 WHICH BOERS ARE ENTRENCHED. 
 
 49? 
 
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492 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
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 -it' 
 
 a meagre allowance for some time. A day's rations consisted of 
 as miicli meal bread as one could close one's hand around. Starca 
 and drugs had run out toward the close, and the starvation cure, 
 as the soldiers facetiously called it, was the only means of treat- 
 ment for the sick. Dysentery and enteric fever patients sufferec' 
 considerably from these conditions. During the last month starch 
 and mule and horse meat were resorted to as a diet. 
 
 Ladysmith is a straggling town. It consists of one long 
 street. The houses are chiefly roofed with sheet tin. In many 
 places the walls exhibited jagged holes where the Boer sheila 
 struck. One shell hit the town hall and ripped away half of the 
 belfry. All afternoon the streets were crowded with civilians and 
 troops. The Gordon Highlanders marched past with their pipers 
 at the head of the reginjent playing the regimental airs. The 
 most important event to the crowd was the departure of the first 
 
 mail wagon from the postoffice to catch the mail for England. 
 "■'♦"..•■ ' ■ ' 
 
 BOERS RETREATED IN A ftURRY. 
 
 In speaking of the siege one woman said : " We have man- 
 aged well for food. Only within the last few days we had no 
 sugar for the children's porridge. Wcihad to tell them that when 
 General Buller came he would bring sweets. When General Bul- 
 ler did come and brought no sweets the children were sadly dis- 
 appointed." 
 
 The British reconnoitered north of Ladysmith and found that 
 the Boers had retreated rapidly toward their own country. Near 
 Bulwana Hill and along the railway there was evidence that the 
 burghers had retreated in great haste. They had left behind them 
 quantities of flour and a large number of saddles. The appear- 
 ance of their former camps seemed to point to a general stampede 
 of horses, probably frightened by the British shell fire. At In- 
 tombi Spruit were found thousands of bags of sand in the bed of the 
 creek, where the Boers had been endeavoring to dam the river and 
 flood the valley where the British camp and two hospitals lay. 
 Before leaving the Boers broke up the railway in several places 
 and blew up a number of culverts. 
 
ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 493 
 
 Great satisfaction was felt at the request made by Geueral 
 Cronje and his party to Major Pretty man that he telegraph the 
 thanks of the prisoners to Lord Roberts for the kind treatment 
 that they had received. 
 
 Lord Roberts was still reticent regarding his possible line of 
 action. Accounts from South Africa represented him as charm- 
 ing every one with hife courtesy. On the other hand, Lord Kitch- 
 ener was still the man of action and organization. It seems to 
 have been greatly owing to his uneqiicl^-r^u powers of organization 
 that the rapid and surprising movements of the British were so 
 successful at Paardeberg. 
 
 GARRISON READY FOR ACTION. 
 
 From Ladysmith came the news that the greater part of the 
 garrison was so enfeebled as scarcely to be able to walk. But 
 when it was necessary to send out a column after the Boers, in an 
 endeavor to cut off their retreat by way of Elandslaagte, 4,000 
 men were able to volunteer for the service. Reports from the 
 southern frontier of the Orange Free State told of a steady advance 
 on the part of the British troops. Generals Clement, Brabant and 
 Gatacre were busily engaged in driving the Dutch across the 
 Orange river. 
 
 As evidence of the dire extremities to which the city of Lady- 
 smith was reduced by the siege, at an auction of things brought 
 from the Boer camps a bunch of grapes sold for six dollars, a plate 
 of tomatoes for four and a half dollars, a dozen boxes of matches 
 for three dollars, a package of cigarettes for six dollars, fifty cigars 
 for a dollar apiece, and a quarter of a pound of plug tobacco for 
 
 nine dollars. 
 
 After the surrender of General Cronje and his Boer army, 
 and the relief of Ladysmith, the fighting power of the Boers 
 appeared to be greatly weakened. It did not require a long time 
 for further developments. 
 
 "We had a very successful day, and have completely routed 
 the enemy, who are in full retreat." 
 
 This was the beginning of a despatch from Lord Roberts, 
 
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 494 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 issued by the War Office in London at raidnigflit. It was dated 
 Poplar Grove, March 7th, and continued : 
 
 " The position which they (the Boers) occupied is extremely 
 strong and cunningly arranged with a second* line of intrench- 
 nients, which would have caused us heavy loss had a direct attack 
 been made. The turning movement was necessarily wide, owing 
 to the nature of the ground, and the cavaflry and horse-artillery 
 horses are much done up. 
 
 "Theiighting was practically confined to the cavalry divi- 
 sion, which, as usual, did exceedingly well, and General French 
 reports that the horse-artillery batteries did great execution among 
 the enemy. Our casualties were about fifty. Generals De Wet 
 and Delarey commanded the Boer forces." 
 
 ENEMY IN FULL RETREAT. - 
 
 A previous despatch, dated Osfontein, gave these details of 
 Lord Roberts' plans : "The enemy occupied a position four miles 
 north and eleven miles south of the Modder river. I placed Gen- 
 eral Colville's division on the north bank and Generals Kelly- 
 Kenny's and Tucker's divisions, with cavalry, on the south bank. 
 The cavalry division succeeded in turning the enemy's left flank, 
 opening a road for the sixth division, which is advancing without 
 having been obliged to fire a shot up to the present time. 
 
 " The enemy are in full retreat toward the north and east. 
 They are being closely followed by cavalry, horse artillery and 
 mounted infantry, while Tucker's seventh division, Colville's 
 ninth division and the Guard's brigade, under Pple-Carew, are 
 making their way across the river at Poplar's Drift, where I pro- 
 pose to place my headquarters this evening. Our casualties will, 
 I trust, be few, as the enemy were quite unprepared for being 
 attacked by the flank and having their communications with 
 Bloemfontein threatened." 
 
 The British attack on the Boer position at Poplar Grove 
 resulted in a signal victory for Lord Roberts' new tactics. Instead 
 of infantry storming intrenched kopjes, the British worked round, 
 while the guns pounded the enemy and the cavalry made a detour, 
 
ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 460 
 
 was dated 
 
 Is extremely 
 )f intrench- 
 lirect attack 
 Iwide, owing 
 Irse-artillery 
 
 lavalry divi- 
 jeral French 
 Jition among 
 rals De Wet 
 
 e details of 
 n four miles 
 placed Gen- 
 erals Kelly- 
 south bank, 
 's left flank, 
 ;ing without 
 ne. 
 
 h and east, 
 tillery and 
 , Colville's 
 Carew, are 
 v^here I pro- 
 lalties will, 
 I for being 
 tions with 
 
 >lar Grove 
 s. Instead 
 ked round, 
 e a detour, 
 
 threatening their retreat. This was not relished by the Boers, 
 who ran like the wind. 
 
 A bulletin from Lord Roberts was published in London, as 
 follows : 
 
 " Poplar Grove, March 8.— Two brigades of cavalry, with 
 horse artillery and Kelly-Kenny's division, marched to-day ten 
 miles eastward. The Boers were quite taken by surprise yester- 
 day. They moved off so hurriedly that they left cooked dinners 
 behind. We captured a Krupp 
 gun and several tents and 
 wagons. Gatacre rep6rts that 
 he intends occupying Burghers- 
 dorp to-day. Repairs to the rail- 
 way toward both Stormberg and 
 Steynsburg are being pushed. ,, , ,^ 
 Clements now occupies Norval's iJi-.siMk% 
 Pont, on the south bank of the ?^j'./<!/„;,„7//-j' ' 
 Orange river. The bridge was ^*'« 
 blown up March 6, and the I 
 enemy are holding the north 
 bank of the river, but not, it is 
 believed, in any great strength." 
 
 The situation at this time 
 was decidedly favorable to the 
 British. Lord Roberts had out- 
 flanked the Boers and Free 
 Staters, and they were retreating rapidly to the north and east, 
 closely pursued by a strong force of British cavalry and horse 
 artillery, while no less than thirty thousand infantry were follow- 
 ing in their track. 
 
 , For some time Lord Roberts had a growing commando of Boers 
 intrenched in his front on both banks of the Modder River, about 
 ten miles east of Paardeberg. 
 
 The strength of this commando was put at four thousand, but 
 as the ti inches covered a space of fifteen miles, that must have been 
 an underestimate. 
 
 general piet a. cronje, 
 
 WHO SURRENDERED HIS ARMY TO GENERAL 
 LORD ROBERTS. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 496 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMM. 
 
 The Boers were faced by the Ninth, Seventh and Sixth Di- 
 visions, while General French, with his cavalry, was at the last 
 moment brought from the extreme left of the British line to the 
 extreme right, facing the Boer left. The British operations opened 
 with the cavalry working round the Boer left, covering the march 
 of the Sixth Division. The Boers at once fell back to the north 
 and east. The cavalry and horse artillery followed closely, aud 
 the Seventh and Ninth divisions and the Guards brigade also 
 marched in pursuit. The Boers lost one gun, an immense quan- 
 tity of forage and a number of tents. The retreat degerierated 
 into a rout. ' ' • ' 
 
 The Boer tactics appear to have been elementary in the ex- 
 treme, for they had no real defence on either of their flanks, al- 
 though their intrenchments were intricate, while the nature of the 
 country allowed the easy progress of cavalry in whichever direc- 
 tion was deemed advisable. The ease with which Roberts attained 
 his object strongly indicated that the Boers never intended to make 
 a serious stand at this position, and that it was merely a screen to 
 hide their real point of concentration, .or was a device to get the 
 British to display their full strength. 
 
 DISLOYALTY IN CAPE COLONY. 
 
 From other quarters of the war the reports were favorable to 
 the British except in the northwestern provinces of Cape Colony, 
 where the Dutch uprising was setting the Carnarvon District on 
 fire. In Natal, Buller pushed up reconnoitering bodies of troops 
 northward and westward, backed up by reinforcements. Scouts re- 
 ported that there were no Boers on the Natal side of Van Reeuen's 
 Pass. 
 
 A heavy casualty list was received from Buller of losses dur- 
 ing the last two weeks of February, affording evidence of the de- 
 termined resistance of the Boers in the final operations for the 
 relief of Ladysmith. The catalogue comprised 123 killed, 575 
 wounded and 54 missing. 
 
 Adding these to the returns issued previously, it made the total 
 1859 for the two weeks named. 
 
 § IP 
 
 iii " 
 
ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 m 
 
 Altogether it may be estimated that no less than six thousand 
 British troops were killed, wounded or captured by the operations 
 of the relief column during ten weeks. 
 
 It will be of interest to the reader to learn what explanation 
 the Boers gave of their retreat and of the attendant military 
 operations. The following was sent out from the Boer camp at 
 Biggarsberg : 
 
 " The Federals have fallen back on the Biggarsberg chain, 
 crossing Natal south of Dundee. The retreat from Ladysmith 
 was due to the mistake of a 
 certain commandant in order- 
 ing his men to retire from the 
 key of the position without any 
 reason for the move. 
 
 " On the receipt of the bad 
 news from the Mc<dder River 
 on February aStl: it was re- 
 solved to send the wagons back 
 to Biggarsberg, and soon long 
 strings of ox wagons lined the 
 roads. Over a thousand wag- 
 ons took the westerly route to 
 the laager southwest of Lady- 
 smith. Another convoy was 
 sent to the foot of the Drakens- 
 berg. A large number of tents 
 captured from the British at 
 Dundee and also the ammunition were Oi. necessity abandoned. 
 
 "The chief difficulty was in dismounting 'Long Tom.' The 
 Boers were independent of the railway, as is shown by the fact 
 that not one of their two thousand wagons went by rail. All 
 travelled by road, together with the field batteries. Only the 
 heavy guns, the infantry and wounded went by rail. 
 
 " When the last train had left Elandslaagte a workmen's train 
 followed, carefully blowing up every bridge and culvert between 
 Ladysmith and Glencoe, and when this had been done, setting fire 
 
 82 
 
 GENERAL FRENCH, 
 
 COMMANDER OF THE BRITISH CAVALRY. 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 M^'i 
 
 t»» ■!■' 
 
 u 
 
 -.^ A\y 
 
498 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
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 li: ihir 
 
 to the Elandslaagte colleries. Thus the British, with Natal's 
 southernmost colleries in their hands, are unable to draw supplies 
 therefrom. 
 
 " Under cover of the night and with the collieries sending 
 lurid flames to heaven the bullock wagons wound over the hills, 
 making roads where none before existed ; and the four months' 
 siege of Ladysmith was raised. It is impossible as yet to give the 
 burgher casualties, owing to the disorganization of the ambulance 
 corps and the circumstances of the retreat." 
 
 From Glencoe, Natal, under date of March 3d, a despatch 
 said : 
 
 " President Kruger, who had been at the front, returned to 
 Pretoria yesterday. His address to the burghers fired them with 
 fresh enthusiasm to continue the fight for independence and to 
 bring the war to a successful issue." 
 
 THE SHAMROCK FOR IRISH SOLDIERS. 
 
 On March 7th an army order was issued at London 
 announcing that the Queen had ordered that in future, on St. 
 Patrick's Day, all ranks of her Irish regiments should wear as a 
 distinction a sprig of shamrock in their head dress to commemo- 
 rate the gallantry of her Irish soldiers in the battles in South 
 Africa. 
 
 For several days there were persistent rumors of an attempt 
 to end the war. On March Qtli it was learned that the peace ru- 
 mors were founded on the fact that President Kruger had appealed 
 to Lord Salisbury for a cessation of hostilities, offering at length 
 by cable the terms which he was willing to accept. These, how- 
 ever, were not taken seriously, as they included practically noth- 
 ing more than what the Transvaal g vernment offered prior to the 
 issuing of the British ultimatum. 
 
 Official circles in London regarded the propositions as merely 
 a ruse of the Boers to gain time, and did not believe that Presi 
 dent Kruger was yet ready to consider the sweeping demands 
 which Great Britain would make as reimbursement for the loss c>t 
 life and great expenditure. - 
 
filf 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBKRTS' COLUMN. 
 
 mi 
 
 It was understood that President Krugcr's advances had met 
 with an emphatic rejection at the hands of Lord Salisbnry, who 
 said that no such attempt to retain the independence of the Trans- 
 vaal could be considered for a moment by the British government. 
 From various quarters, however, came signs of the possibility of 
 peace in South Africa being shortly within the bounds of practi- 
 cal politics. All the despatches from Lord Roberts' headquarters, 
 including those of the commander-in-chief himself, indicated the 
 lack of a guiding spirit among the Boers and individual demorali- 
 zation, portending disintegration unless speedily stemmed. 
 
 The flight of the burghers from PoplarGrove, according to all 
 accounts, v/as wholly inglorious. It was asserted that the Boers' 
 rout was so complete that the submission of the Free State was 
 being demanded by the burghers from their unwilling President, 
 and it was expected that its submission would be made at an 
 early date. 
 
 The Boers' wisest course was flight, but it was most undig- 
 nified and produced consternation at Bloemfontein. There was a 
 growing outcry against any further identification of the Free 
 State with the Transvaal's interests. 
 
 PRESIDENT KRUGER EAGER FOR THE FRAY. 
 
 Despatches from the Boer camp at Glencoe depicted Presi- 
 dent Kruger as donning a bandolier, seizing a rifle and inviting 
 volunteers to accompany him, as he wished to have a shot at the 
 enemy himself. President Kruger was also quoted as having de- 
 clared in his address to the troops that he did not know whether 
 arbitration or intervention would end the struggle, but that it 
 would end quickly, within the next month, he strongly believed. 
 
 Meanwhile the British were not staying their advance. Lord 
 Roberts moved ten miles nearer to Bloemfontein, evidently with 
 the view of seizing and utilizing the railroad, possibly to reach 
 the Free State capital in three or four days, whence he might 
 begin repairing the railroad southward, meeting the British ad- 
 vance from Cape Colony, which was expected to be hastened 
 as soon as General White took control. 
 
 
 M'^' 
 
 »'■ H A 
 
500 
 
 ADVANCK OK ROMKRTS' COLUMN. 
 
 ni! 
 
 :ii ;:•!!, 
 
 Broad wood's cavalry brijj^adc, advancing on Bloemfontcin, 
 unexpectedlj' found the Boers in a strong position in the Dreifou- 
 tein kopjes on March loth. General Kelly-Kenny's division 
 arriving, severe fighting ensued. The Boers resisted stubbornly, 
 but were driven from their centre position, leaving a number of dead 
 and forty prisoners. The British force was moving forward rapidl} . 
 During the fighting, in which five regiments took part, with artil- 
 lery, the Boers, though forced from their centre position, clung 
 tenaciously to the othei kopjes, shelling the British freely with 
 three guns and two Viekers-Maxims. The British cavalry began 
 to turn the Boer position, but night fell before the movement was 
 completed. The Boers retired during the night. 
 
 A later despatch from Dreifontein, March ii, announced that 
 all of the preceding" day was occupied in fighting. The Boers 
 maintained a stubborn rear guard action along a running front of 
 twelve miles on a very difficult ground. The British were advanc- 
 ing in three columns. General Tucker, to the southward, occu- 
 pied Petrusberg unopposed. General Kelly-Kenny, after follow- 
 ing the river bank, moved in the direction of Abraham's Kraal. 
 
 BRITISH CAVALRY STOUTLY RESISTED. 
 
 At Dreifontein, about eight miles south of Abraham's Kraal, 
 the Boers were found posted in considerable strength on the ridges 
 connecting several kopjes, where they had mounted guns. The 
 action began at 8 in the morning, with an artillery duel. General 
 French's cavalry and General Porter's brigade supported the 
 British guns. The Boer artillery was accurately handled, and 
 the British cavalry found a task harder than they had expected. 
 
 General Broadwood, with dogged perseverance, moved alto- 
 gether six miles southward, trying to find a means to get round, 
 but the Boers followed behind rising ground and even attempted 
 to_ outflank him. Meanwhile the Sixth Division of infantry, 
 advancing on the Boer left, slowly forced the enemy to retire. 
 Had the infantry been able to move faster, the Boers would have 
 been enveloped. 
 
 Th« War Office in London received the following advices 
 
ADVANCE OF ROIiKKTS' COLUMN. 
 
 Ml 
 
 from Lord Roberts, dated Dreifoiitcin, Sunday, March ii, 9.45 a. 
 M.: " The following telegram has been addressed l)y me to their 
 Honors, the State Presidents of the Orange Free State and the 
 South African Republic : 
 
 " 'Another instance having occurred of gross abuse of the 
 white flag and of the signal of holding up hands in token of sur- 
 render, it is my duty to inform you that if such abuse occurs 
 again I shall most reluctantly be compelled to order my troops to 
 disregard the white flag entirely. 
 
 " 'The instance occurred on a kopje east of Drcifontein Farm 
 yesterday evening, and was witnessed by several of my own staff 
 ofiicers, as well as by myself, and resulted in the wounding of several 
 of my officers and men. 
 
 "'A large quantity of explosive bullets of three different 
 kinds was found in Commandant Cronje's laager, and this has 
 been the case after every engagement with your Honors' troops. 
 Such breaches of the recognized usages of war and of the Geneva 
 Convention are a disgrace to any civilized Power. A copy of this 
 telegram has been sent to my Government, with the request that 
 it may be communicated to all neutral Powers.' " 
 
 DRIVEN AT POINT OF BAYONET. 
 
 Roberts' victory over the Boer rear guard as he pressed on 
 toward Bloemfontein appears to have been decisive. The burghers 
 withstood the cavalry and horse artillery of Colville and Kelly- 
 Kenny, but were turned and dislodged by the infantry. The 
 Welsh and Essex regiments drove the Boers from their intrenched 
 positions at the point of the bayonet. The British losses were 
 unknown. As the troops continued to advance Roberts tele- 
 graphed the names of few casualties. The Boer losses must have 
 been considerable, as 102 of their dead were left on the field. 
 
 Aasvogel Kop, which the British reached March 11 tli, v^^as 
 expected to be the last place at which the Boers would mak^ their 
 stand before Bloemfontein. No such stand was made, and Rob- 
 erts' cavalry on that date were practically at the gates of Bloem- 
 fontein, and the way to the Capital was open to the whole force. 
 
 i 
 
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502 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
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 '■ii 
 
 Concerning the peace proposals alluded to in the foregoiiur 
 pages it may be said that unconditional surrender on the part of 
 the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and an absolute declination 
 to consider any proffer of good offices or intervention on the part 
 of any foreign Power, was the policy decided upon by the British 
 Government. Leader Balfour's announcement of the terms on 
 which her Majesty's Government were willing to end the war 
 created the liveliest interest among the members of all shades 
 of politics. It quite overshadowed, in the public mind, for the 
 time being, the importance of Roberts' advance on Bloemfontein. 
 
 PEACE OFFERS REJECTED. 
 
 The document was very brief, consisting of ouly two 
 telegrams. The first was a communication from Presidents 
 Kruger and Steyn, expressing the readiness of the Transvaal and 
 Orange Free State to surrender, provided the independence of the 
 P..epublic was assured. The reply of the government was a per- 
 emptory refusal to entertain any such terms. There must be 
 unconditional surrender. In the Parliamentary lobby the idea of 
 entertaining any such proposals was altogether scouted. The 
 military experts believed that the end of the war was still far dis- 
 tant. A prominent member of the Government stated that no 
 settlement with the South African Republics would be possible 
 which failed as a starting point tq provide for the disarmament of 
 the Boers and the demolition of their fortresses. 
 
 Lord Roberts again turned the Boer position, and with his 
 entire force, which comprised 40,000 men, arrived at Venters- 
 veller, twelve miles southwest of Bloemfontein. The Boers, who 
 numbered 12,000 men, with eighteen guns, were entrenched along 
 the main road to the Free State capital, but the British, by keep- 
 ing south and following Kraal Spruit instead of the Modder, 
 flanked them. It was now doubtful if the burghers would make 
 any further attempt to defend Bloemfontein. If they did they 
 would have to take up a new position where they would have but 
 little time to entrench themselves. Such was the critical situation 
 in which the Boer army was placed. 
 
ADVANCE OF ROBERTS* COLUMN. 
 
 503 
 
 foregoiiijr 
 e part of 
 leclination 
 in the part 
 the British 
 terms on 
 the war 
 til shades 
 |d, for the 
 lemfontein. 
 
 ouly two 
 Presidents 
 tisvaal aud 
 :nce of the 
 'vas a per- 
 e must be 
 I the idea of 
 ited. The 
 till far dis- 
 ed that no 
 e possible 
 nament of 
 
 1 with his 
 Venters- 
 'Oers, who 
 bed along 
 by keep- 
 Modder, 
 uld make 
 did they 
 have but 
 situation 
 
 On J larch 13th was issued at London a correspondence of 
 greatest moment between the Republics of South Africa and the 
 British Government. It first gave the telegrams sent by the two 
 presidents to the Marquis of Salisbury, as follows : 
 
 " Bloemfontein, March 5.— The blood and tears of thousands 
 who have suffered by this war and the prospect of all moral and 
 economic ruin wherewith South Africa is now threatened, make 
 it necessary forboth belligerents to ask thembcVes dispassionately 
 and as in the sight of the triune God for what are they fighting 
 and whether the aim of each justifies all this appalling misery 
 and devastation. With this object and in view of the assertions 
 of various British statesmen to the effect that this war was begun 
 and is being carried on with the set purpose of undermining Her 
 Majesty's authority in South Africa and of setting up an admin- 
 istration over all of South Africa independent of Her Majesty's 
 government, we consider it our duty to solemnly declare that 
 this war was undertaken solely as a defensive measure to maintain 
 the threatened independence of the South African Republic, and is 
 only continued in order to secure and maintain the incontestable 
 independence of both Republics as sovereign international states 
 and to obtain the assurance that those of Her Majesty's subjects 
 who have taken part with us in this war shall suffer no harm 
 whatever in person or property. 
 
 REPUBLICS MUST BE INDEPENDENT. 
 
 " On these conditions, but on these conditions alone, are we 
 now, as in the past, desirous of seeing peace re-established in 
 South Africa, while, if Her Majesty's Government is determined 
 to destroy the independence of the republics there is nothing left 
 to us and to our people but to persevere to the end in the course 
 already begun. In spite of the overwhelming pre-eminence of 
 the British Empire we are confident that God, who lighted the 
 inextinguishable fire of love of freedom in the hearts of ourselves 
 and our fathers, will not forsake us and will accomplish his work 
 in us and our descendants. We hesitated to make this declara- 
 tion earlier to your excellency as we feared that as long as the 
 
 
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 •iJnt?| 
 
 
604 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 Mi ill ^'V 
 
 ill 
 
 advantage was always on our side and as long as our forces hel6 
 defensive positions far within Her Majesty's colonies, such a dec- 
 laiation might hurt the feelings and honor of the British people. 
 
 " But now that the prestige of the British Empire may be con- 
 sidered to be assured by the capture of one of our forces by her 
 Majesty's troops and that we have thereby been forced to evacuate 
 other positions which our forces had occupied, that difficulty is 
 over and we can no longer hesitate to clearly inform your govern- 
 ment and people, in the sight of the whole civilized world, why we 
 are fighting and on what conditions we are ready to restore peace." 
 
 The Marquis of Salisbury to the president of the South African 
 Republic and Orange Free State : 
 
 " Foreign Office, March ii. — I have the honor to acknowledge 
 your honors' telegram dated March 5 from Bloemfontein, of which 
 the purport is principally to demand that Her Majesty's govern- 
 ment grant the ' incontestable independence' of the South African 
 Republic and Free State, ' as sovereign international states,' and to 
 offer on these terms to bring the war to a conclusion. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CASE. , 
 
 " In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her 
 Majesty and the two Republics under conventions which then were 
 in existence. 
 
 " A discussion had been proceeding for some months between 
 Her Majesty's government and the South African Republic, of 
 which the object was to obtain redress for certain very serious 
 grievances under which the British residents in South Africa were 
 suffering. 
 
 " In the course of these negotiations the South African Repub- 
 lics had to the knowledge of Her Majesty's go^'ernment made 
 considerable armaments, and the latter had consequently taken 
 steps to provide corresponding reinforcements of the British gar- 
 risons at Cape. Town and in Natal. 
 
 " No infringement of the rights guaranteed by the conventions 
 had up to that point taken place on the British side. Suddenly, 
 at two days' notice, the South African Republic, after issuing aij 
 
mm 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 505 
 
 ttisnlting ultimatum, declared war upon Her Majesty, and the 
 Orange Free State, with whom there had not even been any dis< 
 cussion, took a similar step. Her Majesty's dominions were imme- 
 diately invaded by two Republics. Siege was laid to three towns 
 within the British frontier, a large portion of two colonies was 
 overrun, with great destruction of property and life, and the Repub- 
 lics claimed to treat the inhabitants of extensive portions of Her 
 Majesty's domini' is as if those dominions had been annexed to 
 one or the other of them. 
 
 " In anticipation of these operations the South African Repub- 
 lics had been accumulating for many years past military stores on 
 an enormous scale, which, by their character, could onlj'^ have been 
 introduced for use against Great Britain. 
 
 INVASION COSTING THOUSANDS OF LIVES. 
 
 " Your honors make some observations of a negative character 
 upon the object with which these preparations were made. I do 
 not think it necessary to discuss the questions you have raised. 
 But the result of these preparations, carried on with great secrecy, 
 has been that the British Empire has been compelled to confront 
 an invasion which has entailed upon the Empire a costly war and 
 the loss of thousands of precious lives. This great calamity has 
 been the penalty Great Britain has suffered for having of recent 
 years acquiesced to the existence of the two republics. 
 
 " In view of the use to which the two Republics have put the 
 position which was given them and the calamities their unpro- 
 voked attack has inflicted on Her Majesty's dominions, Her 
 Majesty's government can only answer your honors' telegrams by 
 saying they are not prepared to assent to the independence either 
 of the South African Republic or the Orange Free State." 
 
 Our government at Washington was asked by Presidents 
 Kruger and Steyn, through United States Consul Adelbert S. Hay, 
 at Pretoria, to intervene for the purpose of testoring peace. The 
 representations made by our government to Great Britain were to 
 the effect that anything the State Department could do in the 
 interests o^ peace would gladly be undertaken. The well known 
 
 
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 ^■^hv 
 
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If Tti^jj 
 
 M6 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
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 li: i: 
 
 aversion of the British government to any foreign intervention 
 does not appear to have been aroused, and, while Lord Salisbury 
 stated he was unable to comply with the offer, he expressed his 
 appreciation of the United States' efforts on behalf of humanity. 
 Mr. Hay and the other consuls, subsequent to Presidents 
 Kruger and Steyn sending their peace cablegram to Lord Salis- 
 bury, were asked to endeavor to secure the good offices of their 
 respective governments, apparently with the view of bringing out- 
 side influence to bear upon Lord Salisbury's reply to the Boer 
 overtures. These seem to have been fruitless, except in the 
 instance of the United States consul, whose representations to 
 Secretary Hay were forwarded March 12 to the United States 
 embassy in London with the instructions outlined above. These 
 Mr. White, the charge d'affaires, personally presented to Lord 
 Salisbury, who received them cordially but without committing 
 himself to any definite expression of opinJon. 
 
 OFFER MADE TOO LATE. 
 
 As the Boer overtures had already been answered to the 
 effect that no propositions including the maintenance of the 
 Republics' independence could be considered, the presentation of 
 the American offer was already too late, but the premier apparently 
 deemed it a matter of sufficient importance to put himself on 
 record with a formal reply. 
 
 Salisbury's declaration sounded the death knell of the inde- 
 pendence of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Their 
 future existence will be as Colonies of the Crown. The appeal of 
 Presidents Kruger and Steyn to the Powers for intervention fell 
 upon unheeding ears. From the capitals of Europe there was no 
 response. Despatches from Berlin, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg 
 and Rome were all of the same tenor. Every Government realized 
 that England was determined to settle the affair herself in her 
 own way this time. 
 
 There is a marked difference from a diplomatic standpoint 
 between intervention and mediation. Intervention implies that 
 one of the parties might perhaps brook no interference, but that 
 
 a 
 
 H 
 
 X 
 M 
 
 W 
 
 5 
 
 O 
 
 n 
 o 
 
 r 
 w 
 z 
 
 w 
 O 
 
|tervention 
 Salisbury 
 ■essed his 
 umanity. 
 residents 
 rord Salis- 
 s of their 
 ging out- 
 the Boer 
 pt in the 
 tations to 
 :ed States 
 e. These 
 d to Lord 
 ommitting 
 
 ed to the 
 ice of the 
 intation of 
 apparently 
 limself on 
 
 the inde- 
 te. Their 
 e appeal of 
 ention fell 
 ere was no 
 Petersburg 
 nt realized 
 elf in her 
 
 itandpoint 
 
 plies that 
 
 but that 
 
 
 111 1' 
 
 
 l-H'jgL; ;i(<. 
 
 607 
 
SOS 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS* COLUMN. 
 
 !l-li 
 
 N 
 
 i° 
 
 iil! I ' ■! ^ 
 
 intervention would take place despite this. No Power whatever 
 displayed the slightest intention to intervene in any way. Berlin^ 
 Paris, Vienna and Rome all notified their representatives at Pre* 
 toria that they could not interfere. 
 
 As regards mediation, it was considered highly improbable 
 that any one of the European powers would take the initiative 
 and put the question to Great Britain whether mediation was 
 desired. The Kaiser's Government replied that Germany would 
 be ready to co-operate in any movement for mediation as soon 
 as it became clear that both parties desired it. 
 
 Very soon stirring news came from the British column that 
 for a number of days had been pressing on toward the capital of 
 the Orange Free State. London and all other British and colonial 
 towns were excited and made jubilant by another victory of the 
 British forces. Following is the text of Lord Roberts' despatch to 
 the War Office in London announcing his occupation of the capital 
 of the Orange Free State : 
 
 FLIGHT OF FREE STATE OFFICIALS. 
 
 '* Bloemfontein, Tuesday, March 13, 8 p.m. — By the help of 
 God and by the bravery of Her Majesty's soldiers, the troops under 
 my command have taken possession of Bloemfontein. The British 
 flag now flies over the Presidency, evacuated last evening by Mr. 
 Steyn, late President of the Orange Fr-ee State. Mr. Fraser, 
 member of the late executive government ; the Mayor, the Secre- 
 tary to the late government, the Landrost and other officials met 
 me two miles from the town and presented me with the keys of 
 the public offices. The enemy has withdrawn from the neighbor- 
 hood, and all seems quiet. The inhabitants of Bloemfontein gave 
 the troops a cordial welcome." 
 
 The events immediately preceding the entrance of the British 
 into Bloemfontein are detailed in two despatches from Lord 
 Roberts. One dated Venter's Vlei at half-past 9 o'clock on the 
 eveuing of March 12th, said: "Our march was again unopposed. 
 We are now about eighteen miles from Bloemfontein. The 
 cavalry division is astride the railway six miles south of B!oem- 
 
 iikiMi^ til 
 
whatever 
 (y- Berlin^ 
 ives at Pre^ 
 
 [improbahle 
 initiative 
 liation was 
 lany would 
 m as soon 
 
 Jolumn that 
 i capital of 
 nd colonial 
 tory of the 
 despatch to " 
 the capital 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 609 
 
 the help of 
 •oops under 
 rhe British 
 ing by Mr. 
 [r. Fraser, 
 
 the Secre- 
 B&cials met 
 be keys of 
 
 neighbor- 
 atein gave 
 
 he British 
 :om Lord 
 ck on the 
 nopposed. 
 2in. The 
 of B!oem- 
 
 fontein. There were 321 men wounded, and about sixty or 
 seventy were killed or are missing. The wounds are, as a rule, 
 more serious than usual, owing to the expanding bullets which 
 are freely used by the Boers." 
 
 A second despatch, dated twenty minutes after 5 o'clock next 
 morning, said: "I directed General French, if there were time 
 before dark, to seize the railway station at Bloemfontein and tlui.s 
 secure the rolling stock. At midnight I received a report from 
 him that, after considerable opposition, he had been able to occupy 
 two hills close to the railway station, which command Bloemfon- 
 tein. A brother of President Steyn has been made a prisoner. 
 The telegraph line leading northward has been cut and the rail- 
 way broken up. I am now starting with the Third Cavalry 
 Brigade, which I called up from the Seventh division, near 
 Petrusburg, yesterday, and the mounted infantry, to reinforce the 
 cavalry division. The rest of the force will follow as quickly as 
 possible." ' 
 
 BRITISH FORCES AT BLOEMFONTEIN. 
 
 A few hours after this despatch was sent the Capital was 
 occupied, an account of which is furnished by an eye-witness as 
 follows : 
 
 "Bloemfontein, Tuesday, March 13th. — Lord Roberts entered 
 Bloemfontein at half-past one o'clock to-day, followed by the 
 Gordon Highlanders, a cavalry brigade and three batteries of 
 horse artillery. Steyn, Fischer and other prominent officials fled 
 privately from the Capital .last night, transferring the seat of 
 government to Kroonstad. The State's position had been dis- 
 cussed for several days between the war. and peace parties in the 
 town. Prominent dignitaries, among them Kellner and Fraser, 
 surrendered the town to Lord Roberts at noon to-day. 
 
 "General French reached the railway seven miles south 
 yesterday afternoon, destroying the track north and south. The 
 object of this step was to delay the arrival of Joubert and block 
 the retreat of the enemy. Since the aifair at Abraham's Kraal 
 there has been only a single skirmish yesterday, when the cavalry 
 
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 ■.mm 
 
 I! !■ 
 
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 ■p''! ?• 
 
 
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 MO 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS COLUMN. 
 
 were engaged. With your other correspondent I got within a 
 hundred yards of the Boers trenches at Abraham's Kraal. We 
 were hunted for eight miles and our horses shot. The back of the 
 war here is broken. The populace are cheering Roberts and the 
 soldiers and Union Jacks are flying everywhere." 
 
 Two newspaper correspondents were the first to enter Bloem- 
 fontein. General French had sent out scouts to feel their way 
 toward the town, perceiving which the correspondents of the 
 Sydney Herald and the London Daily News, with one other, 
 galloped forward and entered the town, which wore an everyday 
 aspect. The people were out shopping or for morning walks, and 
 at first the two newspaper men were regarded as townsfolk. When 
 later it became known that they were the forerunners of the Brit- 
 ish army they were greeted cordially and conducted to a club, 
 where they met Mr. Fraser, of the Executive Council ; the Mayor 
 and other officials. These they persuaded to take carriages and go 
 to meet Lord Roberts. 
 
 LIFE AND PROPERTY PROTECTED. 
 
 As the party drove out of the city the British cavalry were 
 closing around like a high net. The deputation soon arrived 
 opposite the kopje where Lord Roberts was stationed, and one 
 correspondent rode forward and had the honor of announcing to 
 the commander-in-chief that Bloemfontein would surrender. 
 
 A little later the deputation began to approach and Lord 
 Roberts went forward to meet them. The scene was picturesque 
 in the extreme. A few yards away the guns of a battery pointed 
 their grim mouths toward the late position of the Boers, while the 
 tin roofs of Bloemfontein. shone in the distance. After salutes had 
 been exchanged, a member of the deputation stepped forward and 
 declared that the town, being without defense, wished to surren- 
 der, hoping that Lord Roberts would protect life and property. 
 He replied that, provided there was no opposition, he would under- 
 take to guarantee the security of both. 
 
 Lord Roberts notified the deputation of his intention of enter- 
 ing the town in state and they withdrew to inform the towns- 
 
 i !v (in 
 
ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 611 
 
 people. Lord Roberts then made his military dispositions, order- 
 ing the First Brigade to follow him and take possession of the 
 town. With his start' and military attaches he descended the kopje, 
 and he arrived on the plain, where he waited nntil the cavalry 
 approached. Then he entered the city, followed by his personal 
 staff, the general staff, the military attaches and the troops. 
 
 SIEGE OF MAFEKING. 
 
 The following was reported from Mafeking nnder date of 
 February 19th : 
 
 "Horse meat now composes a considerable part of our rations. 
 There is little grumbling. The first pinch of the siege is over, 
 and the town has settled grimly to stick it out. What may be 
 typhoid malaria has broken out in the women's laager, and dysen- 
 tery, due to the absence of vegetables, is rife among the garrison. 
 We are thrown upon our own resources. Such luxuries as we 
 had are exhausted or have been commandeered for the hospitals, 
 which are filled to overflowing. The children's graveyard, close 
 to the 'women's laager, grows weekly, as the young lives are cut 
 short prematurely by r/neli and fever. We look with hope deferred 
 for relief. 
 
 "The cheerfulness which was characteristic of the early days 
 of the siege has almost deserted us, the men preferring to remain 
 at their posts rather than move about and work up an appetite 
 which cannot be satisfied. The natives are in the worst plight. 
 Those who are unable to obtain work are allowed a small handful 
 of meal daily. Many braving the danger wander about the town 
 with gaunt and hungry faces in search of work, which entitles 
 them to an extra ration of meal. If they find work they are gen- 
 erally too weak to perform it. 
 
 "From their advanced posts the Boers rake the streets and 
 the market square. It is impossible to dodge their bullets. We 
 have taken remarkable precaution, however, and the casualties, 
 though heavy, are not what they might have been had less able 
 men been at the head of affairs." 
 
 The same distress was reported on March 13th, only intensified. 
 
 \4 i 
 
 1 
 
112 
 
 ADVANCE OF ROBERTS' COLUMN. 
 
 A despatch from the besieged town said: "The garrison is 
 holding its own. We have heard numerous rumors that the siege 
 will be raised, but so far that is not the case. We are living along 
 patiently on quarter rations, supplemented by the occasional cap- 
 ture of cattle. Our home-made gun erratically bombards the 
 Boer trenches. Horrible stories are current that the Boers are 
 inflicting nameless tortures upon captured native runners. These 
 may not be true, but they are tending to inflame native passions 
 to such an extent that it may soon be impossible to hold the 
 natives in check. 
 
 ARMING THE NATIVES. 
 
 "Owing to the Boers having deliberately bombarded the 
 native stadt, which is full of women and children. Colonel Baden- 
 Powell has armed the natives, but he has only allowed them to 
 act on the defensive, although they have clamored to be allowed to 
 go out and attack at the point of the assegai. They will be pre- 
 vented as long as possible from inflicting reprisals on the Boers." 
 
 Colonel Plumer's column from the north was making excel- 
 lent progress. A despatch from Lobatsi said : "A British patrol, 
 which reconnoitred within fourteen miles of Mafeking, found the 
 railway uninjured and the telegraph wires untouched north of 
 Pitsani. It is reported that Commander EloflF, with a commando, 
 has left Zeerust for Mafeking. Commandant Schwartz, with 150 
 men, is threatening the railway near Aasvogel Kop, north of 
 lyobatsi." 
 
 It was reported that the rebels who refused to accompany the 
 Transvaalers when the latter vacated Taungs and Vryburg were 
 preparing to trek into Damaraland on the approach of the British, 
 but that the Hottentot chiefs were getting ready to bar their 
 escape. 
 
 It- i 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Death of General Joubert, Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Boer Army. 
 
 A DESPATCH from Pretoria, Capital of the South African 
 Republic (Transvaal) dated March 29th, 1900, was as follows : 
 
 "General Joubert died here from peritonitis at eleven o'clock 
 last night, to the general grief The funeral will take place 
 to-morrow, but as General Joubert always desired to be buried in 
 the mausoleum built on his farm, it is uncertain whether the 
 funeral will be a state one or not. The government is pleading 
 with Mrs. Joubert to allow the body to be temporarily interred in 
 the Pretoria churchyard. 
 
 "Reports spread by the English that General Joiibert was 
 wounded at Colenso are unfounded. It was Commandant Joubert 
 who was wounded. General Joubert's successor in the chief com- 
 mand will most probably be General Louis Botha, now command- 
 ing in Natal." 
 
 BRILLIANT CAREER OF THE DEAD LEADER. 
 
 It would seem as if General Joubert went into the war with 
 something of a premonition of his impending death. This came 
 out in several conversations of his with correspondents which 
 were published. The arduous campaign in Natal must have told 
 upon Joubert, as it did upon other generals on both sides, 
 especially as he was sixty-eight years of age. 
 
 When the advance of Lord Roberts on Bloemfontain made it 
 necessary from a military point of view to abandon the line of 
 defence along the Tugela River, which had been so long and 
 stubbornly held by his army. General Joubert conducted with 
 consummate skill the retreat northward to take up fresh defensive 
 positions at Biggarsberg, with Laing's Nek in his rear. It was 
 
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 33 
 
 513 
 
614 
 
 DEATH OF GENERAL J0U13ERT. 
 
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 stated that within the last few weeks before his death he h;ul 
 visited Pretoria to confer with President Krnger as to the future 
 strategy of the war. 
 
 Strong enemy and bitter foe as was Joubert, the news of his 
 death excited no rancorous feeling or unseemly satisfaction, even 
 in the army ranged against him in Natal A kindly sentiment, 
 ; in fact, had already been produced by several instances in whi( h 
 General Joubert had, immediately before the outbreak of the war 
 and during its brief course, displayed his humane and courteous 
 disposition. One such was when he sent a message of condolence 
 to Lady Symons, after the death of General Penn Symous in 
 the hospital at Dundee. 
 
 Nor did the side of the Boer General's character pass 
 unacknowledged by the British leaders against whom he was 
 pitted. Only two days before his death, Sir George White, the 
 gallant defender of Ladysmith.and a commander in chief in India, 
 in a speech at Cape Town, paid a willing tribute to his antagonist, 
 who, he declared, was a soldier and a gentleman, and a brave and 
 honorable opponent. 
 
 A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 How popular he was with his own folk has perhaps never been 
 better shown than in the picturesque scene described by Mr. 
 Bennett Burleigh, the war correspondent who literally stormed 
 Joubert' s special train and travelled with him on his way to the 
 front. At the stations the Boers clustered about the General to 
 shake hands with him. He got down from the train and said a few 
 words of encouragement to the burgher soldiers at each stopping 
 place. 
 
 But few public men of foreign countries were better known 
 from their portraits than was Joubert, whether in his General's 
 uniform or his ordinary dress as a Boer farmer, unless his com- 
 patriot President Krnger is excepted. The Boer leaders had much 
 in common in family history as well as in political association. 
 Like President Krnger, Joubert was of sturdy stock. His name 
 declares a French extraction, as he represented the intermarriage 
 
DEATH OF GENERAL JOUULRT. 
 
 A in 
 
 |ath he li:i(l 
 tlie fiituro 
 
 ^ews of his 
 ictioii, even 
 sentinieiu, 
 in wliidi 
 of the war 
 courteous 
 condolence 
 Symous in 
 
 racter pass 
 om he was 
 White, the 
 ief ill India, 
 antagonist, 
 I brave and 
 
 5 never been 
 •ed by Mr. 
 ly stormed 
 J way to the 
 General to 
 i said a few 
 h stopping 
 
 tter known 
 s General's 
 >s his coni- 
 1 had much 
 issociation. 
 His name 
 ^rmarriage 
 
 of French Huguenot settlers at the Cape with the original Dutch 
 colonists. 
 
 The reasons that led to the "Great Trek," the passionate love 
 of independence, even at the price of isolation from the outside 
 world, swayed him to the end. When his countrymen conceded 
 their country to the British through sheer inal)ility to maintain a 
 government of their own against their numerous enemies among 
 the native tribes, Pietrus Jacobus Joubert was one of the protest- 
 ing party. A demand for the re-cstablishmcnt of the Republic 
 was made to Sir Bartle Frere, but it was not until Krugcr, Joubert 
 and Pretorius formed themselves into a triumvirate in December, 
 1880, that they were able to carry their wishes into effect during 
 the troubles in which Mr. Gladstone's government was then 
 
 involved. 
 
 GREAT MILITARY ORGANIZER. 
 
 Joubert took the command in chief of the burghers and quickly 
 showed that he had a military organization of singular effective- 
 ness at his disposal. In a few weeks defeats were inflicted on the 
 British troops as they endeavored to penetrate the Transvaal. 
 Laing's Nek was followed by the overwhelming disaster of Majuba 
 Hill, in February, 1881, and at the convention signed at the foot 
 of the mountain General Joubert practically won back for the time 
 being the independence of his country. 
 
 His association with Paul Kruger developed as time went on 
 into active rivalry. A keen contest for the Presidency of the 
 Republic took place between them in 1893, when the General 
 received 7,009 votes, against the 7,881 given to Mr. Kruger. In 
 1899 "Oom Paul " had it nearly all his own way, gaining re-election 
 by 12,000 votes, whereas Joubert was but third in the contest, 
 with only 2,000 votes. 
 
 Under his direction, as head of the military forces the organi- 
 zation of the Republic's army was brought to a pitch of per- 
 fection, as the latest campaign has shown. In taking the offensive 
 in the war, Joubert's strategy showed generalship of a high 
 order, and dauntless persistency in the face of serious checks 
 when his farmers met trained troops in close conflict. 
 
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 DEATH OF GENERAL JOUBERT 
 
 There seems little doubt that a confident belief prevailed 
 among the Boers of their ability to overrun Natal as far as Durban 
 before any considerable reinforcements could reach the compara-" 
 lively small British garrison of Natal. No sooner was war declared, 
 on October, nth, 1899, than the Transvaal main army, which had 
 been lying to the north of Laing's Nek, passed down into the 
 British colony. Meanwhile, by concerted movement, the Orange 
 Free State commandoes descended from the western passes and 
 broke the communications of White in Ladysmith and Symous 
 at Dundee. 
 
 In spite of all the efforts of White and his men, Joubert was 
 able to cut off the town and set free a large part of his army to 
 cross the Tugela. It is not clear why the invasion of lower Natal 
 was not pressed with more vigor at this moment. The Boers 
 actually reached Estcourt, and might easily have menaced the 
 capital, Pietermaritzburg, with their rapidly moving troops before 
 the British were in strength enough to drive them back in the open. 
 This was not done, however, and as the brigades of the British 
 field force were hurried up, the Boers hastily withdrew. 
 
 A TOWjER OF STRENGTH. 
 
 General Joubert was one of those who are born to command. 
 He had the faculty of winning the esteem of his countrymen, and 
 securing their confidence. This was due to his manifest sincerity, 
 his thorough honesty, his cool judgment and patriotic devotion to 
 the cause of his country. He did not delude himself into the 
 belief that the conflict with the British was to be an easy one, and 
 for this reason he carried on a systematic work of preparation for 
 it. The veteran warrior urged the claims of his country, not onl}^ 
 with his sword but with his pen. A letter he wrote to Queen 
 Victoria from his home in Pretoria in June, 1899, was a singularly 
 uioving document, in which the Boer struggle for freedom and 
 the history of the "trekking" beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers' 
 was described with effective simplicity, allowing for the distinct- 
 ively- Boer standpoint from which it was written. 
 
 The name of General Joubert has been known throughout 
 
 '<>'^«: 
 
DEATH OF GENERAL JOUBERT. 
 
 517 
 
 the civilized world since the annihilation of Sir George CoUey'it 
 little force at Majuba Hill by the Boers, under his command, in 
 1881, and the engagement at Laing's Nek and the Ingogo river. 
 He was a resolute foe, for he was taken by his parents, when seven 
 years old, to the Orange Free States, where he was taught from 
 early childhood to shoot straight and hate the British. Of school- 
 ing be had but little, and he never saw a newspaper until he was 
 nineteen years old. Reading the few books he could obtain, he 
 succeeded in obtaining a fair knowledge of history and languages. 
 It was during the wars with the natives that he Ijccame 
 acquainted with Paul Kruger, and the two men became bosom 
 friends. As already stated, in its rebellion against England, 
 General Joubert, together with Paul Kruger and one other Boer, 
 was selected to conduct the affairs of the Transvaal. He held 
 quite different views from Kruger. He believed that if the Out- 
 landers were granted the franchise, in a reasonable time they 
 would become good citizens ; at the same time he would not sanc- 
 tion revolt, for when the Jameson raiders were landed safely in 
 Pretoria jail he favored shooting them. 
 
 HAD MADE VAST PREPARATIONS. 
 
 No doubt he is entitled to a great part of the credit for the 
 perfect state of preparation in which the Boer armies took the 
 field at the outbreak of hostilities, the ample supplies of heavy 
 artillery, and the admirable use made of strong positions of defense. 
 He was active in the first days of the mobilization, and exercised 
 constant supervision over the preliminary movements of the 
 invasion of Natal. 
 
 It was he who was in command of the Boers during some of 
 the fiercest assaults made by General Buller in the effort to beat 
 his way through to Ladysmith ; and it is supposed that he 
 directed the masterly retreat northward, without loss of man or 
 gun, after contesting every foot of ground, when the strategy of 
 Lord Roberts made his position untenable. He was prevented 
 from entering Bloemfontein by General French's capture of the 
 railroad. Reports of his ill health had been common, and there 
 
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 DEATH OF GENERAL JOUBER' 
 
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 were stones too, of his unpopularity and loss of authority ; but th,' 
 general belief was that he was engaged in superintending the 
 construction of defenses for Pretoria, in readiness for the expected 
 siege by Lord Roberts. His death following the capture of 
 Cronje, left the Boers without the services of their two most 
 famous and able commanders. 
 
 General Joubert could collect his whole army in forty-eight 
 hours, a much speedier mobilization than any other nation could 
 boast of. He divided the Transvaal into seventeen divisions, 
 each under a commander. These again were subdivided into sec- 
 tions, commanded by field cornets and assistant field cornets. 
 The wonderful mobility of his forces, practically a mass of 
 irregular mounted infantr^'^, has been the subject of repeated com- 
 ment and undisguised admiration on the part of many British 
 commanders. 
 
 When the Boers raided British territory, Bechuanaland, in 
 1884, General Joubert was probably the only prominent Boer who 
 refused to support the movement, and his opposition resulted in 
 the withdrawal of the Boers from the territory seized, as he threat- 
 ened to resign unless he had his way, saying: "I positively 
 refuse to hold office under a government that Joliberately breaks 
 its covenants, and we have made covenants with England." 
 
 General Joubert was almost six feet in height and of stout 
 build. His nickname of "Slim" was conferred on him for his 
 shrewd military tactics, the word "slim" in Dutch being equiva- 
 lent to the American slang word "slick." The widow of General 
 Joubert, who was a Miss Fraser, was with her husband through- 
 out the campaign, and frequently shared his dangers in the field. 
 
 KIND WORDS FOR THE DEAD HERO. 
 
 All the papers of I/ondon printed singularly kind editorials 
 concerning General Joubert. They praised his military skill, 
 upheld liJH chivalrous conduct and regretted that so strong and 
 moderate a ♦iiind sh(;((IH be .bsent from the final settlement of the 
 dispute. 
 
 Although some *»f the younger commanders thought the old 
 
ty;biittlir. 
 
 bnding the 
 
 lie expected 
 
 [capture of 
 
 two most 
 
 forty-eight i 
 ation could 
 divisious, 
 
 d into sec- 
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 1 mass of 
 )eated com- 
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 inaland, in 
 it Boer who 
 resulted in 
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 of General 
 
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 II the field. 
 
 I editorials 
 ary skill, 
 itrong and 
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 ht the old 
 
 DEATH OF GENERAL JOUBERT. 
 
 510 
 
 soldier wanting in dash and enterprise, his raid into the country 
 south of the Tugela was considered the best piece of Boer leader- 
 ship during the whole war. It is now known that he crossed the 
 Tugela with only 3,000 riflemen and six guns, but so bold and 
 rapid were his movements that the British commanders thought 
 10,000 Boers were marching on Pietermaritzburg. For a few days, 
 although in the presence of greatly superior forces, he isolated 
 General Hildyard's brigade at Estcourt and at the same time 
 threatened General Barton's camp at Mool river. Then, as 
 British reinforcements were pushed up, Joubert recrossed the 
 Tugela without losing a prisoner, a wagon or a gun. General 
 White's estimate of him, pronounced two days before he died, as 
 a gentleman and a brave and honorable opponent, illustrated the 
 tone of all British comment. 
 
 THE MASTER MIND OF THE WAR. 
 
 One of our ablest American journals commented as follows 
 upon the situation in South Africa : 
 
 "The death of Commandant General Joubert may prove of 
 some importance in the South African war. He has been the 
 most influential of Paul Kruger's associates in all the affairs of 
 the Transvaal, and was the ablest as well as the most experienced 
 military leader among the Boers. Cronje was probably a more 
 modern soldier, but he is already out of the fight. Of the younger 
 commandants, whose names we occasionally hear in the dispatches, 
 we have not learned enough to estimate their actual share in the 
 
 wai. 
 
 "Joubert, who mainly directed the former fights, has been 
 credited with the general plan of campaign adopted at the incep- 
 tion of the war, and particularly with the invasion of Natal and 
 the strong opposition so long maintained to the advance of General 
 Buller. It has been assumed that the army concentrated for the 
 defense of the Vaal would be under his command, and so little is 
 known of his lieutenants — except Olivier, who has shown a good 
 deal of ability in getting back from the Orange river — that scarcely 
 any other name has been nieii.i"iied. 
 
 
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 DEATH OF GENERAL JOUBERT. 
 
 "It is known, however, that Joubert has had the valuable aid 
 of a number of European officers, and as a matter of fact, the 
 strategy of the Boers has been of so obvious a character that th« 
 effect of Joubert's loss is likely to be more important in a personal 
 and political than in a military sense. The Boer campaign, apart 
 from the excursions of small bodies of light troops, has no,v 
 resolved itself into a simple question of holding an inner circle of 
 strong defenses, and this they should be able to do without the 
 need of any scientific generalship, provided they maintain their 
 determination and do not fall out among themselves. 
 
 A LOSS THAT CANNOT BE REPLACED. 
 
 "The loss of this able soldier, whose campaign, considering 
 the great odds against him, has been one of the most brilliant in 
 military annals, will cast a deep shadow over the two republics. 
 But it will not dash the hopes of his countrymen, who have just 
 been encouraged by the masterly movements of Olivier and 
 Grobler, who have eluded every attempt of the British to inter- 
 cept their armies. They are hastening northward to join the 
 main Boer army at Kroonstaad. With a new commander the 
 Boers may accomplish remarkable results if their main army 
 takes advantage of any opportunity for assuming the offensive. 
 
 "The loss of Cronje's army has probably taught the Boer 
 generals the necessity of abandoning the old system of adhering 
 always to "the stationary defensive." NuniQrous instances of its 
 fatal inapplicability might be cited. If a general in a strong posi- 
 tion is sure that his opponent will attack him in front the defen- 
 sive battle may be preferable. But otherwise the danger of 
 remaining on the defensive before a superior force is immense. 
 Had Hooker on May i, 1863, persisted in his original and 
 excellent plan of pushing forward he might possibly have crushed 
 Jackson. But by suddenly assuming the defensive he enabled 
 his opponent, with a very inferior force, to execute one of his 
 grand and resistless flanking operations upon the right wing and 
 rear of the Union army." 
 
 General Louis Botha was the Boer commandant chosen 
 
 f^^^ 
 
DEATH OF Gx-NERAL JOUBERT. 
 
 621 
 
 lieutenant general of the forces in Natal after Commandant Gen- 
 eral Joubert left for Pretoria, when Cronje surrendered. Now 
 that Joubert was dead, on him fell the military leadership. He 
 commanded the forces that repulsed General Buller's assaults at 
 Spion Kop and at Vaal Krantz. He gave Buller the heavy six- 
 day fight about Pieters. He brought the Boer army with big 
 guns and transports safely away from Ladysmith and fortified 
 the Biggarsburg range. 
 
 "After the battle of Colenso as soon as I saw how a general 
 like Botha could be improvised I began to wonder whether Lord 
 Roberts himself would be able to cross the Tugela," wrote Count 
 DeVillebois Mareuil, the French officer with the Boers. 
 
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CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 
 The Second Canadian Contingent. 
 
 By Rev. Dr. Robert Wilson. 
 
 THE readiness with which men all over the Dominion volun- 
 teered for service in the First Contingent led a few narrow- 
 minded persons to attribute their zeal not to a patriotic desire to 
 fight for Queen and Empire, but because it afforded them an 
 opportunity to have a fine holiday excursion at the public expense ; 
 that on their arrival they would find the war over, and that the 
 way to wealth would be open to them in that land of gold and 
 diamonds. But such an insinuation was soon shown to be 
 groundless, for when a second contingent was proposed, although 
 matters had assumed so grave an aspect that hard fighting was 
 seen to be inevitable, and at least months of bloody strife lay 
 before them, instead of diminishing, the desire to help the Mother- 
 la" i grew stronger day by day, and again it was found that more 
 men than were needed were eager to enlist. 
 
 The Second Contingent was drawn from the North West 
 Mounted Police, the Mounted Rifles, and the Field Artillery. 
 The first named left Halifax on January 27th, and were as fine a 
 body of men as ever marched through the streets of that fine old 
 city. They were of magnificent physique, tall, sinewy, hardy and 
 :rong, men of splendid stature, intelligent in look and fearless in 
 manner, representatives of the best type of Canadian manhood — 
 men of whom any commander might well be proud — men who 
 looked like fighters, ready to dare and to do. 
 
 Before leaving their quarters they were addressed by Lieu- 
 tenant Governor Daly and the Mayor in spirited and patriotic 
 terms, and $15,000 were handed the officer in command for the 
 use of the men. Although Saturday is the busiest day of the 
 week, business was practically suspended, and all that could were 
 on tne streets anxious to see the boys from the West take their 
 departure for the seat of war. Enormous crowds gathered all 
 
SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 623 
 
 along the line, and windows, balconies, housetops, and wherever 
 else standing room could be had, were at a premium. 
 
 The Imperial troops quartered in the Citadel left their 
 barracks and took up a position on Citadel Hill and extended to 
 the Colonials a most fitting send off; and as the latter went by the 
 Regulars, with waving hats and ringing cheers, showed how 
 greatly their conduct was appreciated by their brethren from 
 beyond the seas. 
 
 The excitement was intense, the enthusiasm was irrepressible, 
 the cheering was lusty and continuous, and the scene one to be 
 remembered. Familiar as the residents of Halifax are with mili- 
 tary and naval pageants', it is safe to say that never in their 
 history were they so profoundly moved as on this occasion. 
 
 HEARTY CHEERS AND FAREWELLS. 
 
 At the Dockyard gate some pathetic scenes were witnessed, 
 for there the final farewells were taken. Friends of the departing 
 ones had come many a mile to clasp the hands of dear ones, to say 
 good-bye, and to whisper words of encouragement and cheer. 
 Some of the partings were very touching, and over these we draw 
 a veil. But while all realized the gravity of the situation, there 
 was an evident determination on all sides to make the leave-taking 
 as free as possible from painful memories. 
 
 At a given signal the great iron gates were closed, the troops 
 marched on board, and, amid the shrieking of steamboat whistles 
 and the cheers of thousands of well-wishers, the "Pomeranian" 
 passed down the harbor on her way to far distant Africa, where 
 the Briton and the Boer were engaged in deadly combat. It is 
 often said that hi«^ /y is constantly repeating itself, and the issues 
 of this war furni»h another illustration in confirmation of the 
 same. About one hundred and fifty years ago there passed 
 through these gates the gallant sons of Britain to measure swords 
 with the French at Louisburg and Quebec. And as the result of 
 that contest placed Canada under the British flag, so in this case 
 it was confidently believed that the old flag would be carried to 
 victory. 
 
 
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 SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 The most notable event of the campaign of a Canadian char- 
 acter was the raising and equipping for service in South Africa 
 of what is known as 
 
 THE STRATHCONA HORSE. 
 
 This fine force of 500 mounted men came from the north- 
 west, and in intelligence and strength were quite above the aver- 
 age. They had been selected with great care, were good shots, 
 excellent horsemen, and every way fitted for effective work. The 
 whole cost of the force, until its arrival in Capetown, was provided 
 for by Lord Strathcon?, better known as Sir Donald Smith, and 
 who deserves more than a passing notice in these pages. 
 
 When a lad of eighteen, he left his Scottish home on the 
 banks of the S^f'y, and found employment with an uncle in the 
 service of the 1 idson's Bay Company. Step by step he pushed 
 his way to the front, and won the best positions in the gift of that 
 great organization. In th » Riel Rebellion, which grew out of the 
 purchase by Canada of the Hudson's Bay Territories, he rendered 
 such important service as to receive the public thanks of the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Later on, he entered the Dominion House of Commons, was 
 knighted by Her Majesty, was sent to Loudon as Canadian High 
 Commissioner, and then was raised to the peerage under the name 
 and title of the Right Honorable Baron Strathcona and Mount 
 Royal of Lochnell Castle of the United Kiugdon. — the one 
 Scotch, the other Canadian. 
 
 His princely contributions to various educational and philan- 
 thropic objects and institutions, aggregating some $50,000,000, 
 have won for him enduring fame, while his latest splendid offer- 
 ing on the patriotic altar called forth the warmest admiration of 
 all classes throughout the Empire. Canadians everywhere are 
 proud of the man who has outdistanced every Colonial benefactor 
 in this respect, and were glad to have an opportunity of manifest- 
 ing their appreciation. 
 
 And the time for doing so was singularly appropriate. Just 
 before the departure of this force news had been received of th? 
 
SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 628 
 
 relief of Kimberley, the surrender of Croiijc, the dclivereiicc from 
 the jaws of death of the heroic White, and later, the fall of the 
 Free State capital. Nowhere did these events call forth more 
 enthusiastic rejoicing than in the provinces down by the sea. In 
 every city, town and hamlet the joy was general and heartfelt, 
 and not a discordant note was anywhere heard. Frcdcricton' 
 JVIoncton, Chatham, St. Stephens, Amherst, Truro, Halifax and 
 Saint John vied with each other in their endeavor suitably to 
 celebrate these events. 
 
 Majuba had been avenged and British pluck and endurance 
 had been signally displayed. Cannon boomed, bells rang out 
 their merry peals, whistles shrieked, bands played, impromptu 
 meetings were held at which patriotic addresses were delivered, 
 everybody congratulated everybody else, and public feeling was at 
 fever heat. 
 
 When, therefore, these troopers from the West passed through 
 on their way to Halifax, they were everywhere greeted with an 
 enthusiastic welcome, and followed by a hearty God-speed. 
 
 PRESENTATION OF A FLAG. 
 
 As the troop passed through Moncton, a beautiful silk flag 
 was presented to Col. Staele, on behalf of the city, by Miss Cooke, 
 whose brother had fallen some time previously iu the Imperial 
 service in Africa. 
 
 Their reception at and send-off from Halifax was all that could 
 have been desired as far as the people were concerned. The 
 weather was unfavorable, but that did not materially effect the 
 demonstrations. As on previous occasions, the crowds in attend- 
 ance were enormous, and everyone that could do so witnessed the 
 imposing pageant. Every bit of standing room was utilized, 
 unoccupied spaces there were none, and before, behind and all 
 around a sea of faces met the eye. 
 
 In flag, banner, and badge the Red, White and Blue met the 
 look on all sides, and being St. Patrick's Day the Green was 
 very much in evidence. Ne\ er had such respect been paid to 
 Ireland's patron saint, for thousands of other nationalities thaj^ 
 
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 flU SECOND CANADIAN CONT >IGENT. 
 
 '*' day wore the green in response to the re uest of the good Queen 
 and in honor of the brave Irishmen who had fallen or were fight- 
 ing in defense of the Empire. All that had been said of tlic 
 enthusiasm manifested at the previons departures was equally 
 applicable to this one, for everything in martial music, the \vc;ir- 
 ing and waving of the national colors, lusty cheering or whattxer 
 else could enthuse and thrill was more than reproduced at this 
 later one. 
 
 Among the notable incidents of the day mention may he 
 made of the followinp^ : Lieut.-Governor Daly addressed the 
 force in warm and telling terms, in which he gave expression to 
 his high appreciation of the large-hearted patriotism of Lord 
 Strathcona, as well as his belief that the men before him would 
 give a good account of themselves whenever the opportunity was 
 afforded them. Hon. Dr. Borden, the Minister of Militia, fol- 
 lowed in a brief address in which he said he had " no doubt that 
 tile Strathconas would uphold the honor of the British flag and 
 the reputation of the Canadian soldiers." He also read a telegram 
 from Her Majesty the Queen expressive of the confidence she had 
 in them, and wishing them God-speed and a safe return. 
 
 LAST WORDS FROM RELATIVES. 
 
 A sight that evoked much interest and called forth the 
 heartiest cheers was witnessed on Hollis street. As the proces- 
 sion swept along the balconies of the hotels were crowded by the 
 wives and other relatives of the officers, who had come all the way 
 from the West to see their husbands and friends depart, for amid 
 the excitement of the hour the sad thought could not be banished 
 that in some cases the farewell was a final one. 
 
 Bye and bye the end came, the pier was reached, the order 
 was given to embark, the last good-byes were exchanged, and the 
 "Monteroy" moved out into the harbor, while the stirring strain 
 of the national anthem rang out over the waters. And as the 
 multitude sought their homes, from many a heart went up the 
 prayer for the , coming of the time when wars will have become 
 things of the past. 
 
 \Hi 
 

 SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 627 
 
 To the foregoing account of the Second Cnnadian Contingent 
 by Rev. Dr. Wilson, may appropriately be added some details of 
 the gallant condnct of the Canadian troops who had already 
 reached the battlefields of South Africa. Under date of London, 
 Febrnary 27th, Hon. Joseph Chamberlain sent ti) Lord Newton 
 the following message : 
 
 "Her Majesty, the Queen, desires you to express to the 
 people of the Dominion her admiration of the gallant conduct of 
 her Canadian troops in the late engagement and her sorrow at 
 the loss of so many brave men." 
 
 Hon. E. Sears, Mayor of St. John, N. B., sent the following 
 message to Colonel Otter, commanding the Royal Canadian 
 Regiment, in South Africa: "St. John City is proud of her boys 
 and of the Canadian Regiment. The citizens sympathize with 
 the wounded and regret that we have to mourn for dead." 
 
 HONOR TO THE CANADIANS. 
 
 T/ie Daily News^ an influential journal of London, said: 
 "To the Canadians belongs the honor of having hastened the 
 inevitable. It would be rash, however, to suppose that the Boers 
 will sue for peace or that all our difficulties are removed." 
 
 As showing the feeling in Canada on the war question, news of 
 of the surrender of Cronje was received at Ottawa early in the 
 morning with intense enthusiasm. Flags floated from the Parlia- 
 ment buildings, the clubs, the hotels and from all the principal 
 places in the city. Indeed, every one who had a flag pole saw that 
 it was put in use and those who had not used their windows from 
 which to hang out the Union Jack. 
 
 The feeling outside was [imported into Parliament, although 
 once again the news of victory was somewhat saddene«d by later 
 reports which showed that eight Canadians had been killed and 
 thirty wounded in the attack on the Boer trenches. This informa- 
 tion was given to the house by the Premier and was received with 
 a hush. For a moment a death-like" stillness pervaded the chamber 
 but when Sir Wilfrid went on to read from the despatches that 
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 der there was an outburst of hearty applause from Liberals 
 and Conservatives alike such as one seldom sees in Parliament. 
 
 The fact that the son of a Liberal member of the house, Mr. 
 D. Johnson, of Lambton, was said to be among the killed, and that 
 Lieut. Col. Pelletier, the son of the speaker of the senate, was 
 wounded, brought the news close to both branches of the legisla- 
 ture. That the Canadians had done their duty was what every 
 one was proud of. 
 
 Sir Wilfrid Laurier said : " It may not be out of place that 
 we should interrupt the regular course of business to give a 
 moment's attention to the news from Africa today. The news we 
 have received is of a character at once to cheer and sadden our 
 hearts. It is cheering in this respect, that it brings the announce- 
 ment that our Canadian troops on the field have received their 
 baptism of fire and have supported the ordeal in a manner credit- 
 able to themselves and to their country. The telegraphic message 
 gives no details whatever, still we know by the number of 
 casualties which have taken place that our men have died at their 
 posts and that their courage has been equal to what was expected 
 of them. Butlthis is the saddening part of it. 
 
 HORRORS OF WAR. 
 
 Cft< 
 
 'Such is the awful character of war, that its triumphs are 
 always nixed with tears, and however much we can rejoice at the 
 victories achieved by the British arms — victories in which our 
 fellow countrymen are taking a part — still, the announcement is 
 saddened by the fact that twenty of our countrymen have lost their 
 lives and sixty-nine are now lying between life and death. The 
 announcement is such as to, if it were possible, still more confinu 
 us in our resolve of doing our full duty in the present emergency. 
 We can do nothing at present to solace these families who are 
 bereaved, but we can assure them, and this I am sure we do with 
 our whole heart, that their loss is not their own alone ; but is also 
 ours and our country's." 
 
 Loud cheers followed this graceful tribute of the Premier to 
 the gallantry of the Canadian soldiers, and other eulogies scarce 
 
SECOND CANANIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 629 
 
 less eloquent and pathetic were added by prominent members of 
 Parliament. 
 
 The following cable was sent to Colonel Otter by the Premier : 
 " I desire to convey to you and your men the grateful thanks of 
 the Government and Parliament of the Dominion for the gallantry 
 displayed on the battlefield. Canada warmly appreciates the sac- 
 rifices made by her sons for the honor of the Empire. The 
 wounded have our sympathy and our prayers for speedy recovery. 
 Those who have given up their lives will ever be held in remem- 
 brance by a grateful people. j 
 
 Wilfrid Laurier." - 
 
 ROYAL VISIT TO A HOSPITAL. 
 
 On the day of this patriotic demouotration there was no 
 prouder person in England than Private A. E. Cole, of the Second 
 Royal Canadians, who was the only wounded Canadian so far 
 known in England and who was specially honored by the Queen 
 and other members of the royal family who visited Netley. 
 Noticing his regimental name the Queen asked to see him. Cole, 
 a bright fellow, 25 years of age, was ushered into her Majesty's 
 presence and she tenderly inquired as to the circumstances under 
 which he was wounded. Cole saluted and replied: "It was on 
 the occasion of Colonel Pilcher's march to- Sunny side, your 
 Majesty. Our regiment advanced to the attack and while cross- 
 ing the open ground I was shot through the foot." 
 
 The Queen expressed sympathy with Cole's suffering and 
 showed a keen appreciation of the loyalty displayed by his com- 
 rades and himself in volunteering for active service. The Prin- 
 cess Beatrice also spoke in a kindly manner to the young 
 Canadian. 
 
 Letters sent home by the Canadian troops possessed a thril- 
 ling interest. From one of these, which is typical of all the rest, 
 we are permitted to make extracts. It is from a, member of "B" 
 Company, Chester D. McLaren : 
 
 " I am writing this from Naauwpoort Hospital, where I was 
 
 taken after the battle at Paardeburg Drift, on Sunday, i8th inst 
 34 
 
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m 
 
 SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 As It is some time since I wrote you, I will try and give you a 
 detailed account of our march after leaving Belmont till the 
 present. 
 
 "Monday night, I2th inst, we entrained at Belmont at 
 sundown and proceeded to Graspan and bivouacked there, getting 
 settled about i o'clock. As we left our tents at Belmont we bad 
 to sleep in our great coats. We only got nicely asleep when the 
 bugle sounded to arise. We found it was 3 o'clock, and we only 
 had two hours' sleep ; we packed the wagons and were marching 
 before sunrise. We did twelve miles that morning under a ter- 
 rific sun with not a breath of wind to help us, and before we got 
 six miles we drank all our water, and had to march the other six 
 without anything. 
 
 DANGERS AND HARDSHIPS. 
 
 "When about a mile from Ramsdam, the name of the drift we 
 were making for, over two hundred of our men had to drop out, 
 owing to the intense heat. I managed to stand it out, although I 
 hardly know how I did it, as I was almost raving for a drink of water. 
 When we reached the drift we found a large pond, about the size 
 of Springbank reservoir, but only 30 inches deep. This drift had 
 been occupied by the Boers, who were driven out by the brigade 
 who preceded us, and about 1,000 mules and oxen were watered 
 and allowed to stand in this pond. We drank the water, and lots 
 of it, too, although it was muddy, and no bad results seemed to 
 follow. After filling our canteens and getting enough water for 
 our tea, we j uinped into the pond and had a "bath." When we 
 looked into our canteens in the morning there was a fine scum 
 all over the water — just like you can see over the Cove in South 
 London — but everything goes here. 
 
 " Wednesday, 14th. — We had to drop about a dozen of our 
 men here, who were unfit to proceed further. We left Ramsdam 
 at 5 a. m. and marched a good five miles before sunrise, then made 
 the rest of the distance to Watervaal. Very few of our men 
 dropped out on this march. Watervaal is on the Riet River, 
 where is abundance of good water. We were fatisfue re8:inieut 
 
SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 081 
 
 foj our brigade to-day, and had to let all the transport wagons 
 down the steep bank of the river and haul them np the opposite 
 bank, so that the oxen and mules could be hitched to them. We 
 also had to take across the two naval guns we had with us. They 
 weighed 7,000 and 8,000 lbs., respectively. 
 
 " We reached here at noon, and we did all this heavy work 
 till 6 o'clock with only a hard-tack biscuit, but at 6 o'clock we had 
 a good dinner served to us of fresh beef and soup, and we didn't 
 do a thing to it. Oh, no ! I was mess orderly for the day, and 
 in addition to my share of the hard work had to get water from 
 the river, a quarter of a mile distant, and get all pots aud kettles 
 ready for breakfast, and by eight o'clock I was rolled up in my 
 great coat and sound asleep. Shortly after the orderly corporal 
 came around and ordered us to draw four days' rations of biscuits. 
 
 ADVANCING DAY AND NIGHT. 
 
 " We had to go from wagon to wagon before finding them, and 
 before we had them distributed it was 12 o'clock. We only 
 touched the ground before we were sound asleep. We were again 
 called at 3 o'clock, and started at 5. Marched to Wedgrail, a dis- 
 tance of nine miles, but this was a pleasant march, as the sky was 
 hazy, and a nice breeze blowing, which made it more like an early 
 morning constitutional than a forced march. We camped here 
 all day, and our company was on picket, which was not at all 
 unpleasant, as we could see the storming of Jacobsdal where the 
 Boers were so suddenly surprised and driven out. Next day we 
 marched to Jacobsdal, and camped there all day. 
 
 " Here we commandeered a good-sized calf, and I was lucky 
 enough to get my hands on a pair of ancient hens, which, wheu 
 boiled down, had a chicken flavor, but it was impossible to get our 
 teeth through them, so we drank the broth and ate the calf, and wer. 
 full and contented for once. We took off our boots and puttes, the 
 first time for five days, and laid down for a few hours' sleep, but we 
 only had an hour or so, as we were called and marched to Klip 
 Drift, a distance of 13 miles, and bivouacked till Saturday after- 
 noon at 4 o'clock, when we started again, our regiment acting as 
 
 
 
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 SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
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 rear guard of the convoy. We marched till 8 o'clock, and then 
 rested two hours, and then started for Paardeberg Drift, where 
 we arrived at 5 o'clock Sunday morning, doing 19 miles that 
 night, with only a little soup, coffee and biscuit since our Jacobs- 
 dal feast. 
 
 "We piled arms, and laid down, but in less than half an hour 
 we were startled with the booming of cannon very close to us. 
 We soon learned that our artillery were exchanging shots witb 
 Cronje's forces. At 5.30 we were ordered to put on our accoutre- 
 ments. Had a half-pint of coffee and a gill of rum, and then 
 marched up to the high ground to support a section of artillery. 
 We laid there for a few minutes to accustom us, I presume, to the 
 sound of the guns. We were then ordered to cross the Modder 
 River. 
 
 IN WATER UP TO THE SHOULDERS. 
 
 "As there was no bridge, we had to walk through the water, 
 which was up to our shoulders, and as the current was very swift 
 it took us all our time to keep our feet. Some of the boys got 
 washed off their feet, but none hurt or drowned. "A" and "D" 
 companies were first across. They were sent to support the 
 Gordons, who were in the firing line. " B " Company came next 
 to support "A" and "D," who had gone into the firing line. We 
 laid down behind ant hills or any cover we could get. By this 
 time the bullets were falling thick and fast all art and us, wound- 
 ing more, in fact, of us than of those on the firing line. 
 
 "At 8.30 we advanced to the firing lines amidst a perfect 
 shower of bullets — ^laid there and fired till 4.30 p. m., and the 
 order to fix bayonets was given, and Bugler Williams blew the 
 charge, standing boldly on an ant hill. The Cornwall s had in 
 the meantime reinforced the line, and we all went down together, 
 but never reached the trenches. We stopped. Had we not done 
 so, we would all have been cut up, as we would have been in a 
 trap. Only one of our boys reached the trenches, and he was 
 shot through the head with an explosive bullet and instantly 
 killed. 
 
 " It certainly was a warm day's work, and we only had a 
 
SECOND CANADIAN CONTINGENT. 
 
 633 
 
 l)0ttle of water and a biscuit. We were fighting all day, and just 
 as the sun was setting a companion and myself, who thouglit if 
 ve got a little further up we would have a better chance at them, 
 made a break from our ant hill to another. We got over safely, 
 aud just started firing, when I felt a sharp pain in my thigh. I 
 ptttuiy hand down and found blood, and knew that I had been 
 struck, but the ball, which was from a Mauser, only went in about 
 an inch, and then downward about four inches and came out. The 
 wound is very clean. After being hit my companion took me by the 
 hand, and we ran for 300 yards, the bullets falling all around us. 
 Then we dropped on our stomachs and crawled 300 yards more. 
 
 SENT TO THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 " By this time it was too dark to shoot, so we got up and 
 walked about a mile to the field hospital, where I had my wound 
 dressed, was put to bed and slept soundly for eight hours. When 
 I awoke I felt splendid, barring my stiff leg. Next day we were 
 sent to Naauwpoort hospital, where I am at present. I hope to be 
 all right again before this letter reaches you. Our acting color 
 sergeant (Davies) got a bad wound in his arm with a dum-dum • 
 the bone was. badly shattered. I got off splendid, and feel honored 
 that I got wounded fighting for my country. Many, many poor 
 fellows got badly crippled, I trust our people at home will not 
 think we did not do our duty. We are very comfortable in our 
 hospital tent. We have nine iron beds ; everything lovely, and 
 we get the best attention and good food, and we will be :?orry when 
 we have to leave. As this letter is already too long, will C^ose 
 with kindest regards to all my Ivondon friends." 
 
 
 }% 
 
 1. : • iicnvt. 
 
 
 r.iSkj %:;^'^ 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 British Troops Under a Galling. Fire. 
 
 EARLY in April the tactics the Boers were displaying caused a 
 distinctly uneasy feeling in England. Owing to the succes 
 sive victories of General Roberts, culminating in the occupation of 
 Bloemfontein and the successful clearing out of the burghers in 
 the southern Free State, the feeling of overconfidence which pre- 
 vailed in the early days of the war had again taken possession of 
 the people. 
 
 Newspaper dispatches described the disorganized retreat of the 
 Boers and magnified the number '^f burghers surrendering their 
 arms. It was stated that it was doubtful whether the Boers would 
 make a determined stand in the Free State, and this statement in 
 many ways encouraged a popular idea that the backbone of the 
 war had been broken, and that the Transvaalers would do nothing 
 but act on the defensive in the future. 
 
 This pleasing prospect was rudely shattered by a disaster to 
 Colonel Broadwood's column, on March 31st, which- emphasized in 
 the most striking manner that the Boers were by no means dis- 
 heartened. 
 
 Later reports from Bloemfontein added increased gravity to 
 the disaster. Grobler, who had seized Platberg and had menaced 
 Ladybrand, forcing Pilcher back, received reinforcements from 
 Winburg. The combined forces pushed their way to Thabanchu, 
 and finding the Boers threatening to attack Broadwood, retired on 
 the waterworks at Sannas Post on the Modder, twenty miles from 
 Bloemfontein on Friday night, the 30th.. 
 
 Early Saturday morning he was shelled by the Boers, who 
 
 approached his position on three sides. Broadwood dispatched his 
 
 artillery and baggage towards Bloemfontein, covering the retreat 
 
 with cavalry. While crossing the water course they were attacked 
 
 by a concealed body of Boers, and horses and men shot down and 
 634 
 
[ire. 
 
 ilaying caused a 
 [g to the siicces 
 e occupation of 
 ^he burghers in 
 ;nce which pre- 
 n possession of 
 
 :ed retreat of the 
 rendering their 
 he Boers would 
 lis statement in 
 •ackbone of the 
 ould do nothing 
 
 by a disaster to 
 1- emphasized in 
 ' no means dis- 
 eased gravity to 
 d had menaced 
 rcements from 
 to Thabanchu, 
 ^ood, retired on 
 nty miles from 
 
 he Boers, who 
 dispatched his 
 ing the retreat 
 were attacked 
 hot down and 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE 635 
 
 everything thrown into confusion. The re>nilt was the loss of five 
 guns of the U Battery, two guns of the Q Battery and all the bag- 
 gage, with 370 casualties, among which were 200 missing. 
 
 General Colville, with the Ninth Division, arrived at noon on 
 Saturday, followed by General French, with two cavalry divisions, 
 two hours later. The fighting was resumed, but the Boers appeared 
 to have held the Bloemfontein water works, and were not dislodged. 
 It was also reported that they cut off the water supply at Bloem- 
 fontein. 
 
 There was a report in London that the lost guns had been 
 recaptured by the British, but there was no confirmation of this. 
 It is most probable that the Boers sent them back to the rear as 
 quick as possible, and their stubborn resistance at the water works 
 prevented pursuit by French's cavalry. 
 
 HEAVY LOSS OF GUNS. 
 
 To lose guns was always considered as a disgrace. In the 
 present war the British up to this time, were particularly unfortu- 
 nate in this respect, their losses of guns being heavier than at 
 any period of Britain's military history since 1783. They areas 
 follows : Nicholson's Nek, 4 ; Stormberg, 2 ; Colenso, 10 ; near 
 Bloemfontein, 7 ; total, 23. In exchange they have captured only 
 seven guns, five at Paardeberg and two surrendered in the Free 
 State. It was not a very satisfactory exchange for the great 
 Empire to make. 
 
 The main Boer force at Kroonstad also showed signs of tak- 
 ing the offensive. It advanced to Smaldeel, sixty miles south of 
 Kroonstad. This was good evidence that the Boers had gained 
 boldness during the British delay, which was necessary for the 
 reorganization of the transport service. It was thought Lord 
 Roberts might be forced to resume operations before he had 
 completed his preparations and rehorsed and reclothed his 
 troops. 
 
 It would seem that the Boers intended to force the fighting. 
 They gathered together an army, reorganized it, and placed it on 
 the front and both flanks of the principal British ^rmy. The 
 
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536 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 
 force in front of General Tucker, to the north, and the column to 
 the east, were ready to dispute the British advance. 
 
 Lord Methuen was waiting to move with the Yeomanry upon 
 the Boers gathered at Paardeberg, between Bloemfontein and 
 Kimberley. One effect of the British retirement from Thabanchu 
 was that it left the whole southeastern part of the Free State open 
 to raids of the Republican forces. 
 
 The War Office in London received the following despatch 
 from Lord Roberts, dated Bloemfontein, April i : 
 
 "I received news late yesterday afternoon from Colonel 
 Broadwood, who was at Thaba N'Chu, thirty-eight miles east of 
 here, that information had reached him that the enemy was ap- 
 proaching in two forces, from the north and the east. He stated 
 that if the report proved true he would retire towards the water 
 works, seventeen miles nearer Bloemfontein, where we have had a 
 detachment of mounted infantry for the protection of the works. 
 
 ORDERED TO MARCH AT DAYLIGHT. 
 
 ** Broadwood was told in reply that the Ninth division, with 
 Martyr's Mounted Infantry, will march at daylight to-day to sup- 
 port him, and that if he considers it necessary he should retire 
 from the water works. He moved there during the night and 
 bivouacked. At dawn to-day he was shelled by the enemy, who 
 attacked on three sides. He immediately despatched two horse 
 artillery batteries and his baggage toward Bloemfontein, covering 
 some of them with his cavalry. 
 
 "Some two miles from the water works the road crosses a deep 
 spruit (channel), in which during the night a force of Boers had 
 concealed themselves. So well were they hidden that our leading 
 scoi ts passed over the drift without discovering them, and it was 
 not until the wagons and guns were entering the drift that the 
 Boers showed themselves and opened fire. Many of the drivers of 
 the artillery horses were immediately shot down at short range, 
 and several of the guns were captured. The remainder galloped 
 away, covered by Robert's Horse, which suffered heavily. 
 
 " Meanwhile, Lieutenant Chestermasters, of Rimington's 
 
BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. ||| 
 
 Scouts, found a passage across the channel unoccupied by the 
 enemy, by which the remainder of Broadwood's force crossed. 
 They reformed with great steadiness, notwithstanding all that 
 previously occurred. Broadwood's report, which has j-ist reached 
 me, and which contains no details, stated that he had lost seven 
 guns and all his baggage. He estimates all his casualities at 
 about 350, including 200 missing. 
 
 On hearing this morning that Broadwood was hard pressed, 
 I immediately ordered General French, with two remaining 
 cavalry brigades, to follow in support of the Ninth Division. 
 The latter, after a magnificent march, arrived on the scene of 
 action shortly after 2 P. M. 
 
 Broadwood's force consisted of the Royal Household Cavalry, 
 the Tenth Hussars, Q and U Batteries of the Royal Horse 
 Artillery, and Pilcher's Battalion of Mounted Infantry. The 
 strength of the enemy is roughly estimated at from eight thou- 
 sand to ten thousand, with guns, the number of which is not 
 yet reported." 
 
 WOUNDED AND MISSING. 
 
 The War Office received another despatch from Lord Roberts, 
 dated at Bloemfontein, Sunday, April i, 8.15 P. M., in which, 
 after referring to his previous telegram, he gave a partial list of the 
 missing British officers. Of Q Battery, four officers were wounded, 
 two of whom are missing. One gunner was killed and forty non- 
 commissioned officers and men were wounded or missing. Lord 
 Roberts continued : " In U Battery all are missing, except Major 
 Taylor and a Sergeant Major. The two cavalry regiments did 
 not suffer so much. A report has just come in that the enemy 
 has retired towards Ladybrand, leaving twelve wounded officers 
 and some seventy men at the water works. We are now sending 
 an ambulance for them." 
 
 The loss of the British guns was attended by incidents of 
 splendid heroism. The leading battery was so near the Boers, 
 ambuscaded in the river bed, that the latter said : 
 
 " It is useless your attempting to advance. Throw down your 
 
 m 
 
 
B88 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 arms." This was a summons to surrender, but no attention was 
 paid to it. 
 
 The Sergeant of the battery, fearing the other battery would 
 misunderstand the hindrance, rushed through the convoy aud 
 warned his comrades, enabling the rear most battery to save a 
 portion of the guns, which came into action later. Life Guards- 
 men and a gunner got a gun under a tremendous fire, and four 
 others were saved by the men dragging them off after their horses 
 had been shot. 
 
 Following the scouts of General French's cavalry division to 
 the scene of battle, a correspondent witnessed one of the most te^ 
 rible spectacles of the war. Horses lay stiffened in the various 
 attitudes of sudden death and mingled among them were ghastly 
 human bodies, with the wrecks of wagons and food and forage 
 scattered wide. Everything told a terrible tale of surprise and 
 carnage. 
 
 A MOST INGENIOUS TRAP. 
 
 It would be impossible to conceive anything more ingenious 
 than the Boer trap, and the only wonder is that a single man 
 escaped. On crossing the spruit (river channel), where the ground 
 rises immediately toward a grassy knoll, with stony slopes facing 
 the drift, one came upon an enclosure from which it was possible 
 to fire over the drift. At this point the spruit makes a circular 
 bend, while the south embankment, which is protected by the par- 
 tially constructed railway embankment, enabled the enemy to pour 
 in a galling fire on three sides, as well as a double tier of fire in 
 front. 
 
 When the convoy was first attacked a scene of frightful con- 
 fusion followed. The mules stampeded, and the wagons were 
 overturned, while the concealed enemy poured in a deadly fire. 
 When the first battery appeared the Boers seemed undesirous of 
 continuing the slaughter, and called upon the British to surrender. 
 At that moment, however, B battery, which was escaping from the 
 rear of the convoy under heavy fire, wheeled into action and began 
 shelling the Boers with the four remaining guns. The Boers con- 
 
 •■'•>»•.* 
 
t no attention was 
 
 BRITISH TROOl'S UNDKR A CALMNG FIRE. 
 
 M9 
 
 fessed that this battery accounted for five killed and nine wounded 
 of their losses. 
 
 Early in the afternoon the Boers collected about the convoy, 
 began removing the guns and wagons and permitted the collection 
 of the British dead and wounded. The actual casualties were less 
 than had been expected. Despite this incident, it is impossible 
 not to admire the gallant manner in which the little force was 
 able to extricate itself from an almost hopeless position. 
 
 The Bloemfontein correspondent of a London Journal, tele- 
 graphing April ist and desciibing the loss of the convoy, said : 
 
 " The Boers opened with a murderous fire. It was simply 
 slaughter. The Kaffir drivers of the convoy ran away, leaving 
 their teams, and it was impossible for our men to hit the hidden 
 enemy. Our gunners fought bravely, trying to save the guns, 
 but our people were greatly hampered by the Kaffirs, who ran 
 hither and thither, looking for cover from the fearful fire that 
 poured in on all sides. Meanwhile, the enemy were hotly press- 
 ing Colonel Broadwood, whose mounted troops were completely 
 surrounded. 
 
 SUPERB BRAVERY OF THE BRITISH. 
 
 " The British showed magnificent bravery. The officers were 
 quite cool and composedly directed operations. The opportune 
 arrival of reinforcements saved Colonel Broadwood from annihila- 
 tion. The water supply was out and the pumping gear destroyed, 
 as well as the field telegraph. One hundred wagons were lost 
 through the cowardice of the Kaffir drivers. It is reported that 
 two guns have been recaptured. The whole force is retiring on 
 Bloemfontein." 
 
 The detailed accounts of the Korn Spruit disaster showed 
 strikingly, on the one hand, the skilful daring of the Boer tactics, 
 combined with a humane endeavor to induce the convoy to surren- 
 der without needless slaughter, and on the other hand scornful 
 contempt of death and injury on the part of the British, and the 
 clever extrication of a section of the entrapped force. In the con- 
 fusion firing proceeded from all directions. The Boers northwest 
 
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 BRITISH TROOre UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
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 15 
 
 of the spruit fired on the convoj', among which were some of their 
 own men inextricably mixed with the British. The captured Brit- 
 ish, creeping under the wagons, recovereu their arms and fired on 
 their captors. Discrimination was impossible. 
 
 A correspondent said he encountered on April 2d an Ameri- 
 can with the Boers near the waterworks. The American said he 
 was accompanying them merely as a sightseer. He had never seen 
 such magnificent pluck as the British showed in this fight. The 
 whole Boer army was profoundly impressed and filled with admir- 
 ation by the bravery of the British. The Boers never doubted 
 their ability to capture the entire force. They were simply dumb- 
 founded by the courage of the British who were caught in their 
 trap and the masterly manner in which the grealer part of them 
 were extricated. 
 
 FULLER ACCOUNT OF THE DISASTER. 
 
 Fuller returns of the disaster to the British troops did not tend 
 to improve matters. The War Office posted a despatch from Lord 
 Roberts reading as follows : 
 
 BloemfonTEin, April 2, 10.30 P.M. — " In continuation of my 
 telegram of March 31st there has been considerable delay in get- 
 ting accurate returns of the casualties, as the action took place 
 twenty-two miles hence, the telegraph cable has been interrupted 
 several times, cloudy weather has interfered with signaling, and, 
 although there has been no engagement since, the force is con- 
 tinually in touch with the enemy. 
 
 "There were many acts of conspicuous gallantry displayed 
 during the day. The Q Battery remained in action under a cross 
 nre, at 1,200 yards, for some hours, the officers serving the gnus 
 as the casualities reduced the detachments. Several gallant 
 attempts were made to bring in two guns, the teams of which had 
 been killed, but at each attempt the horses were shot. 
 
 "The Essex, Munster, Shropshire and Northumberland 
 Mounted Infantry and Roberts' Horse covered the retirement of 
 the guns from that position to the crossing of the drift two miles 
 further south and withstood the determined attacks of the enemy. 
 

 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 511 
 
 On April yth another account of a Boer trap and British vic- 
 tims came from South Africa, but this time it was robbed of some 
 of its bitterness to the British by news of a counter success, won 
 by Methuen on the western frontier, involving the death of General 
 Villebois-Mareuil, chief among the trained foreign advisers of the 
 Boer military leaders. 
 
 This disaster to British arms, by which five companies were 
 captured or killed, was another instance of the remarkable mobility 
 of the Boers and the rapidity and secrecy of their movements, and 
 illustrated the difficulty of the task which General Gatacre had of 
 keeping open the line of communication of Lord Roberts. About 
 forty miles south of Bloemfontein and ten miles east of Bethany 
 Station was stationed this little British force for the purpose of 
 protecting the railway line, and preserving peace in the district, 
 which had been recently occupied by the Boers. 
 
 BRITISH SURROUNDED. 
 
 The British position was surrounded before noon Tuesday 
 the 3rd, by a strong force of the enemy with four or five guns. 
 After having held out for nearl}' twenty-four hours the British 
 surrendered. 
 
 How they were caught in this manner, onl}^ a few miles from 
 the railway, by the enveloping contingent of Boers, who must have 
 taken some time to establish their guns and detachments in such 
 a way as to overpower all resistance, was one of the mysteries of 
 the affair. The only conclusion that could be arrived at was that 
 their outposts were not alive to their duties or that the scouting 
 was most inefficiently performed. 
 
 The evident object of the Boer leaders was not to retake 
 Bloemfontein, but to harass the British, compelling them to keep 
 close to their line of communications and delaying, if possible, 
 Lord Roberts' advance against the Boer position at Kroonstad. 
 They seized Thaba Nchu and Ladybrand, flanking Lord Roberts' 
 line of advance on the east, and from these, as if on a pivot, they 
 have swung round to the railway in his rear, seeking for a good 
 chance to cut his communicatious or capture small detachments. 
 
 "'-If? 
 
 .'L ■( 
 
 ■1 ' n ■ - ▼ 
 
 I'r ■>'•■? t. 1 
 
542 
 
 BRITISH TROOl^ UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 The forces engaged in this movement numbered about ten 
 thousand men, although some accounts say there were more. 
 The rest of the burghers still remained to the north, in front of 
 Lord Roberts' position. This plan of campaign had many 
 advantages from the Boer point of view. It not only delayed the 
 accumulation of supplies for the British advance, but also unset- 
 tled the country already occupied by Lord Roberts. The military 
 prestige gained by the Boers in this raid would evidently compel 
 the British commander to leave behind him much larger garri- 
 sons in the district than would otherwise have been necessary. 
 
 The whole Boer dash southward was a sample of the guerilla 
 warfare which the Boers apparently intended to begin as soon as 
 Roberts resumed offensive operations. Being the finest mounted 
 infantry and the most skilful of tacticians, the Boers were able to 
 carry out this audacious plan, which would mean "ruiu" if 
 attempted by any other army. 
 
 BOERS CHOSE THEIR OWN BATTLE GROUND. 
 
 It was clear that Lord Roberts was not able to keep pace with 
 the movements of these raiders. His object was to concentrate 
 his troops as far as possible. In spite of his overwhelming num- 
 erical superiority, his task was by no means an easy one, for the 
 Boers would not fight unless they selected their own battle 
 ground. 
 
 Turning to another part of the war field, Lord Methuen, 
 with what has been described as the Mafeking relief force, moved 
 from Kimberley to Bosliof, forty miles to the northeast. He 
 encountered a body of seventy Boers, posted on a kopje, nine 
 miles from the town. It was said that these Boers had come from 
 Kroonstad. If so, they were probably on the way to join their 
 comrades on the Vaal River, at Christiana and Warrenton. 
 
 After about four hours' fighting the little Boer force surren- 
 dered. Among the killed was General de Villebois-Mareuil, the 
 distinguished French tactician and strategist, who was of great 
 service to the Boers, and whose death was a serious loss. 
 
 Relating to the disaster suffered by the British described 
 
ROUND. 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 6Vi 
 
 above, the following dispatch from Lord Roberts was published 
 by the War Office in London : 
 
 " Bloemfontein, Thursday, April 5.— Another unfortunate 
 occurrence has taken place, resulting, I fear, in the capture of a 
 party of infantry, consisting of three companies of the Royal Irish 
 Fusiliers and two companies of the Plinth Regiment of the 
 Mounted Infantry, near Reddersburg, a little eastward of Bethany 
 Railway Station, within a few miles of this place. They were sur- 
 rounded by a stronger force of the enemy with four or five guns. 
 The detachment held out from noon, April 3, until 9 A. M., April 4, 
 and then apparently surrendered, for it is reported that the .firing 
 ceased at that time. Immediately after I heard the news, during the 
 afternoon of April 3, I ordered Gatacre to proceed from Springfon- 
 tein, his present headquarters, to Reddersburg with all possible 
 speed and Idispatched the Cameron Highlanders hence to Bethany. 
 He arrived at Reddersburg at 10.30 yesterday morning without 
 opposition, but could get no news of the missing detachment. 
 There can be no doubt the whole party has been made prisoners." 
 
 DEATH OF FAMOUS BOER GENERAL. 
 
 The War Office also has received the following dispatch from 
 Lord Roberts, dated Bloemfontein, Thursday, April 5 : 
 
 " Methuen telegraphs from Boshof (in the Orange Free State, 
 a little northeast of Kimberley), as follows : 
 
 " Surrounded General Villebois Mareuil and a body of Boers 
 to-day. None escaped. Villebois and seven Boers killed, eight 
 wounded, fifty prisoners. Our losses were : Killed, Captains 
 Boyle and Williams, both of the Yeomanry, and two men of the 
 Yeomanry. Wounded, about seven men. The attack lasted four 
 hours. The corps behaved very well. Our force was composed 
 of Yeomanry, the Kimberley Mounted Corps and the Forth 
 Battery of artillery.' " 
 
 These spirited engagements had an undue importance attached 
 to them for the reason that they showed the determination of the 
 Boers to still carry on the war and continue the fight to the 
 bitter end. 
 
 « 1 
 
 I •'l!! ■■■• t'! "k ii 
 
 io 
 
 
 "' '1 
 
 ■,'A V, 
 
 
 
 
 t';?' 
 
644 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE, 
 
 In the death of General Villebois Mareuil the Boers lost 
 their best instructed soldier in continental methods of warfare. 
 As the late General Joubert's chief of staff his brain devised the 
 Boer defenses against General Buller's advance to the relief of 
 Ladysmith. He is supposed to have chosen the gun positions 
 and to have laid down the covered trenches. He disposed the 
 Boers at the centres, from which they were sent massed to the 
 defense of any part of a wide arc. 
 
 General Villebois Mareuil was the most notable of all the 
 soldiers of fortune serving with the Boers. He had written occa- 
 sional interesting letters to French correspondents. He was 
 about 50 years old, and it is said that he entered the Boer service 
 merely because war was his trade. 
 
 PRESIDENT STEYN ON THE WAR. 
 
 President Steyn, in his address to the Free State Volksraad 
 at Kroonstadt, on Wednesday, April 4, said the burghers were in 
 a better position than at the commencement of hostilities. He 
 threatened those who had surrendered to the British and 
 announced that the Free State had borrowed half a million from 
 the Transvaal for the purposes of war. England, he declared, had 
 broken every convention. 
 
 Referring to the correspondence with Lord Salisbury, he 
 observed : 
 
 " The destiny of the republics is in higher hands than those 
 of the British Government, namely, in the hands of the people of 
 France, Russia and Germany, who are agitating for intervention. 
 The war will soon end. If it be true that Boer prisoners have 
 been sent to St. Helena, we would be justified in consigning Brit- 
 ish prisoners to the lowest depths of the Johannesburg mines." 
 
 A despatch from Bloemfontein said : 
 
 " All is quiet here. Remounts and reinforcements are arriv- 
 ing, and preparations are being made to deal with the enemy. 
 Last Tuesday many of the historic regiments, like the Scot^ 
 Greys, the Inniskilling Dragoons and the Lancers, could not mns- 
 ter a hundred mounted men, while artillery horses were scarce." 
 
BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE 
 
 I 
 
 54» 
 
 The British estimate of Lord Roberts and the confidence of 
 
 the public in his military prowess and fij^btini^- ability were aptly 
 
 expressed by Kipling in the following stan/as, wliich, althongh 
 
 to a great exteat colloquial, are full of force and arc descriptive of 
 
 the man: 
 
 There's a little red-faced man 
 
 Which is Bobs 1 
 Rides the tallest 'orse 'e can — 
 
 Our Bobs ! 
 If it bucks or kicks or rears, 
 'E can sit for twenty years, 
 With a smile round both 'is cars — 
 
 Can't yer, Bobs ? 
 
 Then 'ere's to Bobs Bahabur — 
 
 Little Bobs, liobs, Bobs ! 
 'E's our pukka Kandahadcr — 
 
 Fightin' Bobs, Bobs, Bobs! 
 •E's the Dook ol Aggy Chel, 
 'E's the man that done us well, 
 An' we'll follow 'im to 'ell I 
 
 Won't we, Bobs ? 
 
 If a limber's slipped a trace, 
 
 " Ook on Bobs ; 
 If a marker's lost 'is place. 
 
 Dress by Bobs. 
 For 'e's eyes all up 'is coat, 
 An' a bugle in 'is throat, 
 An' you will not play the goat 
 
 Under Bobs. 
 
 *E's a little down on drink. 
 
 Chaplain Bobs ; 
 But it keeps us outer Clink — 
 
 Don't it Bobs ? 
 So we will not complain, 
 Tho' 'e's water on the brain, 
 If *e leads us straight again— 
 
 Blue-light Bobs, 
 35 
 
 m^ 
 
 
 f 
 
 till"' 
 
 1fB ' 
 
 
 
540 
 
 BRITISH TROOre UNDER A GALLING FIRn. 
 
 It you stood 'im on 'is 'ead 
 
 Father Bobs, 
 You could spill a quart o' lead 
 
 Outer Bobs. 
 *E's been at it thirty years, 
 An' amassin' souveneers 
 In the way o' slugs an' spears-^ 
 
 Ain't yer, Bobs ? 
 
 What e' does not know o' war, 
 
 Gen'ral Bobs, 
 You can arst the shop next door— 
 
 Can't they, Bobs? 
 Oh, *e's little, but he's wise, 
 'E's a terror for 'is size. 
 An' 'e — does — not — advertise — 
 
 Do yer, Bobs ? 
 
 Now they've made a bloomin' Lord 
 
 Outer Bobs, 
 Which was but 'is fair reward — 
 
 Weren't it Bobs ? 
 An* 'e'U wear a coronet 
 Where 'is 'elmet used to set ; , 
 But we know you won't forget— 
 
 Will yer, Bobs ? 
 
 Then 'ere's to Bobs Bahadur — 
 
 Little Bobs, Bobs, Bobs •. 
 Pocket- Wellin'ton an arder — 
 
 Fightin' Bobs, Bobs, Bobs f 
 This ain't no bloomin' ode. 
 But you've 'elped the soldier's load. 
 An' for benefits bestowed. 
 
 Bless yer, Bobs ! 
 
 An account of Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, and oi 
 Johannesburg, the chief city during the war, shows the disastrous 
 effects of the conflict. 
 
 ^'Johannesburg," writes this eye witness, "of which it has 
 heen said that she supports all South Africa, is a fearfully dead 
 
 city at pre! 
 the Rand, 
 the tram 
 dwindled t 
 about the s 
 boarded u 
 mines are 
 The enorn 
 "This 
 money at 
 indefinitel 
 Millionnai 
 Club. Tl: 
 Americans 
 afforded, 
 precaution 
 
 "A St 
 number of 
 wave ever; 
 Apparentl 
 he has ne^ 
 
 "Mot 
 Pretoria, 
 selves gla 
 been capt 
 new, wel' 
 friends in 
 account, 
 becoming 
 of food, tl 
 hungry v 
 
 "As 
 Tugela a 
 methods 
 
BRITISH TROOI'S UNDER A GALLING FIRE. f.ty 
 
 city at present. The bulk of its white popuhitioii has deserted 
 the Rand, and also many of the Kaffirs. The streets are deserted 
 the tram cars do not run, and the hundreds of riekshaws have 
 dwindled to half a dozen. A few deerepit looking cal)s stand idly 
 about the squares. Most of the shops are closed and the windows 
 boarded up. The countless chimneys which tower above the 
 mines are cold, except the few being worked by the government. 
 The enormous gold output has stopped. 
 
 "This vast mint, which before the war was grinding out 
 money at the rate of a million dollars a day, has closed down 
 indefinitely. But one hotel and a few small restaurants are open. 
 Millionnaires no longer loaf in the luxurious rooms of the Rand 
 Club. Thanks to the special police, principally composed of 
 Americans, perfect order is maintained and ample protection 
 afforded. No saloons are permitted to keep open. The same wise 
 precaution is enforced in Pretoria. 
 
 STARS AND STRIPES EVERYWHERE. 
 
 " A striking feature of Johannesburg at present is the large 
 number of United States flags displayed. The Stars and Stripes 
 wave everywhere, even above many Kaffir kraals in the suburbs. 
 Apparently Uncle Sam has a few black citizens in South Africa 
 he has never heard of. 
 
 "More than three thousand British prisoners are now in 
 Pretoria. They are well and humanely treated, as they them- 
 selves gladly testify. The officers, of whom over a hundred have 
 been captured, are quartered in the Staat Model School, a fine, 
 new, well-ventilated building. People in England who have 
 friends imprisoned by the Boers need have no uneasiness on their 
 account. The problem of what to do with the prisoners of war is 
 becoming a serious one. Although there is at present no scarcity 
 of food, the government feels that it can ill affijrd to feed so many 
 hungry mouths for an indefinite period. 
 
 "A scene incidental to the perpetual skirmishing about the 
 Tugela and Lady smith illustrates the seeming haphazard fighting 
 methods of the Boers. Just as dawn was breaking one iUorning a 
 
 ^ijf^^'l^'wi 
 
 
 ''■ '4\ 
 
 ■<^: ! 
 
 . t!.il»t! 
 
048 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 patrol of about two hundred British cavalr}-^ crossed Klein Tiigela 
 near the Pont Drift, and rode rapidly toward where a small herd 
 of cattle which had strayed from the Boer lines during the iiiglit 
 was grazing. The British had advanced some distance before 
 thej'^ were observed by a Boer picket stationed on an isolated kopje. 
 " Four burghers composed the picket. They mounted instant! v 
 and rode to intercept the British, first firing several shots to give 
 the alarm. It was a sight to stir the blood to see those Boers 
 dashing at a swinging gallop over the rocks and gullies which 
 roughened the plain. The pale blue mist rising from the river 
 and veiling the hills beyond made a pretty background to the 
 spirited fight which followed. The four Boers reached a kopje in 
 the path of the British, sprang from their horses, sought cover and 
 began peppering away. By this time a dozen other burghers 
 drawn from neighboring pickets by the first shots fired, were gal- 
 loping across the flats to aid the original four, making a total force 
 of sixteen. 
 
 BURGHERS AND BRITISH IN A LIVELY SKIRMISH. 
 
 " Then ensued a pretty skirmish. The British dismounted 
 and pushed ahead to dislodge the Boers and secure the cattle. For 
 half an hour there was a splutter of rifle firing, then the British 
 concluded the game was not worth the candle and retired. They 
 left sixteen dead on the ground, and carried away a number of 
 wounded. The Boers did not have a man scratched. By the time 
 the fight was over fully two hundred Boers were hurrying to get 
 into it. No orders had been given to a single man. The standing 
 order for the Boers is to hasten to where there is fighting. It is 
 Moltke's principle, ' March to the sound of the firing,' on a reduced 
 scale. 
 
 "The Boer generals determinedly adhere, wherever possible, 
 to their defensive tactics. This policy accounts for their small 
 losses. They have no reserves. The army consists of the male 
 population of the two republics between the ages of twelve and 
 seventy. Every man or boy put out of action is permanently lost. 
 
 "Men are precious, particularly the burghers, for even if the 
 
BRITISH TROOPS UNDER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 M?. 
 
 Transvaal had Europe for a recruiting grouud sucli men, once 
 ]ost, could not be replaced. A Boer riftenian is equal to half a 
 dozen ordinary soldiers. Then, the Boer government regards the 
 lives of its citizens as too precious to be thrown away. It is not 
 lack of courage that induces a Boer to seek cover. Let no erro 
 neons impression get abroad about this. At night the scenes about 
 the laagers are intensely picturesque. The burghers sit about 
 smoking and chatting jovially, generally about matters of the 
 home and farm. Nine o'clock is the hour for retiring. There is 
 no bugle to souud ' taps,' but here and there a cow horn is blown 
 as a signal of the hour. The chatter ceases, and within five min- 
 utes the moon (if it is shining) will reveal scattered groups of 
 burghers on their knees, offering up the evening prayer." 
 
 TRYING TO SURROUND THE BOERS. 
 
 Continuing the narrative of military operations, it will be 
 noticed that after the Boers were forced to retreat from Bloemfon- 
 tein, the capital of the Orange Free State, they moved southeast 
 and occupied Wepener. Lord Roberts immediately began a move- 
 ment to capture them or compel them to abandon their position. 
 He hoped to encircle them and prevent their escape. The out- 
 come during the last week of April was a disappointment to the 
 British commander. His movement cleared the Boers of Wepener 
 and De Wet's Dorp, but the Boers escaped. Cleverly as Roberts 
 spread his net, he could not do it widely and quickly enough. 
 The Boers were too slippery for him. Roberts' object was primarily 
 to relieve Wepener and clear the southeast corner of the Free State 
 not only of the Boers' presence generally, but also to bring the 
 Boers to an engagement, and to surround them or inflict serious 
 losses upon them. 
 
 Roberts had, with this object in view, been drawing a circle 
 around the Boer position. The western semi-circle was complete, 
 and on the other side the southern segment was closed in by the 
 Basuto border, but the northern segment remained open. In the 
 later operations the circle was drawn somewhat tighter and an 
 attempt made to get around to the open gap, but that open gap 
 
 k 
 
 
 m^ 
 
 UiH^'' 
 
60 
 
 BRITISH TROOPS UNtJER A GALLING FIRE. 
 
 crvcd the Boers, who succeeded, as usual, iu taking all their guns 
 
 vith them. 
 
 Thus ended an exciting episode. Wepener had been relieved 
 
 .nd the attempt of the Boers to turn the British position at Blocni- 
 /ontein and intercept their communications had failed, but tliey 
 .vere not brought to a stand or surrounded by the British occupa- 
 :ion of De Wet's Dorp. Rundle's waiting game was now explained. 
 While his division was held fast at Wakkerstroom refusing attack 
 French and Pole-Carew were moving around to place themselves 
 Astride of the line of retreat of the Boer forces. The presence of 
 the British cavalry general in the neighborhood apparently set the 
 Boers moving. The garrison at De Wet's Dorp slipped away during 
 the night and joined the big force massing at or near Thabanchu. 
 
 NEWS FROM LORD ROBERTS. 
 
 The War Office in London issued the following from Lord 
 Roberts, dated Bloemfontein, April 25, 3.25 P. M. : 
 
 *' The enemy retired from in front of Wepener last night, 
 and this morning fled northeastward along the Ladybrand road. 
 Their number was between 4000 and 5000." 
 
 The relief of Colonel Dalgety at Wepener was accomplished 
 by General Brabant. Lord Roberts also telegraphed a message 
 to the War Office that De Wet's Dorp was occupied by General 
 Chermside without opposition. Another dispatch from Lord 
 Roberts was as follows : 
 
 " Bloemfontein, April 25. — Pole-Carew's division reached 
 Roodekop yesterday evening without casualties. Its advance 
 was covered by cavalry and horse artillery, which drove back the 
 enemy with heavy loss, their dead being left on the ground. The 
 mounted troops halted for the night at Grootfontein, and at 7.30 
 this morning were crossing the Modder river at Valsbank, in, 
 accordance with my instructions to French to endeavor to place 
 himself astride the enemy's line of retreat. French's arrival 
 near the Modder evidently, however, alarmed the Boers, for they 
 evacuated their strong position near De Wet's Dorp during the 
 night, and it was occupied by Cliermside's division this morning. 
 
BRITISH TKOOI-S UNDKR A CA I I.I NO FIKIL 
 
 Ml 
 
 "The mounted infantry, under Ian llauiilton, drove the 
 enemy off the kopjes in the neiKrhb„rli„od of tlic water works 
 without casualties on our side. The lliijl,laiul Hri.i^ade marched 
 twenty-four miles yesterday to support General Hamilton and 
 halted for the night at Klip Kraal, four miles short of Sauna's 
 Post. 
 
 " Brabant and Hart are still a few miles short of Wi-pi-ner, 
 and the numbers of the enemy appear to have somewhat increased 
 during the last few days. But it is not likely there will be much 
 trouble in the neighborhood of Wepener once De Wet's Dorp is 
 occupied by our troops. I inspected the City Imperial Volunteer 
 Battalion yesterday on their arrival at Bloemfontein. They are 
 in fine form and look very workmanlike. I also inspected the 
 First Company of Imperial Yeomanry, which has arrived here. 
 The men turn out smart and their horses are in admirable 
 condition." 
 
 STUBBORN RESISTANCE. 
 
 The operations tended to clear the military situation. 
 General Pole-Carew's progress through the country brought home 
 to the Free Staters the fact that the policy of leniency had been 
 abandoned. Besides seizing the stock of the farmers, who, after 
 having given their submission, were found fighting, he comman- 
 deered all the available forage, giving receipts for the same, and 
 this prevented the Boers using the resources of the country. The 
 Boers were evidently returning in order to concentrate for opposing 
 the Britisb advance. Now that Thaba N'Chu, as well as the 
 approaches, was strongly held, Ladybrand, with the unfriendly 
 Basutos lining the border, was rendered a position of extreme 
 danger for the Boers, the gravity of which was accentuated from 
 the moment the British advance began. 
 
 A special dispatch from Thaba N'Chu, dated April 3c\» 
 describing the fight at Israel's Poort, which is about seven miles 
 west of Thaba N'Chu, said : "Three hundred Boers were 
 strongly entrenched on two kopjes. The place of honor was 
 given to the Canadians, who advanced very cleverly under their 
 
 ^h'- 
 
V)2 
 
 BRITISH TROOIS UNDER A GALLING FIRE 
 
 dashing coinmandcr, Colonel Otter. The Boers reserved tlicir 
 fire until the Canadians had reached the wire entanglements. 
 Then they opened with a terrific hail of bullets. 
 
 ■'The Canadians, however, had taken good cover, and were 
 not greatly damaged. They were ably supported in the assault 
 by the Grahamstown Horse. Successive rushes brought tlieni 
 right up to the kopjes, when Colonel Otter was struck twice, one 
 bullet inflicting a nasty, but not dangerous, wound in the neck 
 and the other tearing the badges from his shoulder. But he 
 still cheered his men on until the kopjes were carried. The Boers 
 bolted. The British losses were twenty iu killed and wounded." 
 
 HOT SHELLS FROM BRITISH ARTILLERY. 
 
 Another dispatch from Thaba N'Chu, describing the same 
 engagement, said: 
 
 "The British artillery shelled the kopjes all day from three 
 positions. The Boer positions were extremely well chosen, con- 
 sisting of a long range of very precipitous hills, with narrow 
 poorts (passes) between, commanding a vast extent of country. 
 The mounted infantry made a wide turning movement, while the 
 foot infantry advanced within two thousand yards under good 
 shelter. 
 
 "During the afternoon the battle became general, and 
 extended over a frontage of ten miles. The rifle, Maxim and 
 artillery firing was deafening. At 3 o'clock the Canadians 
 advanced in open order, but meeting with a terrific fire, they took 
 shelter in a donga (ravine). When they finally captured the 
 kopje the Boers were seen retiring north and east with wagons, 
 and subsequently when the infantry made a dash the rest of the 
 :;nemy fired a few shots and cleared off. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 British Army Forces the Boers to Flee. 
 
 THE British crossed the Vet River vSunday, May 6th, aiu) 
 marched rapidly onward toward Kroonstad— where the Hoers, 
 who were in full retreat, were eoncentratinj^r their forces for a des- 
 perate stand. Lord Roberts' forces occupied vSnialdcel vSunday, 
 the Boers offering no resistance. On the British ri^ht General 
 Hamilton defeated a Boer force and occupied Wiuburg. The 
 Boers destroyed the Zand River bridge. 
 
 The plucky Canadians did some very gallant work in forcing 
 the passage of the Vet River, and Lord Roberts laid great stress 
 ontheii brave advance under a hot shell and musketry fire, from 
 which the}'' did not shrink. There was an honorable emulation 
 among the Colonial troops, and they were restless at any attempt 
 to hold them back. The Canadians and Queenslanders were con- 
 spicuous for their gallantry. All the accounts ishow that they 
 fought with great dash and determination, while the only object 
 of the Boers seemed to be to avoid capture. 
 
 The left wing of the British advanced on Saturday from the 
 Vet River to Smaldeel without meeting with any resistance. The 
 Boers had retreated towards Kroonstad, their rear guard being ten 
 miles away. They left behind a large quantity of forage and rail- 
 way material, and the British also captured a Maxim gun and 
 twenty-five prisoners. 
 
 Smaldeel is about one-fifth of the distance between Bloemfon- 
 tein and Pretoria, and Kroonstad is another fifth. As Wiuburg 
 was reported unofficially to have been occupied on Sunday by the 
 right wing under General Hamilton, after a sharp fight and a hot 
 pursuit, and as the Boers retired on the same day from their posi- 
 tions east of Thaba N'Chu and left General Rundle's division free 
 to march northward, there was nothing to retard Lord Roberts' 
 advance. His two wings were closer together than they were 
 
 when the northward advance was begun a week before. 
 
 553 
 
 I y,ji- ) 
 
 ■*.*'{ 
 
 
664 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 General Hamiltoti's iiiarcli on Winbnrg was conducted witli 
 great spirit, and he Lad hard fighting on the way. Details of the 
 cavalry charge and the work of the Highland Brigade proved that 
 the high prestige of the brigade was fully maintained. General 
 Hamilton's management of his troops was excellent, and the finest 
 qualities of the British cavalry and infantry were brought out 
 His pursuit of the enemy after the battle was sharp and harassino- 
 to the Boers, who fell back so rapidly that they could not carry 
 off two guns, which the British captured. 
 
 Lord Roberts' conviction that his northward march would 
 draw off the Boers from their entrenched positions at Thaba 
 N'Chu was justified by their retreat northward and eastward. 
 General Rundle occupied without sacrifice of life the impregnable 
 line of high hills which could only have been taken with heavy 
 losses by a frontal attack. Lord Roberts did not ask his men to 
 work miracles, but studied closely the dynamics of the science of 
 war. 
 
 BOERS MASSING FOR RESISTANCE. 
 
 It was thought not improbable that the siege of Mafeking 
 would be abandoned before General Hunter's column was withiu 
 measurable distance of the town. There were already rumors 
 from Pretoria that the Boer forces would be called south, and that 
 there would be a general concentration of the Burghers against 
 Lord Roberts on the Vaal River. General Hunter, meanwhile, 
 was marching on and driving the Boers before him. 
 
 Details of General Barton's engagement with the Boers at 
 Rooidan showed that the Fusilier battalions fought with steadi- 
 ness and pluck, and that the Imperial Yeomanry, under Colonel 
 Meyrick, pursued the enemy mile after mile when the kopjes 
 were taken. The Boer force was estimated at 3000, and it was 
 driven from strong positions and vigorously followed toward Four- 
 teen Streams on the next day. A junction was effected with Gen- 
 eral Paget' s forces, which had been blocked at Warrington. The 
 losses of General Hunter's column were light. The casualty lists 
 in the three engagements at the close of the week were insigni- 
 ficant in comparison with the results secured. 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLER 
 
 666 
 
 A correspondent with the British Arnij- wrote as follows con- 
 cerning Lord Roberts' advance : 
 
 "Two more important points have been captured in the 
 onward sweep of Roberts' great army. The reported seizure by- 
 General Ian Hamilton's column of Winburg has been confirmed. 
 Lord Roberts himself reported the equally important strategic 
 success of the taking of Smaldeel, or Winburg Road, which is the 
 junction point of the main line from Bloemfontein to Pretoria and 
 the branch running southeast to Winburg. Details are now 
 coming in concerning the brisk fight for the Vet River. From 
 Brandford to the Vet is a distance of nineteen miles. General 
 Pole-Carew started with his division at daybreak to march to the 
 river. He arrived at Eensgeronen, the first station south of the 
 Vet, about midday, and here he halted. 
 
 ENEMY CONCEALED IN RIVER BED. 
 
 "The West Australians, who covered the advance of the 
 column, discovered at one o'clock the Boers in the river bed, being 
 fired on by the Burghers at a distance of three hundred yards. 
 The artillery, comprising the Eighty-fourth and Eighty-fifth 
 batteries, pushed forward, escorted by General Stephenson's bri- 
 gade. These batteries caused the guns in the main Boer position 
 to unmask. Other pieces of the enemy's artillery came into 
 action on the British right. The Eighty-fourth battery moved 
 away to engage them, leaving the other battery to answer the 
 guns in the Boer centre. Two naval 12-pounders, two 2.4-inch 
 and two 5-inch guns, coming successively into action, soon altered 
 the aspect of affairs, two Boer guns being temporarily silenced. 
 
 "Meanwhile, General Huttou, who was well to the west with 
 the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and British mounted 
 infantry, attacked the Boers at the drift by which they intended 
 to cross. The Boers, who were led in this portion of the field by ' 
 Lucas Meyer, second in command of the federal troops, had the 
 advantage in number of machine guns, but the mounted Britishers 
 managed to drive their antagonists out of the river bed, crossed 
 the river and took up a position, which outflanked their right. 
 
 1 '■? 
 
 ^i'^f% 
 
 .tin. 
 
 .■■«■- 
 
656 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 General Lutton during the night sent two squadrons to blow up 
 the railway near Smaldeel, in the hope that by doing this he could 
 capture some rolling stock, but the last train northward had left 
 the junction Saturday evening. 
 
 " From the southeast and the west come news showing that 
 the surge forward of the main body of the British army is push- 
 ing back the Boers on both sides. Fourteen Streams, where for 
 six weeks the Boers have fired across the Vaal River at the British 
 forces, near Warrenton, has been evacuated. The British there, 
 under Colonel, Paget, have been joined by General Hunter aud 
 have crossed the river. 
 
 "The Thaba N'Chu force of the enemy have left the strong 
 position which they held, confronting General Rundle, and the 
 British troops have taken possession of it. Like a broad arrow 
 the British advance is now piercing the Boers' position in the Free 
 State. From the Winburg hills the left is extended toward Boshof 
 and Warrenton, while on the right, it runs southeast to north of 
 Thaba N'Chu and Wepener." 
 
 OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF ROBERTS' ADVANCE. 
 
 Lord Roberts' official despatches were as follows : 
 "Smaldeel, May 6 (afternoon). — We crossed the Vet River 
 this morning, and are now encamped at Smaldeel Junction. The 
 enemy is in full retreat toward the Zand River and Kroonstad. 
 The turning movement was made by the mounted infantry just 
 before dark yesterday. It was a very dashing affair. The Cana- 
 dians, New South Wales, New Zealand Rifles and Queensland 
 Mounted Infantry vied with each other in the determination to 
 close with the enemy. Captain Anley, of the Essex Regiment, 
 commanding the Third Infantry Battalion, behaved in a very gal- 
 lant manner. 
 
 "The naval guns and the artillery did some excellent fight- 
 ing, particularly two 5-inch guns, used for the first time with this 
 force. We captured a Maxim and twenty-five prisoners. Our 
 casualties are very few — only fifteen wounded, one killed and three 
 missing." 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 Wt 
 
 Later, this dispatch was received: "Smaldeel, May 7 — 10.55 
 A. M.— General Hunter, after defeating the enemy May 4, joined 
 hands with Paget near Warrenton. The enemy left thirteen 
 killed and wounded on the ground, and we captured several pris- 
 oners. Our losses were slight. Hunter speaks in high terms of 
 the gallantry of the Yeomanry under Colonel Mayrick. The 
 enemy have retired from the front of Thaba N'Chu, and the 
 exceedingly strong position they held is now occupied by Rundle's 
 division." 
 
 At Smaldeel it was reported, on May 8th, that the Boers were 
 quitting Zand River and were retreating toward the Vaal and 
 taking up their position at Boshrand, south of Kroonstad. Large 
 numbers of burghers came in and delivered their Mausers and 
 horses to the British. They affirmed that there was a bitter quar- 
 rel between the Free Staters and the Transvaalers, which was 
 likely to end in the speedy surrender of the former. General 
 French and his dashing cavalry had arrived at Smaldeel. 
 
 CAVALRY REACH ZAND RIVER. 
 
 Four thousand British cavalry watered their horses at Zand 
 River on the 7th, twenty-five miles beyond Smaldeel, where Lord 
 Roberts continued to date his dispatches. The scouts who had 
 been searching the country for miles along the stream, found no 
 Boers south of the river. The enemy were laagered in unknown 
 force on the north bank. Thus the British advance guard was 
 within forty-five miles of Kroonstad. The Free Staters, in the 
 expectation that Kroonstad would speedily become untenable, 
 \vere preparing to transfer their government to Neilbron, a little 
 more than fifty miles northeast. 
 
 The proclamations of Lord Roberts appear to have had little 
 effect upon the inhabitants of the invaded districts. Every farm 
 was found deserted except by the women and children. All the 
 men were away fighting. Reports at headquarters included the 
 incidents connected with the occupation of Smaldeel. Some exas- 
 peration was expressed at the ease with which the Boers escaped 
 with their transports before the very eyes of the British. 
 
 8»*! ) >"?^ 
 
 ^■'l 
 
 'hCi 
 
 -IMj ^'i 
 
S68 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 For instance, when the British entered Smaldeel, the Boer 
 ox wagons coolly out-spanned only five miles away, as if in con- 
 tempt of the ability of the British to overtake them. Lord Roberts 
 was unwilling to sacrifice his horses for the sake of a compara. 
 tively minor advantage. Nevertheless, the waste of horseflesh 
 in spite of all precautions, was enormous. Smaldeel is a village 
 of only a score of dwellings, but it expanded in one night to 
 a vast canvas city and the glow of the camp fires was like a scene 
 in an iron smelting district. 
 
 The tidings from Mafeking were gloomier than ever. Every- 
 body there had an empty stomach and a pinched face. The 
 natives were no longer given even porridge, and the whites had 
 nothing but a quart of that substance and a pound of horse 
 sausage daily. Everything else eatable was gone. Insufficient 
 food, wet trenches, the cold nights were deadly to the health of 
 the garrison. This information came from reliable natives. Lady 
 Sarah Wilson, under the date of April 27, said : " The Boers now 
 number 4,500, including young Eloff, President Kruger's grandson, 
 who has sent for six more guns." 
 
 TRYING TO ESCAPE STARVATION. 
 
 The Mafeking correspondent of the London "Times," who 
 also emphasized the extreme gravity of the situation, said : 
 " It is impossible to ignore the significance of Colonel Baden- 
 Powell's reference to the hardships endured by the women and 
 children, among whom many deaths have already occurred. The 
 commissariat is holding a certain stock of food stuffs in reserve for 
 use in the direst extremity." 
 
 At Zand River under date of May 9th, President Steyn said: 
 " We will fight to the end. Not one of my burghers is 
 unwilling to fight. We have never considered abandoning the 
 Transvaal. We will fight at the Vaal River, at Pretoria, and 
 afterward in the mountains. We have nothing to gain from peace, 
 everything by fighting. Every slight British success has been 
 followed by a terrible British defeat. Elandslaagte had its Colenso, 
 Belmont its Modder River, Bloemfontein its Saunas Post" 
 
 At Pretoi 
 men to assei 
 addressed by 
 time had arri^ 
 the front. Pe 
 the absolute i 
 the peace pro] 
 the independ 
 borders of th 
 A large numl 
 to proceed to 
 resolute deter 
 
 The Voll 
 
 impressive, cc 
 
 President Kn 
 
 the chamber 
 
 fixed on the 
 
 eign nations 1 
 
 and for hundr 
 
 British abuse 
 
 wounded and 
 
 Notwiths 
 
 he said, were 
 
 which severa 
 
 sentiment at 
 
 raad adjourm 
 
 to return to t 
 
 As a par 
 
 Hutton's moi 
 
 he saw a nun 
 
 north. Huti 
 
 the river. H( 
 
 corn fields j 
 
 The enemy i 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEL. 
 
 659 
 
 At Pretoria, the government summoned all the able bodied 
 men to assemble in Burgher's Square. The assemblage was 
 addressed by Vice President Schalk Burger, who said that the 
 time had arrived when the republics needed all their citizens at 
 the front. Peace was possible only through the recognition of 
 the absolute independence of both republics. England's reply to 
 the peace proposals made it clear that her intention was to destroy 
 the independence of the Boers. The enemy were nearing the 
 borders of the Transvaal, and a critical hour was approaching. 
 A large number volunteered to hold themselves in readiness to 
 to proceed to the front immediately. Thus there was still a 
 resolute determination to carry on the war to the bitter end. 
 
 MEETING OP BOER PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The Volksraad met on May 9th. The assemblage was most 
 impressive, coming as it did at an acute hour of national peril. 
 President Kruger's address was received with rapt attention by 
 the chamber and the crowd. The eyes of the world, he said, were 
 fixed on the Boers' struggle. President Kruger thanked the for- 
 eign nations for the Red Cross aid the Transvaal had received, 
 and for hundreds of letters of sympathy. He protested against the 
 British abuse of the Red Cross, and their treatment of the Boer 
 wounded and prisoners. 
 
 Notwithstanding the war, the finances of the government, 
 he said, were in excellent condition. After a brief session, during 
 which several inspiriting speeches were made, showing that the 
 sentiment at that time was for deeds and not words, the Volks- 
 raad adjourned, most of the members immediately taking trains 
 to return to the front. 
 
 As apart of the general plan of the British advance. General 
 Hutton's mounted infantry reconnoitered to the Zand River, where 
 he saw a number of Boers with trains preparing to retreat to the 
 north. Hutton advanced and occupied a kopje a few miles from 
 the river. He held this position, and then pushed forward through 
 corn fields and occupied a kopje overlooking Virginia Siding. 
 The enemy at once engaged him, using six guns, two of which 
 
 <a4»/ ■^■f' \>- 
 
m 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE 
 
 were "Long Tom" 4opounders. General Hutton's guns were 
 unable to reach the Boers. 
 
 The Canadians and New Zealanders were on an advanced 
 kopje. The Boers suddenly streamed out to the south of the 
 Zand River and, dividing their artillery, gave Hutton's men a 
 cross fire, menacing their retreat. The Australians were ordered 
 forward to the right from the rear of the kopje, and engaged the 
 Boers, whereupon the whole force withdrew. 
 
 On May loth the War Office in London received the follow- 
 ing despatch from Lord Roberts : " Cable Cart Headquarters at 
 the Front, May lO, 9.30 A., M. — We are now across the Zand 
 River. The enemy are still holding a strong position, but we are 
 gradually pushing them back." 
 
 Later came the following : " The enemy are in full retreat. 
 They occupied a position twenty miles in length. Ours was 
 necessarily longer. With the widely scattered force it will take 
 some time to learn the casualties, but I am hopeful we have not 
 suffered much. The cavalry and home artillery are pursuing the 
 Boers by three different roads." 
 
 ROBERTS PUSHING ON HIS COLUMN. 
 
 Lord Roberts rapidly cut down the distance which lay between 
 his advancing host and Kroonstad. The commander-in-chief 
 reported, as already stated, that he had crossed the Zand River, 
 and that the Boers were in flight, with the British cavalry in hot 
 pursuit along three roads. 
 
 No long halt was made at Smaldeel, as had been expec'u d. 
 The messages received on the loth recorded an advance to 
 Welgelegen Siding, which is on the railway and fifteen miles north 
 of Smaldeel, and a movement thence to the Zand River, with the 
 Seventh and Eleventh infantry divisions, Ian Hamilton's mounted 
 infantry division, and four brigades of cavalry. The Boers had 
 been expected to make a determined stand on the north bank of 
 the Zand, but when they were attacked by the great force of the 
 British they oflfered only a feeble resistance. 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 6G1 
 
 uns were 
 
 advanced 
 th of the 
 s men a 
 - ordered 
 raged the 
 
 le follow- 
 larters at 
 he Zand 
 ut we are 
 
 I retreat. 
 )urs was 
 will take 
 have not 
 uing the 
 
 ' between 
 r-in-chief 
 id River, 
 ry in hot 
 
 Jxpeclcd. 
 ^ance to 
 les north 
 with the 
 mounted 
 oers had 
 bank of 
 i of the 
 
 The next important news from the seat of war told of General 
 Roberts' continued advance. Not since Ladysmith and Kimberley 
 were relieved had London been in such a state of excitement as it 
 was on the evening of May 12th. 
 
 " Kroonstad taken, and without opposition ! " The news came 
 almost like a thunderclap. Some of the military experts had been 
 saying that Kroonstad would be taken without stiff fi.irhtiiig, but 
 the public were skeptical. Not only from a study of the map, but 
 also from other sources, it was known that numerous kopjes in the 
 neighborhood of Kroonstad afforded the Boers the best opportu- 
 nity for oflfering strong opposition. On the other hand, these mili- 
 tary critics pointed out that the country behind Kroonstad was so 
 open that a protracted resistance at that point involved serious 
 risk of the Boer retreat being cut oif by the British cavalry, which 
 could be sent around in large force. 
 
 BOER STRONGHOLD IN DANGER. 
 
 Although few details reached London, beyond the fact that 
 Kroonstad was occupied soon after noon and the British flag 
 hoisted, it is evident that the Boer commanders were, for several 
 days, fully alive to the danger to their supposed stronghold. 
 
 Nevertheless, the British public never imagined the taking of 
 Kroonstad would prove such a simple matter. Lord Roberts' des- 
 patch arrived after London had begun the night's amusement — 
 after the first acts in the theatres — when people had crowded into 
 the lobbies and clubs, where people were enjoying after-dinner 
 smokes. As the news was rattled out by the tickers great enthu- 
 siasm was shown. Everybody broke into cheers for Roberts and 
 sang "God Save the Queen" with no end of fervor. In view of 
 the easy capture of this second capital of the Free State, showing 
 that the Boers are fully acquainted with the odds against them in 
 the huge British force, many military men thought the first really 
 strenuous opposition to Roberts' progress would be made in the 
 neighborhood of Johannesburg. 
 
 Before sending the communication that he had occupied 
 Kroonstad, Lord Roberts forwarded the following despatches : 
 
 36 
 
I 
 
 
 ? I 
 
 *' '■" -.' I 
 
 ull^M^^^ 
 
 662 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 " Geneva Siding, May ii — Evening. — My headquarters, with Pole- 
 Care w's division, marched twenty miles to-day and are now at 
 Geneva Siding, fourteen miles from Kroonstad and about six 
 miles from Boschrand, where the B.^ers are holding intrenched 
 positions. Gordon's brigade is in touch with them. Tucker's 
 division is a short distance southeast, and Hamilton's division is 
 still further east. Broadwood's brigade overtook a part of the 
 enemy's convoy yesterday afternoon at Potgieter's Laager, south- 
 east of Veutersburg, and captured several wagons and some 
 prisoners. 
 
 " French, with Porter's and Dickenson's brigades and Mutton's 
 mounted infantry, is some distance due north of this place. We 
 have taken nearly one hundred prisoners during the last two days. 
 All the Free Staters who could give a good account of themselves 
 have been disarmed and allowed to return to their farms. The 
 nights are getting much cooler." 
 
 LORD ROBERTS ENTERS KROONSTAD. 
 
 "Boschrand, May 12, 9:05 A. M. — I am eight miles south of 
 Kroonstad. The enemy evacuated the first line of intrenchments 
 during the night. We are now reconnoitering towards Kroon- 
 stad. General French's cavalry seized the drift over the Valsoli 
 River at half past four o'clock last evening, just in time to pre- 
 vent passage being opposed by the enemy." 
 
 The War Office received this dispatch from General Roberts: 
 "Kroonstad, May 12, 2 P. M. — I entered Kroonstad at half-past 
 one, without opposition, to-day, when the Union Jack was hoisted 
 amid cheers from the British residents. President Steyn fled last 
 evening, after vainly endeavoring to pursuade the burghers to con- 
 tinue opposing us. The Trans vaalers said they would no longer 
 fight on Orange Free State soil, and made off for the Vaal River. 
 Free Staters accuse the Transvaalers of having made use of them 
 and then deserting. Many of the Free Staters have gone to their 
 homes. 
 
 "The procession, entering the town, was headed by my body- 
 guard, all of whom were colonels, and after my staff and foreign 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BULRS TO FLEE. 
 
 r>M 
 
 officers came the North Somerset IiiiiK'rial Yconianry, followed by 
 Pole-Carew's division, consisting of the Gnurds and the Eighteenth 
 brigade, the Eighty-third, Eighty-fonrth and lughtv-fifth batteries, 
 two 5-inch guns, manned by the Royal Artillery Company, and 
 the Twelfth Engineers. The rest of the force encamped around 
 the town. Before leaving Kroonstad, President Steyn issued a 
 proclamation making Lindley the seat of government of the Free 
 State. Generals Botha and De ^^'et accompanied the Traus- 
 vaalers." 
 
 Meanwhile, General Buller's column was working northward 
 in Natal, and driving the Boers before it in full retreat. General 
 BuUer's advance commenced on Thursday, the lotli, when he left 
 Ladysmith in strength. When within two miles of Helpmakaar 
 the Boers opened a heavy artillery fire and the British guns 
 replied, while a portion of BuUer's troops worked around the Boer 
 flank. The British attack was pressed home on the 13th. Bethune, 
 on the right, outflanked the Boers, whose splendid defensive posi- 
 tions on the Biggarsberg were practically taken. General BuUer's 
 march, subsequent to the attack, was carried out without a hitch. 
 
 GENERAL BULLER'S BOLD MOVE. 
 
 After four days' march eastward at the foot of the Biggars- 
 berg ridges, in the direction of Helpmakaar, which was occupied 
 by the Federals, -he second brigade led the attack on the i3tli. 
 Dundonald's cavalry broke the Boers' centre, and Bethune's horse 
 advanced on their extreme right. In the direction of Pomeroy, a 
 small party of burghers occupied a ridge overlooking Helpma- 
 kaar, but they did not wait for the assault. 
 
 General BuUer's turning of the Biggarsberg position w^as 
 effectedby abold movement. The Boers had evacuated Helpmakaar, 
 but were making a stand on the 7th at Bleskoplaagte, seven miles 
 from Dundee. At the same time, General Hildyard took Indoba, 
 and the Boers withdrew in disorder. General Buller employed 
 his full strength, and pushed on. His first marches were forty- 
 five miles in three days. He was thus breaking into British terri- 
 tory, which had been administered for six months by the Trans- 
 
 ''^':e' 
 
 . /I 
 
 m 
 
 *,.i 
 
 P'^ 
 
 i- -.1 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
564 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 vaalers as though it were a part of the republic, they holding 
 courts and levying taxes. His success, therefore, had political as 
 well as military consequences. 
 
 On May 15th General Buller sent the important intelligence 
 that his troops had marched into Dundee, and this town, from 
 which the British were driven in the early part of the war, was 
 again in their possession. His despatch said : "We have occupied 
 Dundee. About 2,500 of the enemy left on the I4tli for Glencoe^ 
 where they entrained. Their wagons also left by De Jager's Drift 
 and the Dannhauser road. Their Kaflfirs said they were going to 
 Laing's Nek. Almost every house in Dundee is completely 
 looted. The Navigation Colliery is all right. The machinery of 
 the Dundee collieries is destroyed. ' The houses of the town are 
 damaged, but are structurally intact." 
 
 RAPID CAVALRY MARCH. 
 
 The following dispatch, bearing date of May 15th, was 
 received at the War Office from General Roberts : 
 
 " Dundonald reported late last night that he had driven the 
 rear guard on to the main body of the enemy, near Buralinden, 
 where they occupied in force a strong position with three powerful 
 guns. Major Gough, with the composite regiment, manoeuvred 
 to the right round their left flank and they retired. Dundonald 
 then halted. He was twenty-five miles, as the crow flies, from his 
 previous night's bivouack, and had covered nearly forty miles dur- 
 ing the day in a waterless country, most of the time riding through 
 smoke. I think this pursuit a very fine performance. From 
 prisoners I learn that the enemy numbered over 2,000 at Helpma- 
 kaar, and being now joined by those who left Van Jonder's Pass, 
 they must total nearly 3,000 men. Hildyard reports the occupa- 
 tion of Wessel's Nek, and is repairing the line." 
 
 It was officially announced that Glencoe was occupied on the 
 15th, and that the Boers had evacuated Biggarsberg. The War 
 Office in London posted the following despatch from General Buller^ 
 dated May 16: ' 
 
 •' We occupied Glencoe yesterday. The Trans vaalers have 
 
 :.4.^'Vti- 
 
they holding 
 id political as 
 
 intelligence 
 is town, from 
 the war, was 
 lave occnpied 
 for Glencoe 
 Jager's Drift 
 were going to 
 s completely 
 machinery of 
 the town are 
 
 y 15th, was 
 
 id driven the 
 • Buralinden, 
 iree powerful 
 , manoeuvred 
 Dundonald 
 lies, from his 
 ty miles dur- 
 ding through 
 ance. From 
 3 at Helpma- 
 3nder's Pass, 
 s the occupa- 
 
 upied on the 
 :. The War 
 neral Buller, 
 
 ^aalers have 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOF.RS TO FLEE. 
 
 60fi 
 
 now evacuated Biggarsbcrg. The Free Staters on the Drakciis- 
 berg are much reduced in numbers. The Carolina, Lyndenberg 
 and Pretoria Commandoes trekked north from Hlatikulu on 13th 
 and 14th of May. Eleven guns were entrained at Glencoe. The 
 last train, with ambulance, left there at dawn May 15. This 
 result has been largely produced by the action of the Fifth Divi- 
 sion, which, during the last few days, had done a great deal of very 
 hard work— marching, mountain-climbing and road making. 
 Trains are now running to Wessels Nek Station." 
 
 ANOTHER ASSAULT ON MAFEKING. 
 
 "Food will last until about June 10," was the latest official 
 word from Colonel Baden-Powell, the British commanderatlMafek- 
 ing, sent to Lord Roberts under date of May 7. Five days later 
 the Boers attempted to storm the town. The British relief column 
 is due there at this time. Ten days before General Snynian was 
 having difficulty in keeping the burghers together, owing to the 
 approach of the British, and when the last Associated Press des- 
 patch left Mafeking, on May 7, the Boers had killed on the previous 
 day one of the horse guards and had captured several of Colonel 
 Baden-Powell's few remaining horses. Nevertheless, the British 
 garrison was making a gallant defense. The signs were many 
 that the Boers were becoming disheartened and were reluctantly 
 coming to the conclusion that the war was going against them. 
 In fact, many lost courage from the moment General Cronje and 
 his force were compelled to surrender. A correspondent depicted 
 the manner in which the Boers at Burghersdorp received the newj 
 of Cronje' s downfall. He wrote : 
 
 " When the news came the folk would not believe it. The f 
 would just as soon have believed that the sun could fall from tl:e 
 heavens and leave the earth in darkness as that Cronje — the iron- 
 willed, tiger-hearted Cronje — would throw down his arms. Had 
 the news come that he had made a mad rush at our guns and 
 perished with all his men around liini they might have believed 
 it ; believed it and wept, and even as they wept they would have 
 sworn to ayenge him. But they would not, they could not, and 
 
 
 ■ hh 
 
 i'i 
 
 M 
 
 .1 
 
 
 ^H -4 
 
 '. K 
 
 :^:^m 
 
f,m 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES 150F.RS TO FLEE. 
 
 ti. -v did not believe that lie, the man in whom they hud placed 
 their faith, had snrrendered with thonsands of his men. 
 
 " But at last the truth became known ; some who had escaped 
 from Cnnije's laager brought the fateful news, and then the stolid- 
 looking fighting men broke down. They wept like boys. Great, 
 rugged, bearded men dashed their rifles on the ground and spurned 
 them with their boots, while down their sun-and-wind-tanned faces 
 the tears poured readily. Others took the news sadly, with chins 
 drooping on their chests, with hard, set faces, white with passion- 
 ate pain too deep for words ; they stood leaning upon their rifles 
 with hands hard gripped until one would think the tightened 
 muscles would leave the impress of the straining fingers upon the 
 
 cold steel. 
 
 STUNNED BY THE BLOW. 
 
 "Others again crowded together and looked dumbly from face 
 to face, like cattle foregathered to the shambles. The blow had 
 stunned them. To them Cronje was something more than a man ; 
 he was an idol. What the great Corsicaii was to the French 
 soldiery after the battle of Austerlit/ so Cronje was to these rude 
 •farmers. He was their brain centre, their rallying point. Had 
 Paul Kruger betrayed them to their foes for the sake of the British 
 gold they would not have felt the shock as they felt this one mau's 
 surrender. 
 
 "If Cronje had loved his country half as well as his country 
 loved him he would have marched right on the point of a British 
 bayonet on that morning so disastrous to the Boer arms, and have 
 yielded up his life in order that the memory of his name might 
 have remained as a watchword on the lips and in the hearts of his 
 gallant yeoman soldiery. 
 
 "When the crash came, when the Boers knew for a certainty 
 that Cronje had yielded, they felt that their idol was shattered. 
 He had been to them as a god fashioned out of marble ; they found 
 him at last to be only a man made out of mud, and when he fell 
 the Cape Dutch cause and the Orange Free State fell with him. 
 When he laid down his arms he launched a thunderbolt into the 
 Boer camp which wrecked it forever." 
 
 ^5,,!^;^^*^ 
 
Iiad placed 
 
 11. 
 
 had escaped 
 cii tlicstolid- 
 oys. Great, 
 and spurned 
 tanned fiices 
 with cliins 
 
 ith passion- 
 II their rifles 
 e tightened 
 ers upon the 
 
 •ly from face 
 e blow had 
 than a man ; 
 the French 
 o these rude 
 point. Had 
 f the British 
 is one man's 
 
 his country 
 of a British 
 s, and have 
 ame might 
 learts of his 
 
 a certainty 
 shattered. 
 
 they found 
 
 hen he fell 
 with him. 
 
 Dlt into the 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLF.F.. 
 
 867 
 
 Wild with enthusiasm as Loudon was over the relief of 
 Ladysmith, even more crazy scenes were witnessed on the evening 
 of May i8th, when the news of the safety of Mafekiug reached 
 there. The metropolis fairly went mad in demonstrations of 
 delight over the event. All this week, by day and by night, Lou- 
 doners, in fact, the entire nation, had been waiting anxiously for 
 word of Baden-Powell's rescue. As one walked through the city 
 he could see the eagerness in persons' eyes as they listened to the 
 shouts of newsboys or scanned the contents bills of the evening 
 papers. 
 
 All day long suppressed excitement was visible everywhere, 
 for May i8th was the day on which, according to Lord Roberts' 
 promise, Mafekiug should be relieved. After all, the news did 
 not come through the War Office, but in a Renter despatch from 
 Pretoria, giving the official announcement that the Boers had 
 abandoned the siege, and that supplies of food were being sent 
 into the town. 
 
 WILD EXCITEMENT OVER THE NEWS. 
 
 The despatch camt- at a comparatively quiet hour in the eve- 
 ning, just after nine c.^-lock, when pleasure-seeking Londoners 
 were at the theatres and oncert halls. The news first came out 
 by the welcome and thrilling words, "Mafekiug Relieved ! " in 
 big letters, being posted in a large, brightly-lit window of the 
 Daily Telegraph office. Only a few people were there at first to 
 see it, but their cheering immediately brought others, and the 
 increasing volume of shouts quickly added to the crowd. Where 
 they all came from is a marvel, but in a few minutes Fleet street 
 was blocked. Omnibuses and cabs could hardly get past, but 
 what did the passengers care ? They were too delighted to think 
 where they were going or what else they had to do. Loud cheers 
 for the gallant garrison were heard on every side. 
 
 Then the scenes of that great day on which the safety of 
 Ladysmith was announced were repeated, only in an intensified 
 form. The people went into a frenzy of delight. It was not so 
 much " Bobs " who was the hero of the hour, but Baden-Powell. 
 
 si 
 
 .1 ;* 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 tH •■V 
 
 h 
 
 hi 
 
 HI 'R 
 
 i^m 
 
 r^i^ i'i€^ 
 
568 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE, 
 
 I ! 
 
 The crowd yelled his name and sang " He's a jolly good fellow " 
 till they were hoarse. 
 
 Then out of the crowds came along the streets a procession of 
 waving flags, of all kinds. Where they were obtained so quickly 
 at such a late hour would be difficult to tell. In some cases shops 
 reopened their doors to supply flags, and those were cleaned out 
 quickly. One feature in these processions worthy of mention was 
 ' the many Stars and Stripes which mingled with the Uniou 
 Jacks. 
 
 All night through the demonstration lasted. Crowds moved 
 about shouting, singing, blowing ear-splitting horns, whistles, or 
 shrieking sirens, beating drums, trays, or anything at all that 
 they could lay their hands on, to add to the uproar. Everyone 
 seemed to want to do but one thing — make noise. In the exuber- 
 ance cf their joy they did it in a way London had never known 
 before. It was thought such sights as were witnessed on Lady- 
 smith night could hardly be excelled, but they certainly were 
 when news came of the relief of Mafeking. 
 
 DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE SIEGE. 
 
 The story of Mafeking is full of thrilling interest. When, 
 just before the outbreak of the war. Colonel Baden-Powell had 
 undertaken to put Mafeking into a state of defence he was speedily 
 joined by Lord Salisbury's soldier son. Major Lord Edward Cecil, 
 who had been one of Lord Kitchener's aides-de-camp in the Khar- 
 toum campaign. Captain Gordon C. W. Wilson, of the Royal 
 Horse Guards, was also sent up to Mafeking on special duty, and 
 he was joined there by his wife, Lady Sarah Wilson, youngest 
 daughter of the seventh Duke and aunt of the present Duke of 
 Marlborough. 
 
 This adventurous lady attempted at the outset of the siege to 
 make her escape south to Kimberley, accompanied only by her 
 maid-servant, on horseback. She was, however, captured by the 
 Boers, and after some weeks' imprisonment was offered by General 
 Snyman in exchange for Viljoen, a notorious character. Through 
 the remainder of the siege Lady Sarah Wilson took a prom'.nent 
 
^^".''m.^ 
 
 h' 
 
 it^i 
 
 y good fellow " 
 
 a procession of 
 ined so quickly 
 •me cases shops 
 ire cleaned out 
 of mention was 
 ith the Uniou 
 
 Crowds moved 
 ns, whistles, or 
 ng at all that 
 )ar. Everyone 
 In the exuber- 
 
 never known 
 essed on Lady- 
 certainly were 
 
 erest. When, 
 en-Powell had 
 le was speedily 
 Edward Cecil, 
 p in the Khar- 
 of the Royal 
 cial duty, and 
 son, youngest 
 :sent Duke of 
 
 )f the siege to 
 only by her 
 tured by the 
 :d by General 
 :er. Through 
 a promment 
 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 5(50 
 
 part VA organizing and superintending an auxiliary hospital, and 
 as an amateur correspondent gave to the world many graphic 
 details of life in the besieged town. 
 
 Among the civilian population must be mentioned the IMaj'or 
 of Mafeking, Frank Whiteley, who had charge of tlie laager con- 
 taining six or seven hundred women and children, and had many 
 hairbreadth escapes from the shells directed upon that quarter by 
 the Boers ; and Mr. E. B. Weil, a member of a well known South 
 African firm. So keen was the spirit among the townsfolk at the 
 beginning; of the siege that two women — the wife and daughter of a 
 railway employe — absolutely declined to go to the women's laager- 
 Both were good shots, and, having their own Lee-Metfords, were 
 capable of taking care of themselves. 
 
 THE GARRISON'S BRAVE RESISTANCE. 
 
 Of the gallant band of officers by whom the defence was sus- 
 tained few came out of the siege unscathed, still fewer without 
 having suffered from fever or some sort of disease rluetothe siege. 
 The first serious losses were sustained on October 31, when a 
 detachment of the British South African police, under Colonel 
 Walford, made such a gallant resistance to the Boers in a day- 
 break assault that the whole scheme of attack on the town was 
 foiled. In this fight fell the Hon. Douglas Marsham and Captain 
 Charles Pechell. Their burial in the cemetery oiitside the town, 
 at the dead of night and the lantern dimly burning, made an 
 affecting scene. 
 
 The day after Christmas Day the garrison received its worst 
 check. A sortie was planned for the capture of Game Tree Fort, 
 which was greatly harassing the town. Three officers who rushed 
 up to the wall of the fort and thrust their revolvers through the 
 loopholes, were killed in the assault — the commander. Captain 
 Ronald Vernon, with Captain Harry Sandford and Lieutenant 
 Baton. Out of the storming party of eighty, twenty-one were 
 killed and thirty-three wounded. Captain Fitz Clarence, who was 
 wounded, recovered, and was able later to take an active part in 
 the defence. 
 
 
 . *l 
 
 ■11 
 
 
 
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 : IS' 
 
 V fl 
 
 m' ^m 
 
., ! 
 
 .^iVi^^^^i 
 
 M -l'i\ 
 
 ni •!,.;.# 
 
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 670 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 At the outset of the siege Messrs. Weil, the government con- 
 tractors, forwarded supplies of food for thirty days for 440- Euro- 
 peans, 80 colored and 30 natives, with 440 horses and 73 mules. 
 The contractors also forwarded, some say at Lord Cecil's sug- 
 gestion, large stores for the population of Mafeking, which 
 included about 7,000 natives. Altogether the besieged, it is esti- 
 mated, numbered 9,000 people. With this plentiful store the 
 garrison did not begin to feel the pinch of hunger until the 
 beginning of January. The commander had, however, taken pre- 
 cautions to husband his resources in food. Six soup kitchens 
 were improvised, and it |was estimated by their means the meal 
 that would have lasted only three weeks would be made to last 
 three months. Vegetables were grown where possible, but could 
 only be obtained at famine prices. 
 
 DIET OF HORSEFLESH. 
 
 Then came the slaughter of the horses. Any shot by the 
 enemy were promptly handed over to the commissariat and sent 
 to the stew pot. In the middle of February the ordinary ration 
 for an adult consisted of four weevily biscuits and a " piece of 
 meat which could truthfully be called beef" Three weeks later 
 the meal ration v.'^as a half a pound for a woman and two ounces 
 for each child. Five horses were killed daily. 
 
 Great difficulty was experienced in feeding the natives, until 
 an enterprising Scotchman evolved a mess closely akin to sowan, a 
 substitute for porridge, which became their sole diet, as they 
 objected to eating horseflesh through religious scruples. By Good 
 Friday the ration for the whites had been reduced to six ounces of 
 of oaten flour biscuit and three-quarters of a pound of meat. An 
 attempt by Colonel Plunier to send forty head of cattle into the 
 town by night was frustrated by the Boer cordon j ust as the party 
 had reached the lines of the besieged. 1 
 
 On April 25, when it was stated that Mafeking could holdout 
 for a month, the bread rations had come down to four ounces. A 
 case of whiskey was raffled at this time and fetched $535, while a 
 fowl brought six dollars. 
 
veriiment con- 
 for 44o.Eiiro- 
 tnd 73 mules, 
 d Cecil's siig- 
 "ekiiig, which 
 ged, it is esti- 
 ful store the 
 ger until the 
 ^er, taken pre- 
 toup kitchens 
 eans the meal 
 made to last 
 ble, but could 
 
 shot by the 
 iriat and sent 
 dinary ration 
 i a " piece of 
 ■ weeks later 
 I two ounces 
 
 natives, until 
 :in to sowan, a 
 iiet, as they 
 les. By Good 
 six ounces of 
 f meat. An 
 :tle into the 
 as the party 
 I 
 mid hold out 
 ounces. A 
 535> while a 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 571 
 
 By the middle of January life had become monotonous beyond 
 measure. All the excitement provided was by the unpleasant 
 visitation of shells. The hottest fire poured upon the town was 
 on April ii, when the big Creusot gun fired more than one hun- 
 dred rounds, and the field guns from every side kept up a constant 
 rain of shells. Four of these entered the hospital, and it seemed 
 as if a deliberate attempt was being made to pierce the bomb- 
 proof shelters of the women- 
 
 In these dug-out caves the loss of life was due more to 
 malaria and dysentery than to the missiles of the enemy. It was 
 dangerous during the last month of the siege to move out of them, 
 for "snipers" were always on the watch, and bullets flew through 
 the streets at all times. Early in the siege Sunday was observed 
 by common consent as a day of truce. The garrison was able to 
 keep their spirits by games in the open. Football and cricket 
 matches were played with much delight, and were followed by 
 concerts and amusements, which relieved the strain of the 
 imprisonment. Gradually the Boers gave up these concessions, 
 so that nothing remained to the besieged but to sit and await the 
 end with what patience they could command. 
 
 On one occasion the Sunday relaxations were to wind up 
 with a dance given by the bachelor officers. Just, however, as 
 the dancing was about to begin the Boer guns opened fire and, as 
 on the famous eve of Waterloo, all the combatants were forced to 
 leave and spend the night under arms in the trenches which were 
 swimming with recent rain. 
 
 MAFEKING'S STORY TOLD IN BRIEF. 
 
 Boer forces isolated the town on October 14th. Thus the siege 
 lasted 214 days, if it ended on May i5tli, as reported. Baden. 
 Powell's fighters numbered at first about fifteen hundred men, all 
 irregulars except a few officers. He had eight guns, six of them 
 machine. Seven hundred white women and children and seven 
 thousand blacks were also hemmed in. The besieging force 
 varied from two thousand to five thousand. 
 
 Cronje first attacked Mafeking on October 15th, following up 
 
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 l^. A 
 
 "'• m 
 
 if:Ti 
 
 <M»/ ■-'vHsf 
 
I! 
 
 672 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 the destruction of an armored train at Kraaipan, below the toM'ii. 
 Repulse with heavy loss was the result. Heavy guns were 
 brought up and bombardment began. A fierce assault on October 
 31st was futile, both sides losing heavily. Weeks of "sniping'' 
 and intermittent bombardment culminated December 26tli in an 
 unsuccessful British sally against Game Tree Fort. Twenty-one 
 of the garrison were killed, and thereafter Baden-Powell remained 
 on the defensive. 
 
 Colonel Plumer, with two thousand men from Rhodesia, 
 moving south to raise the siege, got within fourteen miles of tlie 
 town on March i6th, but was beaten back by the Boers, led by 
 Snyman. Lord Roberts sent word that relief would arrive by Alay 
 1 8th, and a column estimated at three thousand men left Kini- 
 berley early in the month to fulfil the promise. After January 
 all in Mafeking were on reduced rations. Life was supported by 
 means of horse and mule meat, soup made from the animals' skins, 
 and porridge concocted from fodder oats. Six ounces of bread, a 
 quart of soup and two quarts of porridge was the daily rations. 
 
 A COSTLY DEFENSE. 
 
 Casualties in the town's fighting force up to April 28th totalled 
 240, including sixty-six killed and 133 wounded. Deaths from 
 disease added fully sixty more, making a twenty per cent, loss 
 during the siege. The deaths among non-combatants probably 
 numbered one hundred more. 
 
 To meet the peculiar exigencies of the situation, Baden- 
 Powell issued paper currency and postage stamps. The resource- 
 ful commander also built a gun of steel plate to supplement his 
 slender outfit of cannon, which comprised one weapon made in the 
 last century. He had thrown his defence lines far out, thus pre- 
 venting a concentration of heavy fire on a small space, which 
 would soon have knocked the town to pieces. 
 
 At the raising of the siege of Mafeking it was felt that a 
 decisive crisis in the war had arrived. 
 
 Lord Roberts' advance from Bloemfontein to Kroonstad was 
 a practically unobstructed march. The Boers did not fight, and 
 
 %k^ 
 
E. 
 
 below the town, 
 ivy guns were 
 aiilt oil Octolx-r 
 s of "snipiiio'' 
 liber 26tli in an 
 Twenty-one 
 owell remained 
 
 •t 
 
 Torn Rhodesia, 
 
 en miles of tlie 
 
 e Boers, led b\- 
 
 d arrive by May 
 
 men left Kini- 
 
 After January 
 
 s supported by 
 
 animals' skins, 
 
 ices of bread, a 
 
 laily rations. 
 
 ril 28th totalled 
 
 Deaths from 
 
 7 per cent, loss 
 
 tants probably 
 
 nation, Baden- 
 The resource- 
 upplement his 
 m made in the 
 out, thus pre- 
 I space, which 
 
 as felt that a 
 
 Croonstad was 
 not fight, and 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 673 
 
 failed to make an effective stand anywhere. At Brandfort the 
 Boers retreated before the British within rifle range, leaving Col- 
 onel Blake's Irish- Americans and other outlanders to do all the 
 fighting. These lost heavily. The same thing occurred at the 
 Vet and Zand rivers, the Boers retreating immediately after a few 
 shells came. 
 
 Generals Botha and De Wet effected a j unction at the Zand 
 River, but continued their retreat. President Steyn personally 
 endeavored to induce' the burghers to stand at Krooustad, but 
 failed, they continuing to fall back, notwithstanding his appeal. 
 The Boer retreat was orderly, but sullen. They brought back all 
 their baggage and artillery, and their losses were very slight. 
 The British made a very rapid march. General Botha, with a 
 handful of brave men, protected the rear. 
 
 Kroonstad was evacuated when the British were within a few 
 miles, and the Free State capital was removed to Heilbron. The 
 British crossed the Vaal at Fourteen Streams. The Boers 
 abandoned Natal and retired to Laing's Nek. The bridge across 
 the Vaal at Verinigen was blown up. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF BOER ENVOYS IN AMERICA. 
 
 The Boer Ambassadors who came to this country to urge the 
 United States to interfere by mediation between the British and. 
 Boers, were cordially received, but the conservative sentiment of 
 the people demanded that our government should not take any 
 formal part in the controversy, and should content itself by attend- 
 ing strictly to its own business. Frederick C. De Sumichnast, 
 Professor of History at Harvard University, treated this subject 
 
 as follows : 
 
 " The teaching of history, the dictates of common sense and 
 the plain calls of policy, concur in forcing the conclusion that the 
 government of the United States should receive the Boer delegates 
 with an absolutely firm refusal to be in any way drawn into the 
 British-Boer quarrel. 
 
 "Unless, indeed, the United States are prepared to repudiate 
 their noblest and best national traditions, they cannot intervene 
 
 ^...:- 
 
 • *.;>• 
 
 1*^ 
 
 ^1^ 
 
 
 \ '^ii 
 
 i if 
 
I 
 
 674 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 on behalf of a people that denied to the Huguenots the right to 
 use their own language and to worship God in their own way ; 
 that refused to the Anglo-Saxon taxpayer any voice in tli: impo- 
 sition of the taxes and the right to have his children taught iu 
 English ; that called the sacred right of petition a revolt against 
 law and a reason for punishing the petitioner and refusing his 
 request, that deny to the Roman Catholic and the Jew alike any 
 part or share in tlie offices of the government. 
 
 "Unless the Declaration of Independence is to be trampled 
 under foot and proclaimed obsolete and null, the United States 
 cannot espouse the cause of a government which has systemati. 
 cally denied every one of the rights which the Declaration affirms 
 to be the inalienable possession of every man. Unless the United 
 States — that sympathized with France in her effort to throw oflf 
 the yoke of a monarchical government less tyrannous than the 
 Boer — have renounced belief in the declaration of the rights of 
 man — the charter of republican France as the Declaration of 
 Independence is that of the United States — they cannot lift a 
 finger to aid in the perpetuation of a corrupt and oppressive 
 oligarchy masquerading under the name of republic. 
 
 MUST DO AS WE WOULD BE DONE BY. 
 
 " Unless the United States are prepared to admit that any 
 European or Asiatic powers may intervene in behalf of the Filipi- 
 nos, they cannot admit intervention between the Briton and the 
 Boer. Unless they are prepared to grant that the Cubans, the 
 Porto Ricans or the Hawaiians, dissatisfied with their treatment 
 by this country, may at any time send delegations to European or 
 Asiatic powers and entreat them to interfere between them and the 
 paramount United States, then the latter cannot do that unto 
 Great Britain which they would not have Great Britain or any 
 other power do unto them. 
 
 " Had Great Britain, had France, had Germany, had Russia 
 attempted to interfere between the North and the South in the 
 war of secession, there would have been a unanimous uprising of 
 American manhood to repel the insolent aggressor. Had any 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 575 
 
 s the right to 
 beir own way • 
 e in til.' impo- 
 ren taught in 
 revolt against 
 refusing his 
 Jew alike any 
 
 o be trampled 
 United States 
 las systemati- 
 iration affirms 
 iss the United 
 rt to throw oflf 
 ous than the 
 the rights of 
 )eclaration of 
 cannot lift a 
 id oppressive 
 
 • 
 
 BY. 
 
 Imit that any 
 of the Filipi- 
 iton and the 
 Cubans, the 
 ir treatment 
 European or 
 :hem and the 
 ^o that unto 
 ■itain or any 
 
 bad Russia 
 
 south in the 
 
 uprising of 
 
 Had any 
 
 nation given effect to the undoubted desire of European powers- 
 Great Britain alone excepted— to intervene between the United 
 States and Spain in the recent war, there would have been an 
 instant and explosive declaration of hostilities from this country, 
 and a firm resolve to teach the intruder a lesson not to be soon 
 forgotten, and Great Britain would have helped to administer it. 
 The same principle applies to intervention by this country. The 
 United States are bound to keep out of the British-Boer quarrel 
 if they desire other nations to keep out of the domestic quarrels 
 between the United States and their dependencies and territories ; 
 and, of course, they do desire this. 
 
 NOT A WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 "If the United States believes in maintaining a government 
 that protects and encourages the enslaving of the native popula- 
 tion, if they believe in. taxation without representation, if they 
 believe in the branding of the Anglo-Saxon — whether he be a 
 citizen of the United States or of Great Britain — as a being 
 inferior to the Boer, and to be treated with contumely and denied 
 the elemental rights of the free man, if they believe in encourag- 
 ing a people whose leaders cause women to be flogged and shot, 
 the refuge of besieged women and children to be shelled by a 
 Synman, then — abandoning all their just claims and their well- 
 won title to leadership in civilization — the powerful United States 
 may declare that they will throw their whole weight into the Boer 
 scale of misgovernment, cruelty, sloth and ignorance, and that 
 they will fight against liberty, justice and good government. 
 
 " The Boers are not waging a war for independence, else they 
 would not have spurned the proffer of a guarantee to defend that 
 independence, made last September by the imperial government — 
 a guarantee that the whole forces of the empire would be 
 used to defend them against whomsoever, from within or without 
 the British dominions, attempted to impair their freedom. They 
 are and have been fighting for the expulsion of the Anglo-Saxon, 
 for the extension of their territory and their corrupt tyranny. 
 They are endeavoring to enter in on the labors of other men, to 
 
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 I 
 
 676 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 reap where they have not sown, to throw back civilization and to 
 fetter progress. 
 
 " Intervention means war and all that war implies ; the 
 chances of attack at home and abroad, for never before were the 
 United States vulnerable abroad as they are now. Unless inter- 
 vention be war, then it is a mere rhetorical display unworthy of a 
 great and powerful nation — it is a braggart emptiness that would 
 be contemptible in a small tribe, that is not to be indulged in by a 
 world-power. For a just cause the people of this country and the 
 strangers within their gates would unhesitatingly make the 
 greatest sacrifice and bear the heaviest burdens, but such a cause 
 is not now at stake. 
 
 WOULD BE AN UNRIGHTEOUS WAR. 
 
 " A war between the United States and Great Britain for the 
 sake of the Boer oppressors would not be a righteous war, and none 
 know it better than those who would embroil the two great Anglo- 
 Saxon countries in a combat, the issue of which would be disas- 
 trous to the cause of freedom in all parts of the world, and would 
 therefore be welcomed by every country envious of the progress of 
 the American nation, by every tyranny seeking to destroy, or at 
 least to hinder, the growth of the ideas of truth and liberty of 
 which the United States and Great Britain stand as the most 
 thorough and the most powerful exponents to-day." 
 
 Further details of Colonel Mahon's Mafeking relief expedi- 
 tion came through from wayside points. It was one long rush to 
 Mafeking. C. H. Hands, the correspondent mentioned in Lord 
 Roberts' dispatch to the War Office as dangerously wounded in 
 the fight in the bush May 13, sent his last message from Vryburg, 
 May 9, by runner to Kimberley, May 21. He said : 
 
 "The flying mounted column, secretly and swiftly organized 
 by General Hunter, started from Barkly and arrived here May 9, 
 covering 130 miles in five days. It is a grand force of mounted 
 men. Imperial Light Horse from Ladysmith, the Kimberley 
 Mounted Corps, with Royal Horse Artillery and Pom Poms, and 
 a selected body of infantry from the Fusilier Brigade. A special 
 
 .•' \ 
 
 ■3 ^ 
 
 . X 
 
ization and to 
 
 implies ; the 
 )efore were the 
 
 Unless inter, 
 unworthy of a 
 £ss that would 
 dulgedin by a 
 )untry and the 
 ly make the 
 
 such a cause 
 
 Britain for the 
 war, and none 
 
 great Anglo- 
 TOuld be disas- 
 rld, and would 
 the progress of 
 
 destroy, or at 
 
 and liberty of 
 
 as the most 
 
 relief expedi- 
 2 long rush to 
 3ned in Lord 
 Y wounded in 
 rom Vryburg, 
 
 tly organized 
 
 1 here May 9, 
 e of mounted 
 e Kimberley 
 m Poms, and 
 e. A special 
 
 BRITISH ARMY FORCKS BOERS TO KLKi:. r-. 
 
 equipment of light-spriuged mule transport coniplclc-d this spl;.;!- 
 did force. 
 
 ''The force so equipped was enabled to move willi siuli 
 rapidity that, although this is a difficult country, requiring vi«;il 
 and scouting, the Boers were surprised. The columu ""moxvd 
 parallel with the enemy's positions on the Vaal at Rooidam and 
 Fourteen Streams, actually getting behind them without firin- a 
 shot. So close were we Sunday and Monday that Geueral Iliiii- 
 ter's balloon was visible and his bombardment heard. The route 
 taken was between the Vaal and the Hart rivers, then along tlie 
 river bank of the dry Hart to a point abreast of Tauugs^ and 
 thence to Pudimoe, Roodepoort and Vryburg." 
 
 BRILLIANT TACTICS OF COLONEL MAHON. 
 
 A correspondent with General Hunter telegraphed as follows 
 iToni Fourteen Streams : "Colonel Mahon's relieving columu left 
 Barkly West under secret orders May 4, and reached Vryburg 
 May 9. The Boers marched on the right flank of the British, and 
 a strange race followed ; Mahon pressing toward Mafeking with 
 the utmost speed consistent with keeping the force in condition, 
 and the Boers hurrying parallel in an eifort to pass him and to 
 throw themselves across his path. The Boers succeeded. Mahon 
 then turned west during the night. The Boers followed, overtook 
 and attacked him in the bush, but were beaten off." 
 
 Then, as Lord Roberts wired. Colonel Mahon and Colonel 
 Plumer united forces at Jamasibi May 15, and Mafeking was soon 
 relieved. 
 
 A despatch from Lady Sarah Wilson contained a graphic 
 account of the la.st assault upon the besieged town, as follows : 
 
 " Mafeking, May 13, via Octsi, May 18. — The town was 
 
 awakened at four o'clock yesterday morning by a furious fusillade 
 
 from the eastern face. An alarm by bugle and deep toned bell 
 
 ringing, slow strokes, announced that an attack was in progress. 
 
 In a marvellously short space of time the town guard manned che 
 
 redoubts, hardly an absentee being reported. Bullets were 
 
 flying thickly in Market square and the streets. Colonel Baden- 
 37 
 
 
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 il<* % 'fl 
 
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 fm 
 
 I., 
 
678 
 
 BRITISH AklVlV FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 Powell at once determined that the fusillade was a feint to distract 
 attention from the real attack. Shortl}' afterwards roars of cheer- 
 ing, certainly not English, rose from old Mafeking fort, now the 
 headquarters of Lieutenant-Colonel Hore and his staff. 
 
 " It was apparent that the enemy was in our midst, but there 
 was no confusion or panic. Bodies of our men fell back and took 
 up positions commanding their foes' further advance. Then com- 
 menced a furious fusillade from the Boers in the fort. Thinkin«^ 
 that the situation looked serious I nmde my way to the hospital 
 near by and had a most disagreeable walk under the hail of bullets 
 from two sides, which were luckily all fired high. I spent theda}- 
 in the hospital, where all were busily engaged attending the casu- 
 alties on both sides, which came in a stream. 
 
 EXCITING COMBAT AT THE FORT. 
 
 " Therefore, I had no further personal experience of what 
 happened in the town, but the facts are as follows : The enemy 
 selected the best line of approach via the Molopo River bed 
 and were led by two of our deserters. They numbered 300 or 
 400, all picked men, led by a number of Frenchmen and Germans. 
 This body was followed by 500 Boers, who were, however, cut off by 
 onr pickets. The Boers then broke up into three parties and 
 rushed the fort, which was held by only fifteen men of the Pro- 
 tectorate regiment. 
 
 "The first intimation at neadquarters of what had occurred 
 came through a telephone conversation, the officer on dutj^, Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Hore, being suddenly interrupted by a confused 
 din and a strange voice calling through the instrument : — ' I am a 
 Boer. We have taken Mafeking.' 
 
 " 'Have you, indeed?' was the prompt reply, followed by an 
 aside to the orderly, ' Please disconnect the wire.' 
 
 "The enemy now found their further advance stopped, and that 
 they were cut off at the same time. Altogether, no Boer prison- 
 ers are now located here, besides their wounded, who are being 
 carefully attended in the hospital. Over one hundred Mausers 
 and rifles and ammunition were taken. The town is wild with 
 
BRITISH ARMY FORCES BOERS TO FLEE. 
 
 ) distract 
 f cheer- 
 now the 
 
 mt there 
 and took 
 lien coin- 
 liinkinjj^ 
 hospital 
 f bullets 
 t the da}' 
 the casu- 
 
 of what 
 e enemy 
 iver bed 
 d 300 or 
 rermaus. 
 nt off by 
 ties and 
 :he Pro- 
 
 Dccurred 
 y, Lien- 
 'on fused 
 ' I am a 
 
 d by an 
 
 and that 
 prisou- 
 2 being 
 Mausers 
 Id with 
 
 679 
 
 delight. It is impossible not to admire the daring attack of the 
 Boers, and the way in which it was executed. Our men also 
 deserve unqualified praise. The dogged pluck of this garrison on 
 short rations would be hard to beat. Hard fighting continued all 
 day, and for some hours our position was most critical." 
 
 Lord Roberts reported to the War Office, London, as follows : 
 "Kroonstad, May 21.— Mahon reports that the flying col- 
 umn entered Mafeking at four A. M. May 18. He was stubbornly 
 opposed by 1500 men on May 17, nine miles from Mafeking, but 
 the Boers were driven from their strong positions after five hours' 
 fighting, thanks, he says, to the magnificent qualities of his 
 troops. 
 
 " A detachment of Canadian artillery, by a series of forced 
 marches, reached him the morning of the fighting, and rendered 
 very valuable assistance. Mahon's casualties were about thirty. 
 The Boer losses were heavy." 
 
 SUPERB VALOR OF THE CANADIANS. 
 
 This was another of the many instances in which the gallant 
 Canadian contingent showed their superb fighting qualities and 
 readiness for forced marches, as well as bravery in actual engage- 
 ments with the enemy. Up to this time, the record of the con- 
 tingent was not marred by a single failure, and Canada had ample 
 reason to be proud of her patriotic sons. 
 
 Lord Roberts, having repaired the railroad and accumulated 
 stores, set in motion on Sunday, May 20th, the great military 
 machinery which was intended to land his army in the Transvaal. 
 It was well known that 13,000 Boers were entrenched strongly at 
 the Rhenoster River, on the Blanwbosch Mountains, but Lord 
 Roberts made all arrangements, prepared everything, and 
 marched out of Kroonstad unopposed, confidently trusting to the 
 cavalry to clear his flanks. The march was, as usual, silent, 
 orderly and smooth, along the line of the railway. One whole 
 division was left to hold Kroonstad, where many Boers came in 
 and surrendered, including Commandant Wessels. 
 
 Ian Hamilton's cavalry advanced on the right wing from 
 
 ■'■'if 
 
 '»''] 
 
 i i'\r 
 
 ! .V 
 
 1!' 
 
two 
 
 BRITISH ARMV FORCES UOKRS TO FLUE. 
 
 I itidlcy, while the dashing Frcncli led his men away to the left. 
 Hamilton's destination was Heilbron, whieh was known to be 
 defended by Piet I)e Wet, who, a few days before, offered to sur- 
 render, but refused when told that it must be unconditional. 
 
 On the twenty-seccnid Hamilton, who had been promoted a 
 lieutenant-colonel, drove back De Wet. Until the British came 
 to the Rhenoster, which barred their passage, I)e Wet's 4,000 men 
 stoutly defended a naturally strong position at Vecht Kowe. The 
 British attacked under a heavy fire, aud here the majority of 
 Hamilton's casualties occurred. The Boers were still holding the 
 river, and the situation was looking serious when the far-seeiug 
 Roberts came to the rescue. 
 
 HAMILTON ENTERS HEILBRON. 
 
 Monday afternoon the boom of British cannon was heard to 
 the right of the Boer position, and the Boers began to give way 
 before a slashing flank attack by Smith-Dorrien's infantry brigade. 
 Thereafter the Boers sought only a rearward action. Hamilton 
 entered Heilbron on the morning of the twenty-second. President 
 Steyn, with De Wet, was exhorting the Burghers, who were sud. 
 denly retiring. Broadwood's division, outside of Heilbron, did a 
 dashing piece of work by cutting off a convoy of wagons belonging 
 to De Wet and capturing a number of prisoners. 
 
 French was, as usual, completely successful in sweeping across 
 the Reitzburg road, past Wizkop ; he crossed Rhenoster Spruit 
 near Winkel Drift, practically unopposed, about twenty miles west 
 of the centre of the Boer position. 
 
 Lord Roberts, directing the long deployed centre, personallj' 
 arrived at North Homing Spruit on the 2 2d, where he encamped. 
 The advance was resumed next day, everybody expecting a stiff 
 battle at Rhenoster. But long before the infantry arrived at the 
 river word rang along the line that the Boers had fled. 
 
 On the same date it was reported that about 800 Boers had 
 surrendered at Vryburg (north of Kimberley, and a little more than 
 half way between that place and Mafeking). The road was all 
 clear from Mafeking, and all opposition in this district ended. 
 
 British 
 
 Durin 
 CO 
 
 Roberts 
 tight da 
 him to 1 
 well as : 
 his repii 
 his fam 
 Tn 
 gle, inte 
 Militarj 
 formally 
 State ui 
 
 Th 
 market 
 and the 
 surroun 
 Lady R 
 Ladies 
 
 Th 
 and cnl 
 Genera 
 Yeomai 
 an imp: 
 the sqi 
 annexii 
 forces, 
 shall h 
 
 Li 
 tion, ai 
 
m 
 
 the left, 
 vn to be 
 1 to siir- 
 uil. 
 
 iinoted a 
 
 sli came 
 
 (XXD men 
 
 we. Tlie 
 
 jority of 
 
 ding the 
 
 ar-seeiug 
 
 
 heard to 
 jive way 
 ■ brigade. 
 Hamilton 
 President 
 vere sud. 
 on, did a 
 elonging 
 
 ig across 
 r Spruit^ 
 iles west 
 
 Tsonallv 
 icamped. 
 ^ a stiff 
 d at the . 
 
 3ers had 
 ore than 
 was all 
 aded. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 British Flag Waves Over the Capital of the Transvaal. 
 
 rvuringthe last week of May events pointed plainly to the speedy 
 L^' collapse of the Hoer resistance to the swift advance of Lord 
 Roberts and his victorions colnnin. He marched 127 miles in 
 eight days, and kept his commnnications open, thereby enabling 
 him to bring up supplies for his troops. In this achievement, as 
 well as in others that have already become historic, he maintained 
 his reputatiou as a great commander, and added new laurels to 
 his fame. 
 
 Tracing the order of events in the closing days of the strug- 
 gle, intelligence came from inoemfontein that on May 2Sth the 
 Military Governor, Major General George Prettyman, at noon, 
 formally proclaimed the annexation to Great Britain of the Free 
 State under the designation of the Orange River Colony. 
 
 The ceremony was somewhat imposing and the scene in the 
 market square inspiring. An immense concourse had gathered, 
 and the town was gay with bunting. The balconies and windows 
 surrounding the square were crowded with ladies, anu)ng them 
 Lady Roberts and the Misses Roberts, the Countess of Airlie and 
 Ladies Henry Bentick and Settringttm. 
 
 The troops were drawn up under command of General Knox, 
 and entertained the spectators. The Governor, accompanied by 
 Generals Kelly, Kenny and their staffs, escorted by the, Welsh 
 Yeomanry, was greeted with a general salute, after which, amid 
 an impressive silence and in a clear voice heard in every part of 
 the square, General Prettyman read Lord Roberts' proclamation 
 annexing the Orange Free State, as conquered by her Majesty's 
 forces, to the Queen's dominions, and proclaiming that the State 
 shall henceforth be known as the Orange River Colony. 
 
 Lusty cheers greeted the concluding words of the proclama- 
 tion, and these were renewed with ever increasing volume as Lord 
 
 581 
 
 I _ 
 
582 
 
 BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 Acheson unfurled the Royal standard, and the bands struck up 
 ''God Save the Queen," all present joining in singing the national 
 hymn. The ceremony concluded with cheers for the Queen, Lord 
 Roberts and the army, and a salute of twenty-one guns. 
 
 On the 5tli of June the following stirring despatch, which 
 had been eagerly awaited, was received in London from Lord 
 Roberts : 
 
 "Pretoria, June 5, 11.40 A. M. — We are now in possession 
 of Pretoria. The official entry will be made this afternoon at 2 
 o'clock." 
 
 Lord Roberts occupied Six Miles Spruit on June 4. 
 
 "Six Miles Spruit, 8.30 P. M., June 4. — We started this 
 morning at daybreak and marched about ten miles to Six Miles 
 Spruit, both banks of which were occupied by the enemy. Henry's 
 and Ross's mounted infantry, with the West Somerset, Dorset, 
 Bedford and Sussex companies of Yeomanry, quickly dislodged 
 them from the south bank and pursued them nearly a mile, when 
 they found themselves under a heavy fire from guns which the 
 Boers had placed in a well-concealed commanding position. 
 
 HURRYING UP THE ARTILLERY. 
 
 "Our heavy guns of the naval and royal artillery which had 
 purposely been placed in the front part of the column, were hur- 
 ried to the assistance of the mounted infantry as fast as oxen and 
 mules could travel over the great, rolling hills surrounding 
 Pretoria. The guns were supported by Stevenson's Brigade of 
 Pole-Caiew's division and after a few rounds drove the enemy 
 from their positions. 
 
 "The Boers then attempted to turn our left flank, in which 
 they were again foiled by the mounted infantry and yeomanry, 
 supported by Maxwell's brigade of Tucker's division. As, how- 
 ever, they still kept pressing our left rear, I sent word to Ian 
 Hamilton, who was advancing three miles to our left, to incline 
 toward us and fill up the gap between the two columns. This 
 finally checked the enemy, who were driven back toward Pretoria. 
 I hoped we would have been able to follow them up, but the days 
 
lick up 
 atiouul 
 I, Lord 
 
 which 
 Lord 
 
 session 
 n at 2 
 
 td this 
 Miles 
 [enry's 
 Dorset, 
 lodged 
 , when 
 ich the 
 
 ch had 
 re hur- 
 su and 
 mding 
 ade of 
 tnemy 
 
 which 
 lanry, 
 , how- 
 to Ian 
 acline 
 This 
 itoria. 
 : days 
 
 BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 633 
 
 now are very short in this part of the world, and, after nearly two 
 hours' marching and fighting, we had to bivouac on the ground 
 gained during the day. 
 
 "The Guard's brigade is quite near tlie southernmost fort by 
 which Pretoria is defended and less than four miles from the 
 town. 
 
 " French, with the Third and Fourth cavalry brigades and 
 Hutton's New South Wales mounted rifles, is north of Pretoria. 
 
 "Broadwood's brigade is between French's and Hamilton's 
 columns ; and Gordon is watching the right flank of the main 
 force, not far from the railway bridge at Irene Station, which was 
 destroyed by the enemy. Our casualties, I hope, are very few." 
 
 One cannot but be struck with the genius of Lord Roberts 
 for aiming his movements in order to effect the most remarkable 
 coincidences in dates. He surpassed himself in choosing for the 
 capture of Johannesburg the very day upon which that event 
 would offer the most irony of historic contrast. It was the anni- 
 versary of the arrival of Henry Milner and President Kruger in 
 the capital of what was at that time the Orange Free State, for 
 the Bloemfontein Conference twelve months before. Lord Roberts 
 beat his own record march to Kandahar, and the war was con- 
 sidered to be at an end. 
 
 ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BRITISH FORCES. 
 
 Another account by a London journal was as follows : 
 
 "The war is over. The Boer resistance has just simply 
 melted away. The British flag is flying over Pretoria. 
 
 "So, by a show of overwhelming force, Roberts has virtually 
 ended the war. 
 
 " All was chaos when he landed in South Africa. General 
 after general had seen his reputation dashed to pieces by a horde 
 of untrained farmers. Defeat after defeat had drawn down the 
 derision of Europe. Three towns in British territorywere besieged 
 by the Boers, and in vain the British forces had been thrown against 
 the besiegers. Roberts gathered a force of nearly 200,000 men, 
 arranged to transport and f^ed them and took them north with 
 
 i 
 
581 
 
 BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 him. He selected French, the dashing cavalry commander, the 
 only general who had not been beaten, and took him and his 
 cavalry up the western border of the Free State, leaving j ust 
 enough men in the centre to preserve his lines of communication. 
 "He relieved Kimberley, French'^ brilliant galop clearing the 
 way. He chased Cronje's army, and after a march, in which he 
 lost 30,000 animals caught him, hemmed him in, and forced him 
 to surrender with his entire force. Then he took Bloemfontein. 
 There he rested while his horses, oxen, and mules recovered or 
 were replaced by fresh ones. This invasion drew the Boers back 
 from Natal and enabled Buller to relieve Ladysmith. After wait- 
 ing until the Free State was cleared of hostiles, Roberts resumed 
 his march. He relegated the old generals to the rear and used as 
 his main aides young men, French, Ian Hamilton, Hutton, 
 Broadwood, Bethune, Mahon. 
 
 HOW MAFEKING WAS RELIEVED. 
 
 " Mafeking was relieved by a dashing force of irregulars. 
 Colonel Baden-Powell lost no time in threatening the Transvaal 
 from the west. Marches of ten, fifteen, twenty miles in a day, with 
 fighting on the outskirts but no resistance that was effective, 
 brought Lord Roberts' force to the successive capitals to which 
 the Free State Government was removed. He crossed the Vaal 
 river and was in the Transvaal on the Queen's Birthday. Johan- 
 nesburg was evacuated before him and he is master of Pretoria. 
 He will probably proclaim the annexation of the Transvaal. 
 Roberts' reward for victory is certain to be great. A high peer- 
 age and perhaps a dukedom and all possible civil honors and a 
 large grant of money by Parliam. it await him. Lord Roberts has 
 beaten his own record in his march to Kandahar." 
 
 A despatch from Newcastle announced that the following 
 proclamation had been issued by Lord Roberts, but was also being 
 distributed by General Buller : 
 
 " The troops of the Queen are now passing through the 
 Transvaal. Her Majesty does not war upon individuals, but, she 
 Is anxious to spare them so far as possible the horrors o C war. 
 
 ♦'Til 
 
 not the p 
 
 110 atteni 
 
 liri of 
 
 Any of t 
 
 paid for. 
 
 "Bi 
 
 the line 
 
 resident; 
 
 sons and 
 
 or for vi< 
 
 vicinity 
 
 Lor 
 
 than wa 
 
 he had 1 
 
 would 1: 
 
 mounted 
 
 with tlu 
 
 his long 
 
 ing no € 
 
 for noti 
 
 while h 
 
 ably fo: 
 
 M. 
 
 allow t' 
 
 Laing'i 
 
 was in 
 
 British 
 
 to the 
 
 T 
 
 map. 
 
 indepe 
 
 They 
 
 to rem 
 
BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 686 
 
 lau- 
 
 •' The quarrel wliicli England has is with the government and 
 not the people of the Transvaal. Provided they remain neutral 
 no attempt will be made to interfere with persons living near the 
 liri of march. Every possible protection will be given them. 
 Any of their property which it may be necessary to take will be 
 paid for. 
 
 " But, on the other hand, those thus allowed to remain near 
 the line of march must respect and maintain neut'-ality. The 
 residents of any locality will be held responsible in both their per- 
 sons and property for any damage done to the railway or telegraph, 
 or for violence done to any member of the British forces in the 
 vicinity of their homes." 
 
 RAPID MARCH TO JOHANNESBURG. 
 
 Lord Roberts advanced to Johannesburg with greater celerity 
 than was expected, and more rapidly than he would have done if 
 he had had an active enemy to confront him. In that event he 
 would have been obliged to slow down the movements of his 
 mounted force so as to keep the infantry and artillery in touch 
 with them, and he would also have found it necessary to secure 
 his long line of communications as he moved forward. But hav- 
 ing no enemy to fear, he moved with his advance guard, waited 
 for nothing after leaving tlie Vaal, and entered Johannesburg 
 while his army was still trailing along the road behind him prob- 
 ably for a distance of forty miles. 
 
 Moreover, he sent out his scouts far enough in advance to 
 allow them to look upon Pretoria. The position of the Boers at 
 Laing's Nek in front of Buller become untenable, for Lord Roberts 
 was in possession of the railroad line in their rear, and all the 
 British troops were converging upon Pretoria, even the forces sent 
 to the relief of Mafeking. 
 
 The South African Republics have been obliterated from the 
 map. As Lord Salisbury proclaimed, " Not a shred of the former 
 independence of the South African Republics shall remain." 
 They will hereafter be British colonies, and the Boers will have 
 to remove to another land or be absorbed in an English speaking 
 
 
 iii, tf 
 
 ii i-'ii 
 
 
586 
 
 BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 nation. It was recognized when the war started that it was to be 
 a life or death struggle. If Kruger had succeeded in arousing 
 all the Afrikanders, or in getting support from some foreign 
 power, England might have been driven from South Africa ; fail- 
 ing to do so, the destruction of the Republics was inevitable. 
 The Boers.fought well, but were overwhelmed by numbers. 
 
 They had also to contend in the end with a very skilfuL, 
 general. Lord Roberts was not put to a very severe test because 
 he always had the advantage, but he made no mistakes, and not 
 only planned his campaign well, but carried out his plans with 
 complete success. He was fairly entitled to all the honors that 
 Great Britain could shower upon him. 
 
 It will be observed in looking back upon the history of the 
 war that the Boers did not offer an}' real resistance after the cap- 
 ture of General Cronje. The loss of this high officer and of General 
 Joubert seemed to have deprived them of their inspiration. While 
 General Roberts was at Blocmfontein getting his army ready for 
 another advance, a small body of Boers succeeded in entrapping 
 the troops of one of the outposts, and this encouraged them to 
 make a raid south of General Roberts' position ; but the force was 
 small and did not succeed in doing anything more than delay the 
 forward movement for a week or ten days. 
 
 NO SIGNS OF ANY BOER ARMY. 
 
 After that time there was no definite information of any Boer 
 army being in the field. Small commands had skirmishes with 
 the British cavalry, but no signs of the existence of a main army 
 was given. It is quite probable, indeed, that not more than 20,000 
 I Beers were under arms toward the last, and these were divided 
 into small detachments, never exceeding 4,000 in one command. 
 The Boers lost everything save honor, that they retained by 
 as gallant a fight as has ever been made by a free people. 
 
 Details of the negotiations for the surrender of the Transvaal 
 Capital were given by Lord Roberts in a later message: 
 
 "Pretoria, June 5, 12.55 P- ^^- — ]^^^^ before dark yesterday 
 the enemy were beaten back from nearU^ all the positions they 
 
 had bee 
 iheni to 
 they rel 
 
 town, d 
 
 night 
 
 Repnbl 
 
 Botha, 
 
 letter f 
 
 tling tl 
 
 "I 
 
 the ne? 
 
 as the ! 
 
 reply 1 
 
 town a 
 
 defend 
 proper 
 line 01 
 flag of 
 arran^ 
 Majes 
 
 few c 
 niajoi 
 of&cei 
 well.' 
 
 Repi 
 
 day 
 
 Two 
 
 Colo 
 
 and 
 
 with 
 
BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 5SV 
 
 IS to be 
 rousiiur 
 
 Iforeign 
 ja; fail- 
 (vitable. 
 
 skilful, 
 )ecaiise 
 iiid not 
 IS with 
 jrs that 
 
 of the 
 he cap- 
 encral 
 While 
 ad}^ for 
 apping 
 Iiem to 
 rce was 
 lay the 
 
 y Boer 
 s with 
 army 
 20,000 
 ivided 
 111 and. 
 ed by 
 
 isvaal 
 
 ?rday 
 they 
 
 had been holding, and Ian Hamilton's mounted infantry followed 
 them to within two thousand yards of Pretoria, through which 
 they retreated hastily. 
 
 " De Lisle then sent an officer with a flag of truce into the 
 'own, demanding its surrender in my name. vShortly before mid- 
 night I was awakened by two officials of the South African 
 Republic, Sandbar, military secretary to Commandant-General 
 Botha, and a general officer of the Boer army, who bi-"n..];t rue a 
 letter from Botha, proposing an armistice for the purpose of set- 
 tling the terms of surrender. 
 
 "I replied that I would gladly meet the commandant general 
 the next morning, but that I was not prepared to discuss any terms, 
 as the surrender of the town must be unconditional. I asked for a 
 reply by daybreak, as I had ordered the troops to march on the 
 town as soon as it was light. 
 
 "In his reply, Botha told me that he had decided not to 
 defend Pretoria, and that he trusted the women, children and 
 property would be protected. At 7 A. ]\I., to-day, while on the 
 line of march, I was met by three of the principal officials with a 
 flag of truce, stating their wish to surrender the town. It w^as 
 arranged that Pretoria should be taken possession of by Her 
 Majesty's troops at two o'clock this afternoon. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE EVENTS OF THE WAR. 
 
 "Mrs. Botha and Mrs. Kruger are both in Pretoria. Some 
 few of the British prisoners have been taken away, but the 
 majority are slill at Waterfall. Over a hundred of the 
 officers are in Pretoria. The few that I have seen are looking 
 well." 
 
 The war between the British Government and the Boer 
 Republics of South Africa began on October 11, 1899. On that 
 day the Boer Government sent their now historic ultimatum. 
 Two days later the British agent left Pretoria. Natal and Cape 
 Colony were invaded, and Laing's Nek was occupied ; Mafeking 
 and Kimberley were invested by the Boers, and an armored train 
 with two guns was captured near Mafekiug within the next two 
 
 
 h. J 
 
 ■B''^ 
 
588 
 
 BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 days. A combined movement was directed against the British 
 force of 4,000 men under Gcnerol Symons at Gleucoe. Com- 
 mandant Lucas Meyer made the attack on the 29th. General 
 Symons, the British commander, carried the hill on which the 
 Boers had established themselves, captured their guns and drove 
 them off, but he was himself mortally wounded and died a day or 
 two afterwards. 
 
 A detachment of Hussars was captured while pursuing the 
 retreating foe. Meanwhile, the Boers had seized the railway 
 between Glencoe and Ladysmith, and were only dislodged after a 
 stubborn fight at Klandslaagte on the 21st. On this occasion 
 Conin:andant Viljoen was killed and two guns were taken by 
 the. British. The attempt to isolate the British force at Glencoe 
 thus failed, but, as another attack was threatened, the British 
 force was compelled to retire and join the main body at Lady- 
 smith, leaving the wounded at Dundee. 
 
 STUBBORN FIGHT AND HEAVY LOSSES. 
 
 To cover his retreat. General Sir George White had to fight 
 again, at Reitfontein, on the 24th, and again the Boers were dis- 
 lodged. The loss on both sides on this occasion was heavy. A 
 little later Colonel Baden-Powell inflicted .some loss on Cronje's 
 command in a brilliant sortie and bayonet charge at Mafeking, 
 Meanwhile Lady smith was gradually being invested by General 
 Joubert, and the British suffered great loss on October 30th. On 
 that day about one thousand men, consisting of the Royal Irish 
 Fusiliers, and the Gloucestershire Regiment, with No. 10 Moun- 
 tain Battery, were surrounded at Nicholson's Nek and forced to 
 capitulate. 
 
 They were overcome after they had lost their ammiinition 
 through a stampede of the mule train. The British troops at 
 Colenso were on November 2d forced to retire over the Tugela 
 bridge, and all communication between Ladysmith and the south 
 was cut off. Also the bridges over the Orange River into Cape 
 Colony were seized. Aliwal North, Jamestown and Colesburg 
 were occupied on the i8th, and a considerable number of the Cape 
 
British 
 Coni- 
 
 eiieral 
 
 ch the 
 drove 
 
 day or 
 
 BRITISH FLAC, WAVES OVKR Pkl TORIA. 
 
 ft><9 
 
 Colonists joined the Boers. The British then he-aii an advanee 
 from the sonth, and Lord Methnen, commanding at Orange River, 
 pushed on, in an effort to relieve Kimbcrloy, to liclmont, and on 
 November 23d defeated a strong- Boer ft)rce. vSixty-fonr wagons 
 were taken and 50,000 rounds of ammuiiition, with 750 shells, 
 were blown up. The British dealt another severe blow to the 
 Boers at Enslin on the 25th, when the Boers louglit under cover 
 of a white flag. 
 
 THE LADYSMITH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The position of Kimberley had much influence on the pro- 
 gress of the war. Cecil Rhodes went to the town on October 
 1 2th, and pronounced it "as swfe as Piccadilly." The force under 
 Lord Methuen, five days after defeating the enemy at Belmont, 
 effected the passage of the Alodder River in the face of eight 
 thousand Boers in "one of the hardest and most trying fights in 
 the annals of the British army." 
 
 The arrival of Sir Redvers Buller at Durham marked a new 
 stage in the Ladysmith campaign. The Boers, after investing 
 that place, had continued to spread south and toward the Tugcla. 
 Before the appearance of the British reinforcements, they occu- 
 pied Colenso, as well as Beacon Hill and the Mooi river. Among 
 the prominent incidents of the British advance were a night attack 
 on the Boers at Willow Grange and the armored train engage- 
 ment at Chieveley, on November 15th, when Winston Churchill 
 especially distinguished himself. General Hildyard made an 
 attack from Estconrt on Beacon Hill, and General Joubert had to 
 withdraw in the direction of Colenso and Lad\\smith. On the last 
 day of November Ladysmith was effectiveh^ shelled by the Boers 
 from Lombard's Kop. 
 
 ,On December 8th the British stormed Lombard's Kop and 
 captured a Boer gun. Two days later, General Gatacre attempted 
 to surprise the Boer position at Stormberg, in Natal. The attempt 
 resulted disastrously, his forces being raked by the Boers' rifle 
 and artillery fire, without a possibility of replying. While the 
 
 :i '■ d '■ 
 
 M;.J 
 
590 
 
 BRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 Boer loss in this eiigagciueiit was slight, the British lost 687 
 officers and men. 
 
 On the nth General Mcthnen, in attempting to relieve Kini- 
 berle}', attacked the Boer position at Magersfontein, north of the 
 Modder. The British were forced to retire with heavy losses, 
 General Wanchope and the IVIarqnis of Worcester being killed. 
 Two days later the Boers, who were advancing sonth in Cape Coi- 
 on}' towards Naanwpoort, were driven back by General French, 
 with a loss of forty. On the 15th the British snstaiued another 
 serious reverse. 
 
 SORTIES AND ARTILLERY WARFARE. 
 
 General Bnller, in attempting to force a passage of the 
 Tngela river at Colenso, was repnlsed, with a loss of 1,097 offi- 
 cers and men and eleven gnns. Three days later the British War 
 Office annonnced that Lord Roberts would be sent to command in 
 South Africa, with Lord Kitchener as chief of staff, and that 
 100,000 men would be sent to the front. 
 
 For nearly the Avhole of the following month the hostilities 
 consisted chiefly in an occasional sortie and in more or less harm- 
 less artillery warfare. But on January 6th the Boers made a des- 
 perate attempt to take Ladysmith. As early as 2.30 A. M. they 
 attacked two strong positions of the British at Caesar's Camp and 
 Wagon Hill. The battle was fiercely fought on both sides, and 
 the positions mentioned were captured and recaptured three times, 
 the British at the end holding their own and inflicting tremendous 
 loss on the Boers. 
 
 The attack continued until 7.30 P. M., anri at dark the Boers 
 were driven out at the point of the bayonet. The British losses 
 were 450 officers and men, and those of the Boers were thought 
 to have been very much heavier. On the same day General 
 French reported a " serious accident " at Colesberg ; a companj' 
 of the Suffolk Regiment, with seven officers, was captured, and 
 more than a score of officers and men were killed. On this day 
 also Generals Roberts and Kitchener reached Cape Town. 
 
 On January 12th the British army, under General Warren 
 
URITlSll ILAC, WAVKS OVKR I'KF.TORIA. 
 
 f)'.M 
 
 lost 687 
 
 JVC Kim- 
 li of the 
 y losses, 
 g killed, 
 ape Col- 
 Frencli, 
 another 
 
 so 
 
 2 of the 
 ,097 offi- 
 ish War 
 maud in 
 nd that 
 
 Dstilities 
 >s liarni- 
 le a des- 
 M. they 
 imp and 
 ies, and 
 e times, 
 1 en dons 
 
 e Boers 
 I losses 
 honght 
 general 
 'inpanj' 
 ed, and 
 bis day 
 
 Varren 
 
 and Lord Dundonald, prepared for a jreiieral advance from Cokn 
 to the relief of Ladysmith. They crossed the Tiiv-ela at r.)l-i.'- 
 ter's andTrichardt's drifts, and Lord Dundonald's monnted Lniops 
 engaged in a snccessfnl action with the Boers near Acton Homes. 
 On Jannary 20th General Clery, with a part of General Warren's 
 force, fonght for thirteen hours, drivino- the Boers from hill to liill 
 for three miles. Next day he pursued them two miles furtlicr. 
 On the 2ist the Boers resumed the bombardment of Ladysmitli. 
 
 On Jannary 23d General BuUer announced the capture of 
 Spion Kop, the key of the Boer position on the Upper Tus^ela; 
 but two days later the news was sent that he was obliircd to i»;ive 
 np that position. On February 27th it was learned that a supply 
 train had reached General White during this en^iraoenient. The 
 losses at Spion Kop in the atten?pt to relieve Ladysmith were 
 1,985, and the total loss of the British to that date was nearly 
 10,000. Rumor placed the Boer losses at Spion Kop at 1,700. 
 
 Meanwhile the bombardment of Kimberley was continued, 
 and it was reported, though without foundation in fact, that 
 Colonel Plunier had relieved Colonel Baden-Powell on January 23d. 
 The great failure of General Buller's second attempt to relieve 
 Ladysmith was followed by a withdrawal south of the Tugela on 
 January 27th. 
 
 THIRD ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE LADYSMITH. 
 
 Three days later General BuUer, the undaunted, told his 
 troops that he hoped to be in Ladysmith in a week, and on Febru- 
 ary 5th he again crossed the Tugela in a third attempt to relieve 
 the beleagnred forces of General White. B}^ the 9th he had 
 recrossed to the south of the Tugela, being unable to make head- 
 way against the strong Boer position at Vaal Krantz. 
 
 With the operations leading up to the relief of Kimberley 
 the whole course of the war seemed to change. The fact that Lord 
 Roberts and Lord Kitchener had arrived and had gone, early in 
 February, to the British headquarter.-, south of the Modder River, 
 seemed a good omen. From this point a movement for the 
 
 !<i t'Sl 
 
602 
 
 nRITISII FLAC, \VAVi:S OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 : 
 
 invasion of tlic Oniiige Free State, led by Lord Roberts, began on 
 February nth. An expedition under General Macdonald to 
 Kocdoesberg, fifteen miles to the westward, had been made to 
 divert the Boers in that direction. 
 
 On the 1 2th a force of cavalry, led by General French, who had 
 made a brilliant march from Colesberg to join Methtien's forces, 
 made a dash across the Riet river, forced a passage on the Mod- 
 der river the following day, and on the 15th entered Kimbcrley, 
 where he was met by Colonel Kekewich, who had forced his wnv 
 out of the city. The Boer troops under General Cronje abandoned 
 their trenches at Magersfontein and retreated eastward towards 
 Bloemfontein. The same day Lord Roberts occupied Jacobsdal 
 an important base of supplies for the Boers, southeast of Kiniber- 
 ley. To that place he transferred his headquarters. By this time 
 General Cronje was in retreat towards Bloemfontein, pursued by 
 General Kelly-Kenny. 
 
 CRONJE SURROUNDED BY THE BRITISH. 
 
 On February 19, the railway to Kimberley was open ; by this 
 time Lord Roberts' force had moved up to Paardeberg Drift, in 
 the bed of the Modder river, where Cronje made his last stand 
 and was surrounded by the British. After his request for an 
 armistice had been refused, reinforcements under General Botha 
 had been driven off and all other assistance from the outside 
 proved nnavailing. General Cronje, with 4,660 troops surrendered 
 to Lord Roberts on February 27th. 
 
 Meanwhile, on February 14th, General Bullerboigan hisfonrth 
 advance to the relief of Ladysmitli. Four days later he executed 
 a flank movement and drove the Boers across th*" Tugela and 
 occupied Hlwangwane Hill. On the 20th General . I art occupied 
 Colenso, and all the south side of the Tugela was held by General 
 Buller. The next day General Warren crossed the river at 
 Colenso, after slight resistance. It appears that, although much 
 of Buller's progress to Ladysmitli was stubbornly resisted, it was 
 by a diminishing nnmber of Boers, since many of them were being 
 withdrawn to assist Cronje on the Modder river. 
 
 On 
 
 ment, fo 
 the rest 
 28th Lo 
 eral Bu 
 hurriedl 
 animxur 
 smith a 
 hundrec 
 begiuni 
 
 \V1 
 
 der rive 
 
 in othc' 
 
 bant's 1 
 
 drecht, 
 
 attacks 
 
 considc 
 
 eral Gn 
 
 Boers 1 
 
 Genera 
 
 as prisi 
 
 Colesbi 
 
 M 
 
 and es 
 
 seeme( 
 
 hope t 
 
 retreal 
 
 dislod] 
 
 and G 
 
 tion. 
 
 Bloen: 
 
 on the 
 
 I 
 
 capits 
 
began on 
 oiiald to 
 made to 
 
 who had 
 s forces, 
 he Mo,]. 
 
 Ill be r ley, 
 his wnv ■ 
 >andoncd 
 towards 
 acobsdal 
 Kiniber- 
 this time 
 "sued by 
 
 ; by this 
 Drift, in 
 St stand 
 : for an 
 1 Roth a 
 ontside 
 cndercd 
 
 s fonrth 
 N^ecuted 
 -la and 
 ccnpiod 
 jeneral 
 A'er at 
 1 ninch 
 I it was 
 - being 
 
 BRITISH FLAr. WAVKS «)VKR PRiyiORIA. r.O.'J 
 
 On Febrnary 23d the Boers gave the town its final bombard- 
 ment, for after a sharp engagement at Pieter's Station, <m the 24th, 
 the rest of the march northward was ahnost nnopposed. On the 
 28th Lord Dnndonald entered Ladysniith, and on March ist, Cien- 
 eral Bnller visited the city ; the Boers raised the siege and 
 hnrriedly withdrew to the northward, leaving a vast amonnt of 
 ammunition and supplies. During the final ten days of the Lady- 
 smith campaign, General Buller's losses were about twenty-four 
 hundred, and the entire cost of the Ladysmith relief from the 
 beginning was about fifty-five hundred men. 
 
 SUCCESS OF THE BRITISH ARMS. 
 
 While these stirring scenes were being enacted on the Mod- 
 der river and at Ladysniith, the British arms were also successful 
 in other parts of South Africa. On February i6th General Bra- 
 bant's horse force drove the Boers from a strong position at Dor- 
 drecht, in Cape Colony, after eight hours of hard fighting. Boer 
 attacks onMafekingon February 17th and iSth were repulsed with 
 considerable loss to the attacking party. On February 25th Gen- 
 eral Gatacre's scouts suffered a severe reverse at the hands of the 
 Boers near Stromberg. On February 28th it was reported that 
 General Cronje and his soldiers were on their way to Cape Town 
 as prisoners of war. The same day General Clements entered 
 Colesberg, where he met with an enthusiastic reception. 
 
 March opened with rejoicing throughout the British Empire, 
 and especially in London, over the relief of Ladysmith, for now it 
 seemed evident that the war was drawing to a close. For such a 
 hope there seemed good reasons, since the Boers were everywhere 
 retreating, Ladysmith being free of them. General Brabant having 
 dislodged the^n from Dordrecht and a little later put them to rout, 
 and General ijatacre having entered Stormberg without opposi- 
 tion. Meauvvhile Lord Roberts was pursuing the Boers towards 
 Bloemfontoin. On March 7th, at Osfontein, he turned their flank 
 on the Modder river and put Generals Dewet and Delarey to rout. 
 
 Every day the British approached nearer to the Free State 
 capital, their way being stubbornly opposed by tlie Boers. The 
 
 3S 
 
 \^ 1 
 
 t y 
 
 ■I 
 
 
 
 I! 
 
 (■' 
 
 
 I'lJ 
 
BOI 
 
 nUITISlI FI.Ar, WAVF.S OVKR I'RKTORIA. 
 
 latter.igaiii resorted to their former tactics of firinj^ on the Britisli 
 under cover of a white flag and using explosive bullets. On 
 March 1 2th General French, the Kimberley hero, again distin- 
 guished hinisel f by his capture of hills commanding Bloemfrmtein. 
 The next day Lord Roberts and the British troops occupied the 
 Orange Free State capitol, which was formally surrendered to him. 
 On the 13th a letter from Presidents Krnger and Steyn, relat- 
 ing to possible terms of peace, and Lord Salisbury's reply, reject- 
 ing the proposition for theindependenceof the two republics, were 
 read in the House of Commons. The offer of the United States 
 to assist in bringing about peace was also declined by the British 
 Government. 
 
 LORD ROBERTS IN BLOEMFONTEIN. 
 
 The entry of Lord Roberts into Bloemfontein, followed as it 
 was by the occupation of Bishof, produced a speedy result of the 
 highest importance. On the 17th large numbers of Free State 
 burghers surrendered, opened their shops, and went back to their 
 farms, accepting British rule. Meanwhile the efforts to relieve 
 Baden-Powel at Mafeking were redoubled. A column which 
 included the Kimberley Light Horse had started from the south, 
 and Colonel Plumer advanced from the north as far as Lobatsi, 
 where he was repulsed on the 15th and again, near Mafeking. on 
 the 31st. Having received the submission of the Free Staters and 
 established a stable condition of affairs. Lord Roberts prepared to 
 move on towards Pretoria. 
 
 March closed with the death of General Joubert on the 27th 
 and the capture on the 31st at Korn Spniit of 400 men, including 
 the Toth Hussars and seven pieces of artillery. 
 
 April opened with a disaster — that of Reddersburg, where on 
 the 4th 500 men, including three companies of Irish Rifles and 
 two of the 9th Mounted Infantry, were captured by the Boers. 
 The next day, at Bosliof, the British captured a small company 
 of Boers, and Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil, the French military 
 expert, who had been General Joubert' s chief of staff. 
 
 On April 9th the British garrison at Wepener was isolated, 
 
BRITISH FI.AC. WAVKS OVKR I'Ul.TOKIA. 
 
 rm 
 
 ^ Britisli 
 :?ts. On 
 n distill- 
 ifouteiii. 
 pifd the 
 -1 to him. 
 ^'n, rclat- 
 rcjcct- 
 cs, were 
 cl States 
 British 
 
 red as it 
 t of the 
 •ee State 
 to their 
 ^ relieve 
 1 which 
 e south, 
 Ivobatsi, 
 ving. on 
 ters and 
 pared to 
 
 he 27th 
 eluding 
 
 here on 
 les and 
 Boers, 
 mpany 
 lilitary 
 
 olated, 
 
 and the siege against Colonel Dalgctty and his nuMi hcj^^ni. On 
 the next day they also attacked GenJral Hnlk-r at I'landslaa-tr. 
 in Natal. On the iitli General Gatacre's recall to ICngland was 
 announced, and a week later the British War Ofllcc made i)nl)lic 
 a report from Lord Roberts, in which he severely criticised Gen- 
 erals Warren and Buller and Major Thornycroft in connection 
 with the battles of Spion Kop. 
 
 A little later General Warren was appointed Military Gov- 
 ernor of Griqualand West. On April 22d Lord Roberts dispatclK-d 
 General Pole-Carew to the assistance of General Rnndle, who was 
 hard pressed by the Boers at W^epener. Bnt Generals Hart and 
 Brabant, who had arrived before him, found the investment 
 abandoned and the Boers in full flight. Attempts to head ihciu 
 ofif as they retired were unavailing. 
 
 FINAL STAGES OF THE WAR. 
 
 On April 30tli the long-expected advance of Lord Roberts' 
 force from Bloemfontein began. Brandfort was occupied on May 
 3d, and two days later the Vet River was reached, when after a 
 sharp battle. General Hutton's mounted infantry turned the Boers' 
 flank. The Boer army fell back, and Lord Roberts captured a 
 quantity of stores at Smaldeel. Winburg was also occupied by 
 General Ian Hamilton. On May 12th General Roberts, at the head 
 of the British army, entered Krooustad, the temporary capital of 
 the Free State, without opposition. 
 
 Hundreds of Free Staters were reported as being anxious to 
 surrender. Meanwhile, General Buller began his advance from 
 Ladysmith, capturing Dundee, Glencoe and Newcastle, the Boers 
 evacuating their positions on the Biggarsberg. On May 17th, 
 Lindley, the latter temporary capital of the Free State, Avas occu- 
 pied. Lord Roberts also announced the capture of three Boer 
 Generals. 
 
 But the piece of news that produced the greatest enthusiasm 
 on the part of the sympathiz«rs with the British cause wis that of 
 the relief of Mafeking on May i8th. Colonel B. T. Mahou, with 
 his troops from the south, joined forces with Colonel Plumer on 
 
 
 ■' *\\ 
 
.»!»(( 
 
 IIRITISH FLAG WAVES OVER PRETORIA. 
 
 the T5tli, and after hard fighting for several days, entered Mafek- 
 iiig unopposed. Colonel Baden-Powell, the gallant defender, was 
 at once promoted from the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel to that of 
 Major-General. 
 
 On the approach of Lord Roberts' army the Boers abandoned 
 their strongly fortified positions on the Rhenoster River and 
 retired across the Vaal River, partly destroying the railway 
 bridge at Vereenigiug as thcj'- crossed. On the Queen's birthday, 
 May 24th, and the da}' following, the left wing crossed the Vaal at 
 Parys, west of the railway bridge. On May 27th the main body of 
 the British army crossed the river unopposed, near Vereeniging, 
 and camped on the north bank. Roberts' army marched twenty 
 miles on May 28th, reaching Klip River Station, within eighteen 
 niiles of Johnannesburg. The Gold-City of South Africa was on 
 the follewing night within the grasp of the British commander, 
 and the fall of Pretoria, the capital, com pleted the conquest of the 
 South African Republics. 
 
[afek- 
 f, was 
 
 hiat of 
 
 idoned 
 |r and 
 
 liday, 
 aal at 
 ody of 
 
 wenty 
 hteen 
 '^as on 
 ander, 
 of the 
 
 F 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Lessons and Issues of the War. 
 
 BY REV. ROBERT WILSON, D. D., ST. JOHN, N. B. 
 'ROM the history of this war lessons will be learned that will 
 
 not soon be forgotten, and the issues thereof will be of the 
 most important and far reaching character. These will not 
 merely affect the Briton and the Boer, but will have a much 
 wider application, for the struggle has been watched with the 
 iccnest interest by the people of other lands. Among these may 
 De mentioned the decided advantage that modern weapons give to 
 a besieged force. 
 
 The improvements made in recent years in gun and rifle have 
 rendered it all but impossible to cross what is termed the fire zone 
 of from two to four miles, without exposing the besiegers to 
 •almost certaiu destruction. A well-equipped intrenched force 
 enjoys a comparative immunity from danger that a few years ago 
 would have been thought impossibe, except behind regular forti- 
 fications. 
 
 This was strikingly illustrated in the cases of Ladysmith, 
 Kimberley and Mafeking, where immensely superior numbers 
 were kept at bay for months, and defeated in every attack made 
 upon the besieged. Unintentionally, science has thus been made 
 to work in the interests of peace, for the very destructiveness of 
 modern methods of warfare will render the nations less anxious 
 to provoke a conflict. 
 
 In the past, infantry has been relied upon, and the dashing 
 bayonet charge has decided the fate of many a battle. But while 
 this must ever continue to be an important branch of the service, 
 more importance than ever will be attached to mounted forces. 
 
 Rapidity of movement has become indispensable, and for this 
 
 the horse will be increasing!}- in demand. Both Briton and Boer 
 
 proved the value of this animal in the recent struggle, and the 
 
 advance of Lord Roberts was seriously impeded for lack of horses. 
 
 697 
 
 'i.'i^s^f| ^ 
 
:[ 
 
 6'Jrt 
 
 LESSOiNS /\ND ISSUES OF THE WAR. 
 
 And tlic splendid achievements of General French could not have 
 been won had his troops not been mounted. 
 
 The invisible soldier will in future be as much in demand as 
 the smokeless powder. In the opening of the campaign the con- 
 spicuous uniforms of the British officers made them targets for 
 the enemy, and in a lesser degree the bright colored tunics and 
 helmets of the soldiery led to disastrous results. In this matter, 
 as in many others, old notions of neatness and taste must give 
 awa}^ to those of utility and comfort, and safety must be especially 
 considered. The British authorities soon saw the need of a change, 
 and the sober and unattractive khaki replaced in a large measure 
 the uniform of the past. 
 
 ERRORS THAT RESULTED IN DISASTERS. 
 
 At different times during the war serious disasters befell the 
 British arms for which no adequate reason was given, and which 
 apparently might have been prevented. This was all the more 
 surprising in view of the fact that the officers in command were 
 men of acknowledged ability and of large experience, and had 
 won distinction again and again. Confidence was placed in 
 untrustworthy guides, orders were misinterpreted, and large 
 numbers of men were surrounded, killed, or captured, by an 
 enemy whose whereabouts had not been known. Some attributed 
 these disasters to the divine displeasure, because the war was an 
 unrighteous one. 
 
 This view was not very widely entertained, and was confined 
 to the Boers and their sympathisers. Others, while believing in 
 the justice of the British cause, feared the nation had placed too 
 much confidence in its big batallions and too little in its God. 
 
 While it is not the business of the present writer to deal with 
 these varied views, this much may be said, that nations need to 
 be reminded that the Heavens rule, that the strength and per- 
 petuity of a state does not necessarily depend upon its fleets and 
 armies, and that to be great it must be good in its laws and 
 righteous in its purposes. 
 
 By ignoring these things the empires of antiquity died out 
 
 and disa 
 of to-da} 
 only be 
 Tht 
 reniarka 
 with an^ 
 colonics 
 all "So 
 over-est 
 for, Col( 
 of the E 
 tions of 
 uess, bi 
 Th 
 is now 
 resourc 
 stronge 
 Nation! 
 the dajJ 
 TV 
 and sm 
 l;)y the 
 vA\, by 
 niou cj 
 
 A 
 
 leaves 
 
 the So 
 
 been e 
 
 had fc 
 
 slight 
 
 with t 
 
 the p 
 
 Britis 
 
 ex per 
 
LESSONS AND ISSUES OF THE WAR. 
 
 899 
 
 and disappeared, and to avoid the fate that befell them the people 
 of to-day nuist not forget that national safety and stability can 
 only be secured by national righteousness and justice. 
 
 The unity of the British Empire has been revealed in a very 
 remarkable manner and emphatic notice has been given that war 
 with any part of it means war v.'h it all. Representatives often 
 colonics stood side by side with the soldiers of the Motherland — 
 all "Soldiers of the Queen" — the moral effect of which cannot be 
 over-estimated. On the principle thst men value what they pay 
 for, Colonials have a greater interest than ever in the preservation 
 of the Empire. Under the new order of things the outlying por- 
 tions of Britain's vast domain will be no longer sources of weak- 
 ness, but important points from which to assail the common foe. 
 
 The Little England idea is dead and buried, and Imperialism 
 is now the dominant feeling everywhere. Unexpected military 
 resources have been developed ; Britain conies out of the fight 
 stronger than ever, and the world has seen thrt the Mother of 
 Nations can confidently rely upon the help of her children in 
 the day of danger. 
 
 The war found the Empire a loosely formed group of great 
 and small powers, it leaves it a firmly cemented federation, bound 
 by the common ties of language, political institutions, and above 
 all, by ties of blood spilt and banners carried to victory in a com- 
 mon caustt. 
 
 Ill 
 
 r^r 
 
 
 
 too 
 
 FUTURE OF SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 As M'ar annuls all treaties, dissolves all conventions, and 
 leaves the conqueror to dictate his own terms, the overthrow of 
 the South African Republic was no more than what was to have 
 been expected. For the reasons given in this work the Transvaal 
 had forfeited the right to exist, and the Free State without the 
 slightest provocation or ground of complaint, having joined liands 
 with their friends beyond the Vaal, took the risks and must pay 
 the penalt3^ Nothing short of this would have satisfied the 
 British people, for all art agreed that after such a tremendous 
 cxpendituie of blood and treasure, it would never do to allow them 
 
600 
 
 LESSONS AND ISSUES OF THE WAR. 
 
 I 
 
 even that measure of independence they had previously 
 enjoyed. 
 
 Lord Rosebery, the leader of the Liberal party, has publicly 
 declared that the mistakes of 1881 must not be repeated. Shortly 
 after the outbreak of the ;var, Mr. Chamberlain thus voiced the 
 public feeling : "There will never be another Majuba. Never 
 again will the Boer be permitted to erect in the heart of Africa a 
 citadel from whence may proceed disaffection and race animosity. 
 Never again will they be able to endanger the paramountcy of 
 Great Britain ; and never again will they be able to treat an 
 Englishman as if he belonged to an inferior race." 
 
 Ill a speech he delivered he re-affirmed his previous state- 
 ments in these words : "While the government does not wish to 
 be vindictive, it is determined that never again will the Republics 
 be a nursery for conspiracy. We are not prepared to recognize 
 the independence of the Dutch republics, but determined they 
 shall be finally incorporated under the British flag." All of this 
 was fully endorsed by Lord Salisbury on May 29th, when he said : 
 " We have made a tremendous sacrifice of blood and treasure in 
 this conflict, and the only certainty of preventing a recurrence of 
 this fearful war is to insure that never again shall such vast 
 accumulations of armaments occur, and 'that not a shred of the 
 former independence of the republics shall remain." 
 
 BRITISH FLAG, AND NO OTHER. 
 
 The Boer has seen his armies broken and scattered, his 
 leaders fugitives or prisoners, and the Red Cross flag of Britain 
 floating in triumph throughout the length and breadth of his 
 land. The dream of the Africander, of a Dutch republic stretch- 
 ing from the Cape to the Zambesi, will never be realized, and he 
 must now accommodate himself to the new order of things with as 
 1 good a grace as possible. 
 
 To none will the change bring greater good than to the Boers 
 themselves. With true liberty they have had no acquaintance. 
 They have been the dupes of ignorant and designing men, who, 
 for the most selfish purposes and by the most unscrupulous 
 
viously 
 
 ublicly 
 Shortly 
 ced the 
 Never 
 Africa a 
 niosity. 
 ntcy of 
 ■eat an 
 
 > state- 
 wish to 
 publics 
 'oguize 
 d they 
 of this 
 e said : 
 sure in 
 ence of 
 :h vast 
 [ of the 
 
 LESSONS AND ISSUES OF THE WAR. 
 
 GUI 
 
 means, have fostered a spirit of racial hatred. They will learn 
 that while Britain is powerful, she is also magnanimous ; and 
 while for a time the annexed territories will be ruled as Crown 
 Colonies, there will grow out of this war a great South African 
 Confederation, composed of the several States and Colonies, two 
 of which will be the defunct Republics. 
 
 Each of these will have its own local legislature, then a Fed- 
 eral Parliament to care for general matters, and all under Imperial 
 rule. As in Canada, all races and cretds are alike in the eye of 
 the law, so will it be in Africa, and the Boer will yet bless the 
 day when the flag of a corrupt military oligarchy was replaced by 
 one reprer.enting constitutional government. 
 
 A new era will thus dawn upon Africa. The folly of indulg- 
 ing in impossible ambitions being seen, the energies of the people 
 will be devoted to nobler purposes. Illiberal laws and mediaeval 
 usages will give place to those in accordance with the spirit of 
 this age. Immigration will be promoted, the resources of the 
 country will be developed, education will be encouraged, the mis- 
 sionaries of the Gospel will not be interfered with in their 
 endeavor to elevate the aborigines, and every part of the Dark 
 Continent will feel the throb and thrill of a great awakening. 
 
 "1 
 
 i 
 
 ■ !'.•<. 
 
 Ml 
 
 m 
 
 id, his 
 Britain 
 of his 
 tretch- 
 md he 
 nth. as 
 
 Boers 
 tance. 
 , who, 
 >ulous 
 
 i 
 
 i ,i 
 
;!■ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 Great Rejoicings in Canada Over British Victories. 
 
 AFTER General Roberts marched his victorious army into Pre- 
 toria, public interest was turned toward General Buller's 
 column, which was operating against a force of Boers in the 
 vicinity of Laing's Nek, in the extreme northwestern corner of 
 Natal. 
 
 It had been supposed by many that General Buller would 
 content himself with checking the Boers in front of him, and that 
 ..he task of driving them away would devolve upon some portion 
 of Lord Roberts' army, but it appeared that General Buller had 
 liopes of accomplishing this feat himself 
 
 The General sent an important despatch on June 9th from 
 Yellow Broom Farm. This place is some ten miles northwest of 
 Newcastle, on the road to Botha's Pass. The operations described 
 in his despatch were interesting and important. 
 
 General Talbot Coke on the 6th seized Van Wyke's Hill, 
 This hill is close to where General Buller had his headquarters, 
 and commands the road to the pass. Four naval guns were then 
 planted upon the hill, and at the same time some guns were got 
 on to the southwestern spur of Inkewelo Mountain, ten miles to 
 the north. Under cover of the combined fire from these two com- 
 manding positions, General Hilyard, on the 8th, assaulted all the 
 spurs of the hills between the Botha's Pass and Inkewelo. Gen- 
 eral Buller praised highly both the disposition of the General and 
 the dash of the troops, for whom no mountains were too steep. 
 
 The assault appears to have been completely successful. The 
 Boers were outflanked and forced to retire from a very strong 
 position, and General Buller reported that he believed he had 
 made Laing's Hill untenable. 
 
 To Lord Roberts and the army at Pretoria Buller's success 
 in forcing away into the enemy's country from Natal was a mat- 
 
 602 
 
 ter of gre 
 
 in cutting 
 
 the Britis 
 
 the railw 
 
 of the ra 
 
 up of su 
 
 easily de 
 
 Don 
 
 imminen 
 
 ing of a 
 
 erate wit 
 
 matter. 
 
 Wh 
 war, Gr( 
 over th 
 demonsi 
 and rem 
 into the 
 Sir Wil 
 
 U ' 
 
 and H< 
 
 desire t 
 
 the ap 
 
 shadoAA 
 
 toria, " 
 
 pride a 
 
 the loi 
 
 resour 
 
 scions: 
 
 battle! 
 
 ner in 
 
 a 
 
GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 603 
 
 the 
 
 ter of great importance. It was plain, in view of the Eoers' feat 
 in cutting the railway line between Kruonstiid and the Vaal, that 
 the British Commander-in-Chief could not absolutely depend on 
 the railway line to Bloemfontein. He would have to make use 
 of the railway through Natal to Pretoria for the rapid bringing 
 up of supplies. The line to Durban is both shorter and more 
 easily defended than that to Cape Town. 
 
 Doubtless it was because of Lord Roberts' recognition of the 
 imminent need that Buller pushed these operations. The throw- 
 ing of a large force into the Free State or the Transvaal to co-op- 
 erate with Roberts in pacifying the country now became an easy 
 matter. 
 
 CANADA'S ADDRESS TO QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 While these rapid movements were going on at the seat of 
 war, Great Britain and her colonies everywhere were rejoicing 
 over their victories and celebrating them with noisy patriotic 
 demonstrations. Canada shared in the general feeling of joy, 
 and remembered the heroism of the brave soldiers she had sent 
 into the field. On June 7th, in the House of Commons at Ottawa, 
 Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Premier, moved the following address : 
 
 "To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, Most Gracious 
 Sovereign : 
 
 *' We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects ; the Senate 
 and House of Commons of Canada, iii Parliament assembled, 
 desire to offer to your Majesty our heartfelt congratulations on 
 the approaching termination of the war in South Africa, as fore- 
 shadowed by the recent successes, culminating in the fall of Pre- 
 toria, which have attended the British arms. The feelings of 
 pride and satisfaction with which we hail every fresh addition to 
 the long and glorious roll of deeds wrought by British valor and 
 resource, are enhanced on the present occasion by the proud con- 
 sciousness that through the active co-operation of her sons on the 
 battlefield, Canada is entitled to share in a new and special man- 
 ner in the joy of the present triumph. 
 
 "We rejoice that the conflict, now happily drawing to a close, 
 
 ta; 
 
 iL, 
 
601 
 
 GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 will result in the removal of those disabilities under which many 
 of our fellow subjects have labored so long, and we cannot doubt 
 that the extension of your Majesty's gracious rule over the whole 
 of South Africa will be attended by those blessings which flow 
 from a wise and beneficent administration of just and equal laws. 
 
 "We pray, for your people's sake, that the blessings of your 
 Majesty's reign may long be prolonged." 
 
 In addressing himself to this motion the Prime Minister 
 spoke as follows : " The language of this address, Mr. Speaker, 
 seems to me to be sufficiently explicit, and I have but few obser- 
 vations to offer in support of it. We British subjects, of all races 
 and origins in all parts of the world, are inspired with sentiments 
 of exalted and chivalrous devotion to the person of her most 
 gracious Majesty. This devotion is not the result of any maudlin 
 sentimentality, but it springs from the fact that the Queen, the 
 sovereign of the many lands which constitute the British Empire, 
 is one of the noblest women that has ever lived, and certainly the 
 best sovereign that England ever had. 
 
 HUMANITY REVOLTS AGAINST WAR. 
 
 *''War is abhorent to the delicate nature of women. We :iiay 
 safely assume, indeed we know, that the present war was particu- 
 larly painful to Her Majesty. She had hoped that the closing 
 years of her long and prosperous reign would not be saddened by 
 such a spectacle as war. But it was not in the decree of Divine 
 Providence that this hope and wish should be gratified. War 
 came and it come with the surroundings of horror, of grievious 
 sufferings, and of bloodshed. It came with alternating periods of 
 reverses and of success. But, sir, happily the end is now within 
 sight. The troops of Her Majesty are now in Pretoria, and the 
 British flag, which is to us the emblem of liberty, is floating over 
 the public buildings in that far-famed city. This happy result is 
 due above all to that fine soldier who has proved himself a great 
 general and who on this occasion has, as never before, raised him- 
 self to the greatest expectations that the people of the Empire 
 had maintained of him. 
 
 "Tl 
 acter of 
 general 
 to do eve 
 to do th 
 remark 
 when th 
 scales wi 
 decided 
 though 
 to take t 
 from wh 
 through 
 ancestoi 
 
 though 
 have dc 
 when 1 
 the Brit 
 to-day 
 Her Ui 
 remain! 
 pray th 
 subject 
 appreci 
 land si 
 Lc 
 he sat 
 Si 
 
 which 
 House 
 wannt 
 moved 
 
<'.RKAT RF.JOiriNr. I\ CAN AHA. 
 
 wort 
 
 cli many 
 lot (loubl 
 he whole 
 lich flow 
 al laws, 
 of your 
 
 Minister 
 Speaker, 
 \v obser- 
 all races 
 itiments 
 er most 
 maudlin 
 een, the 
 Empire, 
 inly the 
 
 kVe ;uay 
 particu- 
 
 closing 
 ened by 
 
 Divine 
 . War 
 'ievious 
 riods of 
 
 within 
 md the 
 tig over 
 esult is 
 a great 
 id him- 
 Smpire 
 
 "The recent British victories arc also due t,, the fine rhar- 
 acter of the troops, who under t1i<' coniniand of the victorious 
 general have proved themselves ready for every emergency, ready 
 to do everything that was expected of them ; ready and anxious 
 to do their duty to the Empire, and in this we may, perhaps, 
 remark with pardonable pride that on more than one occasion, 
 when the fate of battle was trembling in the scales of destinv the 
 scales were turned in favor of the British arms and the victory 
 decided by the dash of our Canadian soldiers, who proved that 
 though many years have passed since last they were called upon 
 to take the field against the foe, they are 5^et worthy of the races 
 from which they have sprung, and that the blood which courses 
 through their veins is the same as that which inspired their 
 ancestors to gallant deeds. 
 
 INSTITUTIONS THAT MEAN EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 " Happily, as I said, the end of the war is in sight, 
 though we cannot hope that it is finished. Many battles 
 have doubtless yet to be fought, and, indeed we may say that 
 when the war is terminated greater problems will face 
 the British authorities. But even though the war is not finished 
 to-day utter the hope and the prayer that the long reign of 
 Her Majesty may never more be disturbed by war, and that what 
 remains to her of her natural life may now flow in peace. We 
 pray that when the end of this long glorious reign comes the 
 subjects of Her Majesty in South Africa shall have learned to 
 appreciate those British institutions which in this age and in every 
 land signify liberty and equal rights." 
 
 Loud cheers greeted the Premier's patriotic utterances, and 
 he sat down amidst a round of applause. 
 
 Sir Charles Tupper then rose and said : 
 
 " It gives me the greatest pleasure to second the address 
 which has just been moved by the right honorable leader of the 
 House and of the government and to associate myself in the 
 warmest possible manner with the eloquent terms in which he has 
 moved that address. I do not think it can be a source of unquali* 
 
 
 M 
 
 ««' , 
 
 I* 
 
 
 M 
 
TiOC. 
 
 (IRKAT RFJOICINC; IN CANADA. 
 
 ficd r(.\(.vr(^t that the war has taken place. It has been the last of 
 :hc Empire that during the illustrious reign of Her Majesty 
 jvhicn has never been surpassed by any sovereign in the M'orld, 
 tjithcr in regard to the quality of the sovereign or the great events 
 that have occurred or the great expansion of the Empire over 
 which she has been called to rule ; but I say that one of the most 
 signal and important events connected with the expansion of the 
 British Empire was the confederation of Canada. 
 
 EUROPE HAS LEARNED A LESSON. 
 
 " That was a measure that was regarded and still may be 
 regarded in every portion of the Empire as a signal step in the 
 consolidation of the Empire. The might, the power, the strength 
 of the British Empire is to-day appreciated as it was not three 
 months ago by the nations of Europe. That is one of the happy 
 results of the war. In a short time there woiild be a happy, 
 united South Africa, in which all races, all creeds, all classes 
 would enjoy equal privileges in the eyes of the law and a united 
 and happy population, loyal to the crown of England. Deeply as 
 Canada lamented the fact that the blood of Canadians had been 
 shed, that many of the gallant yeomanry of Canada who volun- 
 teered their services to aid Her Majesty the Queen and British 
 arms in South Africa have visited that country never to return to 
 Canada, we feel that the sacrifice had not been in vain." 
 
 Sir Charles continuing, pointed to the fact that the effective 
 strength of the first Canadian Contingent under Lieutenant 
 Colonel Otter was only 450, whereas it left for the war consider- 
 ably more than 1,000 strong. He added that Canada had the 
 satisfaction of knowing that in all the bravery which had been 
 exhibited b}^ the best troops of England none had siirpassed that 
 of the Canadians. He paid a high compliment to Lord Strathcona 
 for the part he had taken in the raising of his own splendid force. 
 
 The ardent patriotism of the Canadian people was well voiced 
 by their representatives in Parliament, and every sentimcnl 
 expressed found a responsive echo in the heart of the nation. 
 The heroism of Canadian troops was applauded roundly. 
 
C.RKAT KF.JOICIN'r. i\ CANADA 
 
 ar, 
 
 e last of 
 Majesty 
 e world, 
 t events 
 ire over 
 he most 
 II of the 
 
 may be 
 
 ) in the 
 
 trength 
 
 )t three 
 
 happy 
 
 happy, 
 
 classes 
 
 united 
 
 eeply as 
 
 ad been 
 
 vol tin - 
 . British 
 etum to 
 
 effective 
 utenant 
 onsider- 
 lad the 
 ad been 
 ;ed that 
 athcona 
 d force. 
 
 1 voiced 
 itimcnt 
 nation. 
 
 On June nth, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick rorcstirr- 
 Walker, in command of the lines of communication in vSonth 
 Africa, reported that in a disaster to the British troops on June 7, 
 at Roodeval, where the Boers cut Lord RoIkmIs' line of communi- 
 cations, the Fourth Battalion of the Derbyshire Re^nment were 
 all killed, wounded or made priscmers except six enlisted men. 
 Two officers and fifteen men were killed and five officers and 
 seventy-two men were wounded, many of them severely. 
 
 It was inferred that the Boers captured over 500 men, and as 
 late as June 10 held positions cutting off the British forces north 
 of Kroonstad from reinforcements. 
 
 The news that the .shutting off of Lord Roberts' line of com- 
 munication with the outer world was accompanied by such a serious 
 loss came like a bolt from a comparatively clear sk}-. In Londcm, 
 until the news came, it was thought that the destruction of the 
 railroad was accomplished by Free Staters, who where avoiding 
 rather than annihilating the British detachments. 
 
 UNEXPECTED STRENGTH OF THE BOERS. 
 
 Nor were General Forestier-Walker's vague statements 
 regarding Methuen and the situation at Heilbron looked upon as 
 reassuring. The Boers seemed to be in sufficient strength to com- 
 pletely separate all the British forces north and south of a line 
 stretching some fifty miles between Roodeval and Heilbron. 
 
 The following report from General BuUer was issued by the 
 War Office iu London : 
 
 "Headquarters in Natal, Jiine ii.— A Boer force was 
 encountered on the Klip river, at its junction with the Gans 
 Valei, last night. We anticipated at that defile a force of the 
 enemy about 3,000 strong, who had, I think, intended to occupy 
 it, and they retired as soon as our heavy guns opened, which were 
 smartly brought into action by Major May, of the Royal Artillery, 
 and Captain Jones, of the Royal Navy. 
 
 " The South African Light Horse and the Second Cavalry 
 Brigade were smartly engaged while covering our left front. Our 
 casualties are about six killed and seven wounded." 
 
 *• 
 
 n 
 
III 
 
 !, 
 I 
 
 60S 
 
 GKKAT RKJOICINC. IN CANAPA. 
 
 W 
 
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 Uii 
 
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 II 
 
 Tclcvj^r.'iphic comnuintcrition l)ct\vecn Pretoria and the South 
 haviiiji^ been re-established, the first message to puss over 
 the wire was a long despatch of high importance from Lord 
 Roberts. Incidentally, too, it showed that the veteran Omi- 
 mander-in-Chief was alert and eager, striking hard to right and 
 left, directing in person a fiercely fonght engagement a few miles 
 cast of Pretoria and issuing necessary instructions to his lieuten- 
 ants in other distant parts of the wide arena of battle. 
 
 The moment he heard that his line of ccmimunication had 
 been cut at Roodeval and that the Fourth Derbyshires were cap- 
 tured he dispatched Lord Kitchener, with all the troops that he 
 could spare, to hasten south, and sent off a special messenger 
 directing Lor 1 .Methuen to force his way from Heilbron to the 
 main line, to join hands with Kitchener. They met at Vredefort 
 road, on the evening of June lo, and then resuming their march 
 reached Rhenoster the following day. This explains how it was 
 that Lord Methuen lost touch with General Knox at Kroonstadt. 
 
 GENERAL METHUEN SCATTERS THE ENEMY. 
 
 On the seventh instant Methuen gained a victor}' over Gen- 
 eral Dewct, took possession of his camp and scattered the Boers in 
 flight in all directions. Lord Roberts' main army was also hotly 
 engaged, near Pretoria. 
 
 The capital itself and Johannesburg remained perfeeth' quiet, 
 but action became necessary, because General Botha had been 
 drawing to himself a considerable ibrce of Boers, about fifteen 
 miles to the east, on the road toward Middleburg and Machado' 
 dorp, an obscure station on the line to Koniati Poort, whither 
 President Kruger transferred the bullion and seat of government. 
 
 General Botha chose his position with great skill, for it was 
 unassailable in front, and he could thus utilize most of his men 
 on his flanks. Adopting his usual tactics, Lord Roberts sent 
 General French around by the left and General Ian Hamilton on 
 the right, leaving General Pole-Carew in the centre to move cau- 
 tiously forward as the flanking columns thrust the Boers back. 
 
 Lord Roberts hurriedly returned to Pretoria to get news of 
 
 I li 
 
c vSmith 
 iss ()\'cr 
 >iii Lord 
 II Coni- 
 .i,^lit and 
 \v miles 
 licutcii- 
 
 ioii had 
 crc cap- 
 that he 
 sscngcr 
 1 to the 
 rede fort 
 r march 
 \r it was 
 Mistadt. 
 
 cr Gcn- 
 ^ocrs in 
 o hotl}'- 
 
 y quiet, 
 d been 
 
 fifteen 
 ichado' 
 k^hither 
 iimcnt. 
 
 it was 
 s men 
 s sent 
 ton on 
 ^e cau- 
 ack. 
 ews of 
 
 GREAT RKJOICINC, IN CANADA. 
 
 * 
 
 General Methuen's movements, leaving orders that the troops 
 were to bivouac on the jfround which they had won. Yet he did 
 not quit the field until he had seen two battalions with what 
 appeared to be the key to the Boer position practically in their 
 grasp, while Pole-Carew was able to move forward and occupy at 
 nightfall the ground which when the battle began had been held 
 by the outposts of the Boer centre. 
 
 LORD ROBERTS DESCRIBES THE BATTLE. 
 
 Lord Roberts' official despatch was as follows : 
 
 " Pretoria, June 12.— Pretoria and Johannesburg are pef^ 
 fectly quiet, and several of the inhabitants have expressed grati 
 tude for the peace and order which prevail. 
 
 "After surrendering the city, Botha retired to a place about 
 fifteen miles east, on the Middleburg road. He had a small force 
 at first, but during the last few days his numbers increased and 
 his being so near the town kept up the excitement in the country, 
 prevented the Burghers from laying down their arms and inter- 
 fered with the collection of supplies. It, therefore, became neces- 
 sary to attack him. This I did yesterday. He held a very strong 
 position, practicable unassailable in front, which enabled him to 
 place the main portion of his troops on his flanks, which he kneW 
 from his former experience were his vulnerable parts. 
 
 " I sent French, with Porter's and Dixon's cavalary brigades 
 and Hutton's mounted infantry round by our left, and Ian Ham- 
 ilton, with Broadwood and Gordon's cavalry brigade, Ridley's 
 mounted infantry and Bruce Hamilton's infantry brigade round 
 by our right. Both columns met with great opposition. At about 
 three in the afternoon I saw two of Hamilton's infantry battalions 
 advancing to what appeared to be the key of the enemy's defence, 
 on their left flank. This was almost gained before dark, and I 
 ordered the force to bivouac on the ground they had won. 
 
 " Pole Carew, with his division, occupied our centre. As I 
 have explained, he could not attack, but he gradually advanced 
 so as to support Ian Hamilton, and when I left the field he wa* 
 on the line held by the enemy's outposts in the morning.'* 
 
 1 
 
 
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 Si 
 
 n 
 
 ll? 
 
 I*' 
 
 
 
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 39 
 
 *• 'M*' 
 
Ill 
 
 m 
 
 GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 One of General Buller's divisions, the Fifth, arrived a Wakker- 
 stroom on Saturday, June i6th. The town had already made sub- 
 mission, and the farmers had commenced to give in their arms. 
 General Hildyard undertook the administration of the district, and 
 was to Slay for some time in the principal town to accept the submis- 
 sion of the farmers, most of whom already had their fill of fighting. 
 
 Wakkerstroom is an important province, which has Ernielo to 
 its north, Piet Retief to the east, and Vryheid to the south. The 
 Wakkerstro ">m burgers had a full share of the fighting, and their 
 commando was always considered the crack one by the Boers. In 
 the western half of the Transvaal pacification goes on without any 
 great loss of life. Rustenburg has been occupied by General 
 Baden-Powell, and a thousand stand of arms were given up in the 
 latter town, while Hans Kyloflf, a relative of the President, and 
 Piet Kruger, his son, made their submission. A column from 
 Pretoria started to restore Jae telegraph line to Rustenburg, and 
 General Baden-Powell, riding out to meet it, passed on to Pretoria. 
 
 TBtE BRITISH PUSHING ON. 
 
 Klerksdorp surrendered to General Hunter, and he entered 
 Potchefstroom, a town which is very strongly situated, and if gen- 
 eral demoralization had not set in among the farmers of the west 
 it might have held out for some time against the British troops. 
 From Potchefstroom General Hunter moved on to Johannesburg. 
 
 Lord Roberts sends from Pretoria some details of the attack on 
 Virginia Siding, where the railway from Winburg Road to Kroon- 
 stad crosses the Zand Pdver. It would seem that eight hundred 
 Boers, with three guns, attacked tiie British post there and killed 
 Major Seymour. General Knox, who garrisoned Kroonstad, heard 
 of the attack, and, moving out himself with a force of all arms, 
 drove off the Boers. 
 
 Having cut off the railway north of Kroonstad, and having 
 captured a battalion of militia, a feat which necessitated the de- 
 spatch of Lord Kitchener and a force to the south from Pretoria, 
 the raiders nearly repeated the achievement south of Steyn's second 
 capital, 
 
 '"./Wfoiiil^*^-.^^ 
 
ed a Wakker- 
 .dy made sub- 
 
 I their arms, 
 e district, and 
 3t the subniis- 
 
 II of fighting, 
 las Ermelq to 
 
 sonth. The 
 ng, and their 
 le Boers. In 
 without any 
 by General 
 ven up in the 
 •resident, and 
 column from 
 stenburg, and 
 •n to Pretoria. 
 
 id he entered 
 i, and if gen- 
 rs of the west 
 British troops, 
 lannesburg. 
 the attack on 
 )ad to Kroon- 
 ght hundred 
 re and killed 
 onstad, heard 
 of all arms, 
 
 and having 
 :ated the de- 
 ■om Pretoria, 
 eyn's second 
 
 GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 611 
 
 Under date of June 20th it was reported that hostilities again 
 broke out in the southern cud of the Orange River Colony. Re- 
 ports reached Loudon that tlie burgliers, on the 19th, made a 
 vicious attack on General Rundle's position, near Scheepes Nek, 
 and were massing their strength before Ficksburg. Sniping be- 
 tween the outposts apparently was follo^ved by the Boers shelling 
 the British. General Rundle was reinforced. The Boers engaged 
 in these operations were Steyn's raiding commandoes 
 
 CHAMBERLAIN FRIENDLY TO AMERICA. 
 
 Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, ad- 
 dressing a meeting of the Women's Liberal Unionist Association, in 
 London, referring to Continental criticism, after remarking that 
 England always expected this, went on to say : 
 
 " But there are quarters whence even a note of disapproval 
 would be a matter of serious concern. I refer to our Colonies and 
 to the United States. I think w e are happy in that we have their 
 good opinion and approval. 
 
 " It is true, this good opinion of the United States is not 
 unmixed with other sentiments. I will not now enter upon the 
 causes, partly political and partly sentimental, which have led cer- 
 tain Americans to sympathize with what they call a republic, 
 although its whole existence and whole practice have been one per- 
 petual denial of the principles upon which their great republic is 
 founded. 
 
 " I believe the great majority of true Americans recognize that 
 our aims in this war are as high and unselfish as those which ani- 
 mated themselves in the Spanish-American struggle. They fought 
 then for justice and liberty, not for their own subjects, indeed, but 
 for those whom they believed to be the victims of oppression, and 
 we did not enter into quizzical disquisitions or technical discus- 
 sions, but recognized that the}^ were carrying out, as Anglo- 
 Saxons, a great work of civilization and humanity. 
 
 " Now we are asking their sympathies, and we believe that in 
 the long run we shall gain the final seal of their approval." 
 
 Messages from Lord Roberts and General BuUer showed that 
 
 
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 r ' pi 
 
 : •■ ."■'<■■■-! 
 
 812 
 
 GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 the two British armies in South Africa virtually joined hands on 
 the 2 2d. BuUer's infantry was at Kaatsbochspruit, six miles east 
 of Standerton, while Lord Dundonald, with the Third cavalry bri- 
 gade, was at Standerton. 
 
 I/ord Roberts' despatch was as follows : — ' 
 
 THE TWO BRITISH ARMIES UNITE. 
 
 "Pretoria, June 22. — Ian Hamilton's column reached the 
 Spring 5 yesterday en route to Heidelburg, where they will join 
 hands with BuUer's troops, who reached Paardekop yesterday, and 
 will be at Standerton to-morrow, thus opening up communication 
 between Pretoria and Natal and preventing any joint action 
 between the Transvaalers and the people of the Orange River 
 Colony. 
 
 " Baden-Powtll reports from Rustenburg that he found the 
 leading Boers very pacific and cordial on his return journey hence. 
 Commandant Steyn and two actively hostile field cornets had been 
 captured during his absence. 
 
 " Lord Edward Cecil, the administrator of the Rustenburg dis- 
 trict, has to date collected 3,cxxd rifles. The Commissioner at 
 Kroonstad reports that 341 rifles have been handed In at Wol- 
 marnstad." 
 
 The London Gazette on June 26th announced that Victoria 
 crosses had been bestowed on Major John Philipps Hornby, Ser- 
 geant Parker and Driver Glassock, of Q battery, Royal Artillery, 
 for conspicuous bravery in saving four of the guns from the 
 convoy disaster at Kornspruit, Orange Free State, on March 31 
 last. 
 
 Sergeant Parker, of Q battery, wrote a letter which contained 
 the following paragraph descriptive of the action : 
 
 " In galloping from the spruit my gun was overturned and 
 every horse was shot. I got up with No. 4 gun and we remained 
 three hours under the immf terrible fire. In five minutes we had 
 lost two complete detaclinjejjiH, and only Gunner Lodge and myself 
 were left to work the two guns, he nf one and I at the other. We 
 remained at the guns, loading. laying and firing by ourselves, and 
 
im 
 
 ined hands on 
 
 six miles east 
 
 rd cavalry bri- 
 
 GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 613 
 
 n reached the 
 :hey will join 
 yesterday, and 
 lommunication 
 joint action 
 Orange River 
 
 he found the 
 
 ourney hence. 
 
 rnets had been 
 
 -ustenburg dis- 
 tnmissioner at 
 led in at Wol- 
 
 that Victoria 
 
 Hornby, Ser- 
 
 >yal Artillery, 
 
 uns from the 
 
 on March 31 
 
 ich contained 
 
 ertumed and 
 we remained 
 nutes we had 
 >-e and myself 
 I other. We 
 urselves, and 
 
 brought both guns out of action by ourselves. We have been 
 recommended for the Victoria Cross." 
 
 The War Office in London has received the following despatch 
 from Lord Roberts : 
 
 "Pretoria Residency, June 26.— Sir Charles Warren reports 
 that the rebellion in Cape Colony north of the Orange River is now 
 over. The last formidable body, under Commandant De Villiers, 
 surrendered on June 20, consisting of about 220 men, 280 horses, 
 18 wagons, 260 rifles and 100,000 ammunition. General Baden- 
 Powell reports that pacification is going on satisfactorily in the 
 Rustenberg district.'' 
 
 CAPTURE OP ENGLISH HIGHLANDERS. . 
 
 The official report of the capture of a convoy of fifty wagons 
 escorted by Highlanders between Rhenoster and Heilbront, June 4, 
 was received. Lord Roberts reported that the convoy was sur- 
 rounded and sent messengers to the nearest ports asking for assist- 
 ance, but reinforcements were unable to reach the convoy and 150 
 Highlanders, in reply to a flag of truce from General Christian De 
 Wet, surrendered during the morning of June 4. 
 
 Dr. Jameson, a Kimberley despatch announced, has been 
 elected a member of the Cape Parliament without opposition. The 
 Berliner Tageblatt published correspondence from Vechtkop, 
 regarding the engagements around Zand River, in which the Ger- 
 man corps with the Boer forces was described as having suffered 
 terribly. A list of the killed and wounded was given. 
 
 Thus, so long after the capture of Pretoria, there were scattered 
 Boer forces in various localities carrying on a desultory warfare. 
 Kimberley and Mafeking had been relieved, Johannesburg had been 
 occupied, and from Pretoria President Kruger had fled, together 
 with the Boers who were in arms, but still the warfare in certain 
 localities was carried on. 
 
 What was expected to be gained by the Boer forces in thus 
 prolonging the contest it would be difficult to say. Already their 
 conflict with the British had cost them dearlv in blood and treasure 
 and nothing was to be made by prolonging the fight. 
 
 
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 '^^ 
 
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 614 
 
 GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 
 ':ii 
 
 / 
 
 On June 29th tlie War Office in London issued correspondence 
 with Lord Roberts regarding the charge's of Mr. W. A. Burdett- 
 Coutts, M.P., in regard to hospital mismanagement. On June 4 
 Lord Roberts' attention was called in brief telegrams to the alle- 
 gations and also to other complaints of a general breakdown in the 
 hospital system. Two days later he replied in part as follows : 
 
 " The principal medical officer reported that the arrangements 
 at Kroonstad were in all respects in good order, and Lord Alethuen 
 said they were thoroughly satisfactory. I was deeply distressed at 
 being unable to make suitable arrangements for the sick on our 
 first arrival at Kroonstad, but it is obvious that a certain amount 
 of suffering is inseparable from the rapid advance of a large army 
 into an enemy's country." 
 
 On June 20 the War Office cabled Lord Roberts that disquiet- 
 ing reports regarding the hospital were accumulating, and asked 
 him if anvthing could be done, and particularly whether more 
 nurses v. cr ? needed. 
 
 SICKNESS EASILY ACCOUNTED FOR. 
 
 On June 25 Lord Roberts replied, saying that he did not wish 
 to shirk responsibility or to screen the shortcomings of the medical 
 corps, and he suggested a committee of inquiry. 
 
 He said there had been an abnormal number of sick at Bloem- 
 fontein, due to the exhausting nature of the march and the terrible 
 unsanitary condition of the camp at Paardeburg, where the only 
 water available for drinking flowed from the Boer camp higher up, 
 where the river was horribly contaminated. 
 
 The Field Marshall stated that everything possible had been 
 done to alleviate the suffering of the sick and wounded. He him- 
 self personally visited the hospitals repeatedly, in order to assure 
 himself that the patients were made comfortable and had the ut- 
 most attention. He said he believed the treatment of the sick and 
 wounded throughout compared favorably with that witnessed in 
 any campaign of recent wars. 
 
 The War Office to-day issued the following despatch from 
 Lord Roberts ; 
 
 i 
 
 'fliu^^^ 
 
GREAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 CI") 
 
 -espondence 
 A. Burdett- 
 On June 4 
 to the alle- 
 dowii in the 
 follows : 
 rangements 
 rd Methuen 
 listressed at 
 >ick on our 
 ain amount 
 large army 
 
 lat disquiet- 
 , and asked 
 ether more 
 
 lid not wish 
 the medical 
 
 k at Bloem- 
 
 the terrible 
 
 •e the only 
 
 higher up, 
 
 e had been 
 . He him- 
 :r to assure 
 had the ut- 
 ile sick and 
 itnessed in 
 
 patch from 
 
 " Pretoria, July 7.— General BuUer arrived this morning. He 
 looked very well, and is apparently none the worse for the hard 
 work he has gone through during the past eight months. 
 
 " The inhabitants of Potchcfstrom are much interested in hos- 
 pital accommodations for the British troops. A concert there 
 realized /40 (^200), which was handed over to the medical officer 
 in charge of the Krugersdorf Station. The maiiagers of some of 
 the local mines have placed several houses at the disposition of the 
 medical officers in charge, and a large hall has been set apart as a 
 reading room for the troops.'' 
 
 REPORT FROM LORD ROBERTS. 
 
 Another despatch has been received by the War Office from 
 Lord Roberts, as follows : 
 
 " Pretoria, July 7. — The general commaudinn: Ladysmith tele- 
 graphs that 800 British prisoners belongin,^ to the Veomanry and 
 Derbyshires have been put over the Natal border from Secretary 
 Reitz's advance party, and have reached Acton Homes, en route to 
 Ladysmith. No officers accompany them." 
 
 Lord Roberts also transmitted the following : 
 
 " Vlakfontein, July 7. — A convoy passed Greylingstad to-day. 
 Before reaching a defile in the hills the Boers shelled the advanc- 
 ing columns. Colonel Thorneycroft's men occupied the hills to 
 the right of the narrow pass, keeping the Boers back on a ridge to 
 the left, while the infantry deployed in plain sight and the artillery 
 occupied a position under the ridge. The Boers worked their guns 
 rapidly, but the howitzers replied with effect, and drove back the 
 Boers over the ridge." 
 
 Various songs and poems formed a part of the literature of the 
 war which were worth preservinp-, one of them being the following: 
 
 PRETORIA. 
 
 Sing a vSong of Battle, Britton versus Boer ! 
 Sing a Song of Heroes that form the Army Corps — 
 Tommy from the Cornfield, Tommy from the Slum, 
 Tommy from the world o'er, following the drum I 
 
 •^. 
 
 
 V • 
 
 -^y- 
 
 \ >•" 
 
 Hw^, 
 
 !>• 
 
 ^iU^ 
 
616 
 
 GRKAT REJOICING IN CANADA. 
 
 Sing a Song of Cronje, sullen, brave and sly. 
 And four thousand '' slim Boers " caught in a pie, 
 Sent to St. Helena, just for change of scene j 
 Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the Queen ? 
 
 Refrain. — For the Queen is the Mother, 
 Her table is the State, 
 And we're all very busy 
 Wiping something off a slate I 
 If you want to see the finish. 
 Gome at once ! or you'll be late 1 
 
 For we marched into Pretoria this morning I 
 Sing a Song of Jack Tar, bravest under heaven. 
 Blowing foes to pieces with their four-point seven. 
 Sing a Song of Empire here and over seas ; 
 " We can stand alone, boys 1 " " Let 'em come who please.'' 
 Handy-man and Atkins, railway taking shape. 
 Carrying the line of Red from Cairo to the Cape, 
 , Carrying the old Flag o'er hill and desert scene, 
 
 Briton's dish of Empire to set before the Queen. 
 
 Sing a Song of Oom Paul — Kruger — Coffee King, 
 Very sanctimonious and all that sort of thing. 
 He's the latest staggerer I So to him we'll sing — 
 " You dared take the field, but not our Mafeking." 
 Singa;. ^ of Lord " Bobs," Powell, Buller, White. 
 Here's to all the others, for they're " all right." 
 Sing the noble ladies whose tenderness we've seen. . 
 That's another dainty dish to set before the Queen. 
 
 Sing a Song of Britain's noblest Volunteers, 
 Canadians ! Australians I worthy of our cheers. 
 Diggers from the Cape and Scouts from o'er the seas, 
 Yeomanry, with London's gallant C.I.V.'s. 
 Sing a Song of Union, Army, Fleet, and Throne. 
 Britain 'gainst the whole world still can hold her own. 
 Such a mighty Empire never yet was seen, 
 It's a truly Royal dish to set before the Queen. 
 
 V. Mtiii^^^ 
 
/. 
 
 V .« 
 
 
 
 \. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Fighting Around Pretoria. 
 
 /^OLONEL MAHON, reinforced by General French's brigade, 
 ^^^ on July nth, took all the positions held by the Boers in the 
 neighborhood of Reitfontein. A number of Boer dead were 
 found. The British casualties were trifling. 
 
 Details came to hand regarding the disaster to the Lincoln- 
 shire regiment on the same date. It appears that five companies 
 were ordered on the loth to proceed and hold the pass through 
 Magalesburg, in the neighborhood of Daspoortfort. They arrived 
 at the pass in the afternoon, where three companies with two 
 guns took up a position and camped for the night, leaving two 
 companies on a plain south of the pass. The eastern hill was 
 mgged, rocky and inaccessible, but further east apparently 
 approachable from the main ridge. At daybreak the Boers 
 appeared on the eastern kopje, anc' opened a heavy fire. Confu- 
 sion ensued. 
 
 The Colonel ordered the men to take up a position on a kopje 
 west of the gap. From this point a hot fire ensued during the 
 entire day. Two guns, under the escort of the Scots Greys, 
 placed in advance of the main body, were captured, after a stout 
 resistance. Nearly every man was killed or wounded. A Maxim 
 gun was brought into action early iv the day. The fire was too 
 hot, and the men were finally fo: d to retire. A sergeant, aided 
 by seven volunteers, saved the gun. There was a continuous fire 
 all along the line, the Lincolnshire regiment men vigorously 
 replying. 
 
 About chree o'clock in the afternoon the Boers appeared to 
 the left of the position occupied by the British. An officer and 
 forty men attempted to charge them. Several men were killed 
 or wounded as the result of the charge. Three companies were 
 
 practically surrounded, but they kept up a steady fire unwaver- 
 
 —- _ _ 617 
 
 \.f 
 
 AiH 
 
 >'i %'■■ ii 
 
 :H 
 
 ' * 
 
 
 i 
 
 :u*..m^ 
 
linn 
 
 
 l,V 1^ 
 
 11 
 
 618 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 ingly until towards nightfall, when their ammunition had been 
 
 expended. 
 
 It is understood, upon good authority, that the Boers 
 
 employed armed natives. Two of the natives leaped from cover, 
 
 when a small party from the Lincolnshire regiment stepped up 
 
 and demanded their surrender. A soldier stepped forward and shot 
 
 both of the natives dead. One ofl&cer who succeeded in making 
 
 his escape had an encounter with an armed native. The losses of 
 
 the British were numerous. About thirty of the British soldiers 
 
 straggled back to camp. According to all accounts a great 
 
 force was being assembled to prevent further progress of the 
 
 Boers. 
 
 TERRIFIC FIRE AND LOSS OF CANNON. 
 
 Tt seems that while the dragoons' fight was proceeding, the 
 Boers attacked the outposts to the westward, held by the Lincoln 
 regiment, the Scots Greys and another with a battery of two guns. 
 The enemy, finding good covers behind rocks and amid thick 
 brush, surrounded and overwhelmed three companies of the Lin- 
 colns and a squadron of the Scots Greys, who strove to save the 
 guns. Owing to a terrific mauser fire, the task became impossi- 
 ble, and the cannon were both lost. Colonel Robert, of the Lin- 
 colnshire regiment, was wounded in the arm. 
 
 The force only surrendered when cut off, and it was found 
 that the guns could not be brought back. Some horses of the 
 Scots Greys got loose and escaped into the town. Detachments 
 of men fought on until night, when they escaped. Reinforce- 
 ments arrived after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but it was then too 
 late to attack the Boers. The Major of the Scots Greys was 
 taken prisoner, but escaped. ~ 
 
 The enemy reappeared in the morning upon the kopjes to the 
 northeast of the Durdepoort, ten miles out. The British guns 
 opened fire, and several companies of the Warwickshire regiment 
 and part of Dickson's cavalry attacked. The action at long range 
 proceeded for hours. Infantry was also engaged in the fighting. 
 
 General Frencb an \ Colonel Mahon, with General Hutton, 
 had a skirmish on ti.- ; .ith at Reitfontein, completely driving the 
 
 '^iJiiliP 
 
mition had been 
 
 hat the Boers 
 
 ped from cover, 
 
 ent stepped tip 
 
 "orward and shot 
 
 eded in making 
 
 The losses of 
 
 British soldiers 
 
 counts a great 
 
 progress of the 
 
 ^NON. 
 
 proceeding, the 
 by the Lincoln 
 ery of two guns, 
 md amid thick 
 nies of the Lin- 
 rove to save the 
 aecame impossi- 
 ert, of the Lin- 
 
 id it was found 
 le horses of the 
 . Detachments 
 )ed. Reinforce- 
 : it was then too 
 !ots Greys was 
 
 he kopjes to the 
 e British guns 
 cshire regiment 
 3n at long range 
 n the fighting, 
 reneral Hutton, 
 tely driving the 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 ei» 
 
 Boers from hills to the south, frustrating attempts to cut the 
 railway. 
 
 A despatch from Pretoria, July 12th, was as follows : 
 ^ "Yesterday's fighting, of a somewhat serious character, 
 believed to be part of a Boer plan, was an attempted attack on the 
 outskirts of Pretoria. Three commandoes, those of Delarey, 
 Erasmus and Miwers, with six guns, during the previous night, 
 took up positions facing the lesser kopjes, five miles north of 
 Wonderboorn Range, but extending west to Zwartkoppies. 
 
 " At daybreak. Squadron C, of the Seventh Dragoon Guards, 
 advanced from the regiment's camp, near Doornpoort, on a scout- 
 ing expedition. The regiment had a long line to watch. 
 Cholmly's troop was leading when three miles out. Nearing a 
 farm, they saw a score of khaki clad and helmeted men. One 
 showed the white flag, which they afterwards dropped. This 
 became the enemies' signal for a fusillade at a range of from 100 
 to 200 yards on the front, rear and flank of the Dragoons, who 
 had supposed the enemy to be the Fourteenth Hussars. 
 
 FOUGHT LIKE HEROES. 
 
 " Horses and men fell, but Cholmly, though suffering from 
 two flesh wounds and with his clothes and saddle riddled with 
 bullets and horse hit, made a detour and halting his men and 
 firing regained the outposts with eight troopers, the rest of the 
 squadron assisting Lieutenant Church, who was also wounded. 
 From the camp the dragoons advanced, and two guns shelled the 
 Boers, checking them, but later, owing to the action breaking out 
 farther west, the whole of the outpost line retired to the main 
 range." 
 
 At Bronkhorst Spruit, July 24th, the Boers having got wind 
 of the British advance, evacuated all their positions and moved 
 to the northeast, towards Leydenburg, whither President 
 Kruger wenv' A portion of the Boers remained north of Bush- 
 veldt, whence they attempted to interrupt communications. The 
 bridges here and smaller bridges to the west were destroyed. 
 
 The British force comjwdsed two brigades under General 
 
 
 1^1 ■■ ii 
 
 _.:iii,.^^ 
 
i 
 
 m 
 
 620 
 
 FIGHTING /ROUND PRETORIA 
 
 IBI 
 
 tiUti 
 
 
 French and a brigade and a half under General Hamilton. T\i^ 
 Boers remaining upon their farms stated that most of the 
 burghers were anxious to bring affairs to a finish, but that the 
 foreigners were persistent. 
 
 The capture of Fouriersburg was preceded by heavy fight- 
 ing to force a passage of the passes, which was stubbornly con- 
 tested for two days. General Hunter's forces had the hardest 
 work in forcing Relief's Nek, his casualties amounting to about 
 lOO. Upward of 6000 Boers with a very large number of wagons, a 
 large quantity of stores and many cattle were driven into the 
 mountain passes, where they were watched by British troops. 
 
 The War Ofl&ce in London has received a despatch from Lord 
 Roberts explaining that only one train was captured on the night 
 of July 21 between Kroonstad and tht Vaal, and that it contained 
 supplies and two officers and 100 men of the Welsh Fusiliers. 
 General French occupied Middleburg in the Transvaal, and 
 General Pole-Carew, with the Guards Brigade, arrived at Brug- 
 spruit, twenty miles west of Middleburg. 
 
 GENERAL DE WET'S OFFER TO SURRENDER. 
 
 A special despatch from Cape Town says : " General Christian 
 De Wet has offered to surrender on condition that his followers be 
 permitted to return to their homes unmolested. Lord Roberts has 
 refused anything except unconditional surrender. Broadwood 
 was watching Christian De Wet, who has taken up a position on 
 high hills near Reitzburg, about seven miles south of the Vaal. 
 P. De Wet, a younger brother of Christian, surrendered at 
 Kroonstad on the 28th." 
 
 On July 30th, Pretoria telegrams announced that Lord 
 Roberts had returned there with his staff, apparently finding it 
 useless to spend his energies against a constantly retreating foe. 
 Commandant General Botha, with several (thousand Boers, like 
 General Christian De Wet, thus eluded Lord Roberts' grasp. 
 
 Genera^ Delarey besieged General Baden-Powell at Rusten- 
 berg, in Western Transvaal. The relief force sent to General 
 Baden-Powell's assistance, under Colonel Hickman, proved too 
 
FIGHTING AROUND PRETORFA. 
 
 «21 
 
 amilton. The 
 most of the 
 h, but that the 
 
 heavy fight- 
 tubbornly con- 
 ad the hardest 
 inting to about 
 Derofwagous, a 
 driven into the 
 British troops, 
 atch from Lord 
 ed on the night 
 lat it contained 
 /"elsh Fusiliers, 
 fransvaal, and 
 rrived at Brug- 
 
 SENDER. 
 
 neral Christian 
 his followers be 
 ►rd Roberts has 
 r, Broadwood 
 ip a position on 
 h of the Vaal. 
 lurrendered at 
 
 ced that Lord 
 itly finding it 
 retreating foe. 
 md Boers, like 
 rts' grasp, 
 ^ell at Rusten- 
 Qt to General 
 in, proved too 
 
 weak to be effective, and was obliged to fall back on Pretoria. 
 The operations were hampered with bad weather, thunder-storms 
 and deluges of rain, accompanied by intense cold. Lieutenant 
 MacLaren and three Highlanders died of exposure, as well as 
 many horses and cattle. 
 
 The following despatch was received in London from Lord 
 R(^berts : " On July 26th MacDonald fought a rear guard action 
 with the enemy from early morning until dark, nine miles outside 
 of Naaupoort, in the Bethlehem hills, resulting in his effectually 
 blocking Naaupoort Nek to the Boer wagons. 
 
 TERMS WERE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 
 
 " Prisoners taken stated that the burghers would surren- 
 der if guaranteed that they would be treated as prisoners of war 
 and not as rebels. To this I had assented. As a result of these 
 operations Prinsloo, commanding the Boers, asked, through a flag 
 of truce to-day, a four days' armistice for peace negotiations. 
 
 " Hunter replied the only terms he could accept were uncondi- 
 tional surrender, and until these were complied with hostilities 
 could not cease. I expressed my approval, and told Hunter on no 
 account to enter into negotiations. 
 
 " As I am writing, a telegram has come from Hunter saying 
 that Prinsloo liad written a second letter expressing willingness to 
 hand over himself, with his men, rifles, ammunition, and other 
 firearms, upon condition that the horses, saddles^ bridles, and other 
 possessions of the burghers being guaranteed them and they be 
 free to return to their homes. 
 
 " I have replied that the surrender must be absolutely uncon- 
 ditional ; that all rifles, ammunition, horses, and other possessions 
 must be given up, and that the burghers will be considered pris- 
 oners of war. I added that Prinsloo' s overtures will not be 
 allowed in any way to interfere with Hunter's operations, which 
 must be continued until the enemy is defeated or has surren- 
 dered." 
 
 A later despatch from General Roberts, dated July 29th, con- 
 firmed the surrender of Prinsloo, with over 1,000 Boers. 
 
 
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 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 General Hunter received a written unconditional surrender 
 of all the Boers in Caledon Valley. General Prinsloo, lately 
 elected to the chief command, arrived and tried to repudiate the 
 unconditional surrender. General Hunter, however, refused any 
 concessions. About ii o'clock the troops were drawn up in two 
 long lines on the hills and over the valley, and the Boers rode in 
 between, throwing, down their rifles, together with a motley collec- 
 tion of clothing, blankets and gear, such as was found in General 
 Cronje's laager. 
 
 The Ficksburg commando was first to lay down arms. It 
 consisted of about 550 men. Then came the Ladybrand com- 
 mando with about 500 aien. Fifty horses, two guns and many 
 wagons were given up. General Prinsloo and Commandant 
 Crowther were received by General Hunter at his tent, where 
 they were accorded the courtesy due their rank. 
 
 Lord Roberts telegraphed to the War Office important 
 information as follows : 
 
 "Pretoria, August i. — Hunter reports 1,200 more prisoners 
 surrendered July 31st, with Commandants Rouse and Fontenel, 
 while Commandants Deploy, Potgieter and Joubert surrendered to 
 Bruce Hamilton, who collected 1,200 rifles, 650 horses and an 
 Armstrong gun. Lieutenant Anderson, a Danish officer in the 
 Staats Artillery, also surrendered." 
 
 There was much animosity to President Kruger on account of 
 the fact that he and his officials persuaded the people that South 
 African Republic paper money was as good as the Bank of England 
 money, because based on inalienable State securities, even though 
 the State should be conquered. As the English did not recognize 
 this contention, many Burghers were ruined and much misery was 
 the result. The wives and children of the poorer Boers were 
 almost starving. 
 
 .-•*■•; 
 
 DEATH OF TWO GALLANT CANADIANS. 
 
 While there was general rejoicing among the British forces 
 over the surrender of Boers, and the evidences of the war being 
 nearly ended, the death of two gallant Canadians caused universal 
 
 1 
 
 regret, e 
 qualities 
 One 
 St.* Catl 
 service. 
 Ontario, 
 mention 
 highest 
 men wl 
 ready 
 heroes t 
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 HERC 
 
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 bereave 
 
 Roberts 
 
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 Th 
 
 Ministe 
 
 Militia 
 
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 won dij 
 
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 inches 
 
 pounds 
 
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FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 623 
 
 surrender 
 oo, lately 
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 fused any 
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 rs rode in 
 ley collec- 
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 arms. It 
 rand com- 
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 nmandant 
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 important 
 
 prisoners 
 Fontenel, 
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 s and an 
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 iccount of 
 bat South 
 * England 
 :n though 
 recognize 
 isery was 
 oers were 
 
 .sh forces 
 /ar being 
 universal 
 
 regret, especially as they were noted for their bravery and manly 
 qualities. 
 
 One of these was Lieutenant J. E. Burch, Second Dragoons, 
 St." Catharines, attached to Canada Mounted Rifles for special 
 service. He was the son of Major T. O. Burch, St. Ann's, 
 Ontario, and was killed near Pretoria, July i6th. His name was 
 mentioned in a despatch from Lord Roberts in terms of the 
 highest praise. He was a typical specimen of the brave young 
 men who made up the Canadian contingents, all of whom were 
 ready for any service, however hard or dangerous. It is such 
 heroes that have given renown to British soldiers on a hundred 
 hard fought battlefields. 
 
 HEROISM OF MAJOR BORDEN AND LIEUT. TURNER. 
 
 Another fallen hero was also deeply mourned. The news of 
 the death inaction in South Africa of Major Harold Borden, only 
 son of the Minister of Militia, was received at Ottawa, July 17th, 
 and called forth very general expressions of sympathy with the 
 bereaved parents. It came in the form of a brief cable from Lord 
 Roberts at Pretoria : 
 
 "Regret to inform you that Borden's sou was killed in action 
 yesterday." 
 
 The intelligence was broken to Dr. Borden by the Prime 
 Minister, with Lieutenant-Colonels Pinault and Macdonald of the 
 Militia Department. The young man was a particulary fine 
 specimen of robust young Canadian manhood and had already 
 won distinction by his bravery. 
 
 He was only twenty-three years of age, stood six feet three 
 inches in his stockings and weighed a hundred and ninety-eight 
 pounds. He was brought up in King's county. Nova Scotia, and 
 had studied at Mt. Allison University, in Sackville, and later at 
 McGill, in Montreal, where he was in his third year of medicine. 
 Although a major commanding the King's County Hussars, he 
 had gone out to South Africa as a lieutenant in B squadron of 
 the I St Battalion Canadian Mounted Rifles. 
 
 In a war correspondent's letter to " The Globe," is told a 
 
 I 'if 
 
 Ni 
 
 w<M Xr-^'^t" 
 
624 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 gallant exploit performed by Major Borden on May 5, when, in 
 company with Lieut. Turner and five troopers, he swam the Vet 
 River and opened fire on a Boer kraal. Fifty Boers were put to 
 flight by the plucky seven who were the first representatives of 
 the British army to cross the river in the march northward. 
 
 The particulars of the young ofl&cers' deaths were given by 
 Lord Roberts in an official despatch to the British Government of 
 July 18, and contained a magnificent tribute to the courage and 
 gallantry of the deceased. Lord Roberts described the action in 
 question and mentioned with regret the deaths of Major Borden 
 and Lieut. Burch, both of the Canada Mounted Rifles. His trib- 
 ute to the two young officers was contained in the following sen- 
 tences : — " They were killed while gallantly leading their men in 
 a counter-attack on the enemy's flank at a critical juncture of their 
 assault on our position. Borden was twice before brought to my 
 notice in despatches for gallant and intrepid conduct." 
 
 Such sentences will ever be cherished by friends of the 
 deceased officers and will soften somewhat the blow that fell upon 
 the bereaved families. The tributes paid to these spirited young 
 officers were richly deserved. 
 
 The following cable was received by the Minister of Militia 
 at Ottawa, under date of Capetown, July 19 : "Deeply regret to 
 inform you of the death of your son in the action of Reitvlei, on 
 July 16. Mrs. Borden and yourself have my sincerest sympathy 
 at the sad loss of this gallant officer, whom I have twice had the 
 honor to especially mention in despatches to the Commander-in- 
 Chief for gallant and intrepid conduct. 
 
 , (Signed) "HUTTON." 
 
 A cable from Col. Otter to the Militia department, confirmed 
 the numerous reports of the death of Lieutenants Borden and 
 Burch, who lost their lives, the cable said, " Under the most gal- 
 lant circumstances." In the same fight Colonel Otter stated that 
 Private A. W. Brown, A squadron, was mortally wounded, and 
 Private L. W. R. MuUoy, of the Princess Louise Dragoon 
 Guards, Ottawa, severely wounded. '" - -" Tr 
 
FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 (>25 
 
 In Halifax Major Borden spent more than a month while the 
 contingent was concentrating and the transports beiug got in 
 readiness. He became popular with a very large circle, the num- 
 ber of friends that he always had in this city being largely increased. 
 His handsome, stalwart appearance won for him much admiration. 
 His was the most striking appearance when the mounted rifles 
 paraded, and in the crowds that thronged the streets every eye 
 was keen to catch a glimpse of Borden. Ralph Markham, of St. 
 John, and others of the New Brunswick cavalry were in Major 
 Borden's command. 
 
 A couple of days before the Milwaukee sailed Major 
 Borden took out an insurance policy for $2,000 in the New York 
 Life, making the premium payable to Mrs. Dr. Borden, his step. 
 mother. 
 
 NOVA SCOTIANS WHO WENT WITH HIM. 
 
 The other Nova Scotians who with Major Borden joined 
 the Canadian mounted rifles were the following named : 
 
 Sergeant R. H. Ryan, Kentville ; Private B. M. Beckwith, 
 Jamaica ; Private Fred W. Hubbard, Canning ; Private John J. 
 McCaffrey, Kentville ; Private L. C. McMillan, Springhill ; Pri, 
 vate L. R. Miller, Lawrencetown, Annapolis ; Private E. A. San- 
 ford, Canning ; Private W. ^H. Snyder, Berwick ; Private T. A. 
 Thompson, Oxford. 
 
 Other Nova Scotians in B squadron were the following named : 
 
 Private J. S. Sturritt, Halifax ; Private J. W. Dease, Halifax; 
 Private F. W. Lawson, Amherst ; Private A. J. Pawsey, Gore, 
 Hants. 
 
 Major Borden's death marks the first Nova Scotian in 
 the second Canadian contingent who has died for his country in 
 Sonth Africa. 
 
 The squadron of King's Canadian Hussars which was com- 
 manded by Major Borden, with its headquarters at Canning, is 
 the successor of the King's County troop of cavalry which has 
 been in existence for twenty-seven years. 
 
 Besides being efficient in drill the King's Canadian Hussars 
 
 40 
 
 Mi 
 
 
 
 
 A i> 
 
 
 s: \U 
 
626 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 have always been noted for their marksmanship. It has had the 
 credit of being the first in Canada in this respect. Its sharp- 
 shooters were always among the first in the prize list at Bedford and 
 - Ottawa and a team won the Laurie bugle three times at Bedford 
 for skirmishing, and holds the record for all Canada, for the 
 competition. 
 
 SIR WILFRID LAURIER AND NICHOLAS FLOOD DAVIN 
 
 EULOGIZE MAJOR BORDEN. 
 
 Ottawa, July 17. — On the motion to adjourn the House, Sir 
 ; Wilfrid Laurier made the following reference to the death of 
 : Major Borden: — 
 
 " Before this motion is put, I am sure the House will agree 
 
 that I may properly take this opportunity to confirm the sad 
 
 ; rumor, which has been circulated through the corridors of the 
 
 : House this afternoon, to the eflfect that Major Borden, son of 
 
 : the Minister of Militia and Defence, met his death yesterday in 
 
 South Africa. The rumor is unfortunately too true. This afternoon 
 
 ; his Excellency received a telegram from Lord Roberts informing, 
 
 him that yesterday near Pretoria, Major Borden was killed 
 
 in action. Major Borden was a young man who enlisted 
 
 recently to fight for the Queen in South Africa. He was a young 
 
 man of great promise, athletic in figure, bright, intelligent, a 
 
 model boy in every way. 
 
 *' He had, as I am informed, already made c. mark in his 
 career, attracting the attention of his chiefs by his coolness under 
 fire, by his daring and by his courage, and had won the affections 
 of his comrades by his amiable disposition. The precious life 
 , has been cut short by the uncertainties of war. Now, this event, 
 I am sure will reach the heart of every member of this House. 
 He is the son of a prominent member of this administration, of - 
 an old member of the House, and of a popular member, and, as I 
 am reminded, the only son. Whatever bitterness there may be of 
 strife I am sure that before such misfortune all such bitterness 
 disappears, and that on both sides of the House friends and foes 
 will unite in offering to the bereaved father and to the bereaved 
 
Sir 
 of 
 
 FIGHTIN(i AKOUNl) l'.;i:TuriA. 
 
 «27 
 
 mother that sympathy which can be the only sohice of such ;i 
 misfortune on this side of the grave." 
 
 N. F. DAVINS TRIBUTE. 
 
 Nicholas Flood Daviu, Western Assiuiboia— "I could Avish that 
 the Honorable leader of the opposition (Sir Cluirles Tuppcr), wcro 
 in his place in order that he might echo the sentiments wliicli 
 have been so fitly expressed by the right honorable gentleman, 
 (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). A great statesman, Sir, l^-longing to 
 Athens, said that of great men who died, the whole earth seemed 
 to be the mausoleum. I think it may be said of even the 
 humblest heroes who die now under modern conditions on the 
 battle field, the whole earth seems to be the mausoleum, because 
 the civilized world seems to be in attendance and to watch what 
 is going forward, and I am sure there is not a man in Canada, or 
 for that matter, a man in the British Empire, who will not have 
 heard of the death of this young man, just 23 years old, with all 
 the budding hopes of youth and already crowned with heroism, 
 whose death is so untimely and who died so grandly, with sym- 
 pathy for his family and especially here in this House will that 
 sympathy be felt for his distinguished father. I would, for my 
 part, personally as well as, if I may speak for this side of the 
 House, express our great regret, and yet mixed with that regret 
 there is a sort of gratification and pride that the son of a member 
 of our own body and a member of our government, fighting 
 for the empire, although his family is bereaved and his country 
 lias lost his valuable life, yet has won the great prize of death 
 in battle." 
 
 The sympathy expressed for the family of Major Borden was 
 universal. All Canada was moved to expressions of deep regret 
 on account of this untimely death, yet it was felt that Major 
 Borden was but one of many who, having gone forth with their 
 lives in their hands, would be true to their country, would 
 acquit themselves nobly and would reflect honor upon their coun- 
 trymen whom they represented. All that sympathy could do to 
 soften the distress of the afflicted family was freely rendered. 
 
 m^^ 
 
 i| 
 
 
 'I. ill' 
 
628 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 A plot to make a prisoner of Lord Roberts at Pretoria aud 
 shoot all the British officers was discovered August loth. The 
 plot included a number of the townspeople, who were in communi- 
 cation with the enemy. It was arranged that the capture and 
 killing should take place on the evening of August 7th. Intense 
 indignation prevailed throughout the British army, and the gen- 
 eral opinion was .that the leniency of the British invited such a 
 conspiracy. It was considered that no measure for the repression 
 of such plots could be too strong. - - 
 
 A despatch from Pretoria said!: "Everything was prepared 
 in the plot to make Lord Roberts a prisoner and^shoot the British 
 officers, and the conspiracy was only discovered at the last moment. 
 The conspirators numbered about fifteen. They had planned to 
 set fire to the houses in the extreme western part of the city, hop- 
 ing that the troops would be concentrated there. The plan was 
 that then the conspirators were forcibly to enter all houses occu- 
 pied by British officers, these having been previously marked, 
 and to kill the occupants. -- 
 
 RINGLEADERS WERE ARRESTED. 
 
 "All the Boer sympathisers were acquainted with the plot, 
 and several had been told off to secure the person of Lord Roberts 
 and to hurry with him to the nearest commando. Horses had 
 been obtained for this purpose. Then the British learned the 
 names of the ringleaders, who were put under arrest. The affai;; 
 has created a tremendous sensation." 
 
 The Pretoria plot was the theme of many newspaper edito- 
 rials. All the papers decried the idea of treating the Boers too 
 leniently. "Examples, and stern examples," said one journal, 
 "are necessary. Although we may not agree with Sheridan's 
 fierce maxim : ' Nothing should be left of an enemy but eyes to 
 weep with,' yet this was the conclusion of a not inhuman officer, 
 who thoroughly understood war." 
 
 Lord Roberts reported to the War Office in London from Pre- 
 toria, under date of August loth, as follows: - 
 
 "A plot to carry me off has been discovered. It was clumsily 
 
FIGHTINC; AROUND PRKTORIA. 
 
 62d 
 
 conceived. The ringleaders and all concerned are now under 
 arrest." 
 
 The following was also reported under the same date: 
 "The burghers of the Transvaal will welcome any plan to 
 end the war, which is now little more than a series of guerrilla 
 raids. The Boers in the field are held together bj' compulsion, 
 and by a feeling that there is no sufficient reason why they should 
 surrender, but their number is constantly diminishing. There is, 
 / too, a strong feeling against the foreign adventurers now in the 
 Boer ranks, not five per cent, of whom were in the Transvaal 
 before the war. 
 
 "Several prominent Transvaal citizens on being interviewed, 
 expressed the opinion that England should annex the country at 
 once. A reasonable time should then be given the real burghers 
 to surrender th&ir arms under penalty of confiscation of their 
 property. Notice should be given to the foreign adventurers that 
 any of them found with arms would be imprisoned and any using 
 arms with fatal effect would be punished with death. The present 
 state of affairs is intolerable and a stronger policy would give the 
 burghers tbe required reason for submission." 
 
 BRITISH DRIVING DE WET. 
 
 Lord Roberts reported to the War Office, under date of Pre- 
 toria, August 13, as follows : 
 
 " Kitchener reports from Schoolplaats, eight miles east of 
 Ventersdorp, that De Wet blew up three of his wagons. Six 
 British prisoners who escaped from De Wet's camp state that Mr. 
 Steyn is confinedin the camp under surveillance, and that De Wet 
 was forced to abandon his ammunition and thirty horses. They 
 also confirm the report that Methnen captured one of De Wet's 
 guns and shelled the main convoy eflfectively. Ian Hamilton 
 > telegraphs that he hopes to be at Blaauwbank to-day with his 
 main body. Mahon's mounted troops are pushing on to the west- 
 ward." 
 
 Another report from Lord Roberts, of the same date, said : 
 " Methuen and Kitchener still following De Wet and Steyn. Yes- 
 
 
 ■Si 
 
 m 
 
 w. 
 
 ■• kv 
 
 lit 
 
630 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND PRETORIA. 
 
 terday readied Modderfontein, ten miles east of Ventersdorp. 
 Metliueii is in tonch with De Wet's rear guard. Sniitli-Dorien 
 reports that the Shropshires recently marched forty-three miles 
 in thirty-two hours, and the City of London Imperial Volunteers, 
 thirty miles in ten hours, hoping to prevent De Wet from cross- 
 ing the Krugersdorp-Potchefstroom railway.Buller's occupation of 
 Ernielo is having a good effect. A field comet and 182 burghers 
 of the Standerton Commando surrendered yesterday to Clery." 
 
 At the same time it was found that General DeWet was 
 endeavoring to make his way across the country to the south of 
 Johannesburg, but his road was barred by Sniith-Dorien in front, 
 while -both Lord Kitchener and Lord Methuen were attacking him 
 from the rear. There was a sanguine belief now that the best of 
 the Boer leaders might be cornered, but it v^as qualified by the 
 reflection that his road to the north was apparently still open, 
 and that he might slip away in that direction. 
 
 The retreat of General Carrington from Zerust to Mafeking 
 
 seemed to show that the hold of the British on the western 
 
 Transvaal was still very insecure. General Carrington appeared 
 
 to have sustained a check, and to have been compelled to retire in 
 
 order to wait till further reinforcements reached him from 
 
 Rhodesia. 
 
 , CANADIAN TROOPS RETURNING. ^3 
 
 . One hundred Canadians who were invalided in South Africa, 
 and had been recuperating in Shomcliffe, arrived in London 
 August 14th, and took train for Liverpool, whence they sailed 
 for home. They were greeted all along the route with ovations, 
 and thousands of London's residents turned out. to welcome them 
 upon their arrival and gave them a tremendous send-off as they 
 marched through the city. The detachment belonged to a Cana- 
 f dian regiment of Strathcona's Horse. 
 
 On the 2ist General De Wet crossed the Krugersdorp- 
 Potchefstroom railway and moved to the north in order to 
 join Commandant Delarey, who was holding Rustenbnrg. 
 Lord Kitchener and the other generals pursued and pressed him 
 hard. His force was beyond Ventersdorp. 
 
 On Se] 
 
 M.ijcsty. 
 
 the anne 
 
 South A\ 
 
 by the fa 
 
 nouiicem 
 
 forces. 
 
 leaders e 
 
 sway, an 
 
 ents, see 
 
 they mil 
 
 those \vl 
 
 world is 
 
 but criti 
 
 As 
 
 the exp 
 
 Dutch 1 
 
 and pl< 
 
 Africa, 
 
 purcha: 
 
 press, I 
 
 few ev 
 
 momei 
 
 avoid 
 
 pendit 
 
 her w 
 
 fendei 
 
 that li 
 
 larger 
 
 popul 
 
 the St 
 
 page 
 
M 
 
 1 
 
 ifeking 
 vesteru 
 jpeared 
 etire iu 
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 A.frica, 
 ^oiidon 
 sailed 
 itions, 
 ■ them - 
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 Cana- 
 
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 sdorp- / 
 2r to : 
 burg, 
 him 
 
 PHH: KM). 
 
 On September 1st I 
 
 (iTll 
 
 Rohrrt 
 
 s. Ill Ihf n.iiiu 
 
 .iiiil 
 
 Majesty, officiall)- proclain 
 
 led 
 
 iiiiili'i- the n.uiu' ,111(1 -,i\ 
 
 .11 hell, lit ..f Hit 
 
 nf th 
 
 the anil 
 
 South African Repul)lic. W'hik' tl 
 
 exation to the Hritish I'.mpirc ,,r uli.it Ims I.m n 1 
 
 V I r.iiis\ ,i.il 
 
 le war as sulIi ua 
 
 by the fall of I'retoria, it was d 
 
 s ]H,utu'ally <ii(lr(l 
 
 rcMKi! (.'xprdieiit tu dtfrr tlic Inriiia! a 
 
 II- 
 
 iir\- was Iu'kI nr 
 
 olltV 
 
 nln.'il |)\- 111, Untisli 
 
 noLincenient until the entire territ 
 
 forces. This has now I 
 
 leaders exercise m. aLithoritj- where (.nce the)- ruled with all hut ahsuliUc 
 
 )eeii dciiie, 
 
 rile W 
 
 D.Ts havi' no or^am/atKni, t 
 
 1 1 ■ I r 
 
 sway, and are now, with th 
 
 e remnants of tluir ilail)- diininishiii^ adii 
 
 rr- 
 
 ents, seeking safety in an imsettled sect 
 
 ion o 
 
 f" th. 
 
 coiintiy 
 (1 
 
 roll! lure 
 
 uui anno)- ami iii)un 
 
 they may for a time carr>' on a ^^ueriUa w.irtare 
 
 those who are disposed to accept the iiuvit able, hut tlu' judj^nunt of tin 
 
 .111(1 th it fiirthrr resistance is not on!)- iiseU 
 
 orld is that the war 
 
 is over, 
 
 but criminal 
 
 As already stated iu these pa<^es the dnain of the Hoer leade 
 
 rs was 
 
 the expulsion of the Hritish from South Africa and the establishment of a 
 Dutch Reiniblic fn.ni the Cajie to the' Zambesi. For this tlie)- had planned 
 antl plotted, sowed the seeds of disatTi-ction throiH^hoiit Hritish South 
 Africa, converted the countr\- under their control into one \-,ist citadel, 
 purchased at immense cost larrje portions of the American and Continental 
 press, by falsehood and misrepresentation securt'd the sympath)- of not a 
 few even in Great Hritain, and then when th.')- supposed the op[)ortuiie 
 moment had arrived declared war. 
 
 With the history of the war the reader is familiar. While anxious to 
 avoid a conflict Hritain accepted the challenge, and at a tremendous ex- 
 penditure of blood and treasure met the issue, and once more sustained 
 her well earned reputation as the protector of the helpless ami the de- 
 fender of the right. And while not undertaken A)r territorial enlargement 
 that has been the unaxoidable issue, and to-ila)- the Hritish i'-mpire is the 
 larger by some two hundred thousand square miles of territory, aiul its 
 population increased by about two million of souls. For the outcome of 
 the struggle, now happil)- entleil, the reader is referred to Chapter XXX VI, 
 page 597, where its Lessons and Issues are dealt with in full. 
 
 *y^j 
 
U i 
 
vn 
 
 
 li'id 
 
N, 
 
 \. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COLONIES MAKE A 
 RECORD IN THE WAR. 
 
 GREAT 
 
 "lA/'HEN the Transvaal War first broke out a great many Aus- 
 ' ^ tralians, who had read much about the Boers and their 
 deadly earnest ways of fighting, of their shooting, their horse- 
 manship, and their capacity for adapting themselves to trying 
 circumstances, and facing hardships, were convinced that the 
 British regular soldier was not the ideal material to set against 
 them. Tommy Atkins had pluck and persistence and discipline 
 enough for anything, but where was the agricultural laborer from 
 Devon or from Kent, or the born Cockney, to acquire the ability 
 to fend for himself in the wilderness and the knowledge to meet 
 the " slimness " of the Boer battle methods ? 
 
 He would go where he was told to go and try and do what he 
 was told, «ven to the sacrifice of his life, but little use that where 
 his enemy was invisible and protected, assailed him with deadly 
 rifle fire ; Surprised, harassed, outrode, and outmanoeuvred him. 
 And the training of the most war-worn of the Imperial war 
 material was not usually of tha best for such fighting as this war 
 called for. 
 
 " The British army is, practically, the only army of the Euro- 
 pean great powers which has had experience of actual fighting, 
 yet that experience has been almost wholly gained against more 
 or less primitive peoples, who were wont to charge on to the death 
 against machine guns and magazine rifles, armed themselves 
 only with guns harmless beyond a few hundred yards and with 
 all sorts of scratch ammunition. In such engagements men could 
 expose themselves with comparative safety. There was no artil- 
 lery to pound them for miles off, and no Mauser to knock them 
 over at a mile. Anything of this sort they had themselves. 
 
 It was felt here that against the Boers a special stamp of men 
 
 AAl . *1 
 
 
 Wv 
 
 \r' 
 
 m 
 
 ii; 
 
 lUi 
 
 Vii 
 
 i 
 
5 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 were required. The Boer theory of fighting consisted in seeing 
 without being seen, killing without being killed, and the moment 
 there was danger of reprisals, riding away on waiting horses on 
 the principle that "he who fights and runs away, will live to fight 
 another day." The Boers, in fact only calculate success or failure 
 by the casualty list, and regard positions as only made to be 
 abandoned just so soon as it is no longer safe to hold them. 
 
 Tn meet these men and beat them at their own game, Aus- 
 tralians felt that no one would be better fitted by nature than our 
 own bush-dwellers. They had not had fighting to do as had so 
 large a section of the South African settlers — that is, fighting 
 with men — but they havie had to fight with nature. They were 
 used to finding their way over great trackless and waterless 
 stretches of country with as much readiness as the Cockney does 
 in London streets ; to camping out as a matter of course tentless 
 and shelterless, beyond such shelter as trees or rocks or branches 
 give ; to living on little, and supplementing it with the product 
 of the gun ; to making a man's horse a companion, and tending 
 and caring him before himself 
 
 VALUE OF HORSES IN WAR. 
 
 This last quality is perhaps the most important in such cam- 
 paigning as that of Africa, where tens of thousands of horses are 
 being lost, where sore backs are the rule rather than the exception, 
 and where the poor brutes are made to suffer horribly till death 
 speedily ends their woes. The man who knows his horse as some- 
 thing more than a beast that carries him can prevent a vast amount 
 of the suffering which the bad rider necessarily inflicts, and gets 
 far more out of his steed. 
 
 Though the qualities of the Australian bushmen were recog- 
 nized here from the first, the well-known prejudices of ^he British 
 War Office were recognized as a bar to their offering. So when 
 the colonies made their offers they offered trained mounted troops. 
 Everyone is familiar with the refusal of the mounted men, and 
 the grudging acceptance by the War Office of a limited number 
 of infantry. The success of our Lancers, who volunteered on the 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 * ;i 
 
 1 seeing 
 uomeiit 
 orses on 
 to fight 
 r failure 
 e to be 
 
 ue, Aus- 
 han our 
 had so 
 fighting 
 ley were 
 waterless 
 ley does 
 tentless 
 )ranches 
 product 
 tending 
 
 ich cam- 
 )rses are 
 :ception, 
 11 death 
 as some- 
 ; amount 
 iiid gets 
 
 •e recog- 
 ; British 
 )0 when 
 1 troops, 
 len, and 
 number 
 id on the 
 
 way back from England, and of the mounted men whom New 
 Zealand and Queensland sent in disregard to the War Office fiat, 
 changed all this. 
 
 There was disaster after disaster, due to the failure of the 
 regular organization in scouting work. It was speedily found 
 that even the men we sent first, who had no special pretensions 
 to bushcraft, were the most successful scouts the army had. So 
 prttjently, when the outlook was black in both Natal and Cape 
 Colony, at a time of national disaster, just such a time as those 
 who don't know the colonies, had prophesied we would "cut the 
 painter," the colonies came forward with the offer of what 
 mounted men were needed, and these were accepted with grati- 
 ^ tude. 
 
 GENUINE BUSHMEN SCOUTS WANTED. 
 
 Encouraged by the changed attitude of the War Office, which 
 no longer regarded colonial troops as outsiders which would be 
 "horribly in the way," and had better be kept on foot so that they 
 could be safely put to police a railway line far away from the 
 front, where they wouldn't get hurt, or hurt the fine feelings of 
 the Imperial staffs, it was decided to raise a corps of genuine 
 bush men scouts and send, equip and maintain them by public 
 subscription. We all know with what enthusiasm that movement 
 was taken up, how men flocked to the camp, and money rolled in, 
 and the bitter heart-burnings there were towards the end when 
 the best bushmen came down after leaving the far-out runs, and 
 the great spaces of the west and north and southwest, only to find 
 that they had been "crowded out" to a large extent by those who 
 lived nearer at hand, and even by dwellers in the towns, whose 
 knowledge of bushcraft was limited to occasional excursions "up 
 the line." 
 
 Still the leaven of these was not great, and it was generally 
 agreed, when the regiment was got together under Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Airey, that a finer body of horsemen had never worn the 
 Empire's uniform, and that the men so spontaneously offered and 
 - BO speedily raised were as well worthy to represent the people of the 
 
 '*»!, 
 
 it 4 
 
 Pi 
 
 
 >i£ 
 
4* 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 colony, as those sent by the other colonies. What was heard from 
 the front about the capacity of the colonial contingents to find 
 their way about, take all the fighting that came their way, and 
 give no trouble to anybody but the enemy ; and what was heard 
 from this side as to the Bushmen's Corps forming, coupled with 
 the advent of Lord Roberts to power, and the general recognition 
 that the men under General French appeared for a long time to 
 have a monopoly of what success was going, led to a complete 
 change in the War Oflfice attitude. 
 
 FIRST CALL FOR COLONIAL TROOPS. 
 
 For the first time in the history of the colonies we were 
 asked to send troops. The War Office moved the Colonial Office 
 to ask that Australia send another 2000 mounted men. These 
 were not to be men imbued with army traditions, but just men, 
 like the Boers, " good riders and good shots." They were to be 
 raised, equipped, carried and maintained at Imperial expense, 
 thus differing from all the former contingents which were good- 
 will offering either of the Australasian Governments or the Aus- 
 tralasian peoples. 
 
 Thus came into being the " Imperial Bushmen." The 2000 
 asked for were divided between the colonies roughly on a popula- 
 tion basis. The only trouble experienced was that the different 
 colonies wanted to send more men than were allotted to them. 
 Queensland particularly insisted that on her out-back runs she 
 had more of the type of men required, the genuine vanishing 
 ''rough rider" than any other colony, and she got her way, and 
 was allowed to send more than her population quota. 
 
 In the selection of the new contingent it was sought to profit 
 by the experience of the Bush Contingent Committee. So instead 
 of requiring men to come to Sydney, bringing with them letters 
 of reference from squatters, and here stand rejection upon tests in 
 which there was an element of luck, the New South Wales Impe- 
 rial Bushmen's Selection Committee declared that certain of its 
 members should travel out to the town nearest the best recruiting 
 grounds, and there put the men through suitable medical and 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. * n 
 
 riding tests, and investigate their fitness where it was 
 known. 
 
 This saved the men a vast deal of nncertainty and inconveni- 
 ence, and it resulted in the getting together of a regiment that all 
 who saw it and who are familiar with other mounted regiments 
 claim to be "the finest body of mounted men ever got together 
 anywhere." This is a big thing to say, but it looks very much 
 as though it were supported by facts. Most of these men were 
 not selected in the city, but away in the back country. They are 
 men who have been in the saddle from their childhood, who have 
 ridden infinitely more than they have walked. 
 
 They represent every country, calling and profession, from 
 the wealthy squatter to his roustabout, from storekeeper to lawyer 
 and journalist, but beyond everything else they are rough riders, 
 horse-trainers, horse-breakers, boundary-riders, stockmen, drovers, 
 and the like, men to whom horsemanship and the sort of observa- 
 tion of nature that comes from lonely life in the bush are second 
 nature. 
 
 A very shrewd observer in the Imperial Bushmen's camp is 
 Regimental Sergeant Major Butler, a man of specially wide expe- 
 rience in cavalry work in England, India and Africa, who has 
 been m both Imperial regular cavalry and irregular horse. He 
 was an instructor to the First Australian Horse, and on Colonel 
 Mackay's appointment to the command of the New South Wales 
 Imperial Bushmen he at once secured his old instructor for the 
 new corps. He was emphatic in his opinion that this was the 
 best cavalry regiment every turned out. 
 
 AUSTRALIA'S CONTINGENT. 
 
 On October 17th, 1899, a few days after the war broke out, 
 one of the public journals contained the following, which shows 
 that the Colonies were quick to offer their services to the Mother- 
 land. 
 
 "From exchanges now to hand it appears that what the Con- 
 ference of Commandants proposed was that the colonies should 
 send 2053 of all arms, namely : cavalry, mounted rifles, horse 
 
 ". t. -.:. 
 
 *: fj 
 
 
 m 
 
 ' '\ 
 
 K1 
 
e* 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 artillery, itifantrj'-, and engineers, the object being to hav^e a solid 
 colonial force that would always remain intact as an Australian 
 contingent, capable of acting alone or in concert with the regular 
 troops, instead of having its identity destroyed by its being scat- 
 tered amongst other corps of the regular service or tacked on to 
 some other colonial contingents. As to details, it was proposed 
 that New South Wales should send 745 men in all ; Victoria, 543 ; , 
 Queensland, 275 ; South Australia, 140 ; Tasmania, 160 (infantry), 
 and West Australia 160 (infantry) ; staff, 30 — grand total, 2053. 
 
 "Just when this recommendation had been announced came the 
 cable dispatches of Mr. Chamberlain to the various governments 
 stating that the Imperial Government would gladly accept two 
 units (of 125 men each) from Queensland, New South Wales, and 
 Victoria, and one from South Australia — the troops not to embark 
 later than 31st October, infantry being also preferred to cavalry. 
 Hence it was that the Commandants met again and re-modelled 
 their scheme in accordance with the Secretary of State's require- 
 ments." 
 
 After an all-night sitting, on October 19, the Legislative 
 Assembly, at Sydney, by 79 to 10 adopted the resolution author- 
 izing the sending of troops to South Africa, and voting ;^30,ooo 
 fcr the expenses of the campaign. The result was arnounced 
 amid gr^at cheering, and the National Anthem was sung. 
 
 On October 26th the Legislative Assembly, after an all-night 
 sitting, passed a month's supplies, including the ^30,000 for the 
 Transvaal contiiigent. The Governor (the Barl of Beauchamp) 
 received a cablegram stating that the Queen desired to thank the 
 people of Australasia for their striking manifestation of loyalty 
 and patriotism in voluntarily sending troops to South Africa. Her 
 Majesty wished the troops God-speed and a safe return. 
 
 VICTORIA'S DETACHMENT EMBARKS. 
 
 The Mayor of Melbourne (Mr. M'Eachern) entertained the 
 officers and men of the Victoria Contingent in the Town Hall on 
 the 28th. There was a brilliant gathering, the Governor (Lord 
 Brassey), and the Premier (Sir George Turner), being among 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 » 7 
 
 the guests. The proceedings were marked with much enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 His Excellency, on behalf of the Queen, thanked the troops 
 for coming forward so nobly, to show that in the time of need the 
 Empire would have to be reckoned with as one undivided entity. 
 Sir George Turner expressed his firm belief that the men of the 
 Contingent would acquit themselves in such a manner as to do 
 credit to the colony. 
 
 Great crowds thronged the street outside the Town Hall, and 
 wildly cheered the members of the Contingent on their arrival 
 and departure. The horses for the Contingent had already been 
 shipped on board the Medic. The Imperial Government gave 
 permission for not more than two extra officers to accompany each 
 unit of Victoria's forces. 
 
 Prior to embarkation on the steamer Medic, the members of 
 the Victorian Contingent were addressed by Colonel Price, the 
 officer commanding the mounted corps of the colony. He had, 
 he said, no fear that the force would show any lack of courage or 
 want of discipline, but he had grave apprehensions of danger 
 arising from their impetuosity. This was an attribute which 
 could by no means be regarded as desirable in action. 
 
 TASMANIA'S FORCE PUTS TO SEA. 
 
 The Tasmanian Contingent for South Africa left Hobart on 
 the 28th en route to Melbourne, where they joined the Medic. 
 They received an enthusiastic send-off at Launceston, where they 
 weie presented by the ladies of the town with a silver bugle and 
 a flag. Prior to the departure of the troops from Launceston, the 
 Chief Justice (Sir William Dobson), who was acting as adminis- 
 trator of the Government during the absence of Lord Gormanston 
 in Europe, telegraphed to Captain Cameron, who was in com- 
 mand : 
 
 " You carry with you the affection of the people of Tasmania, 
 who are proud of your splendid patriotism." The Minister for 
 Defence (Hon. G. S. Colins), accompanied the troops as far as Mel- 
 bourne. Several steamers with bands on board accompanied the 
 
 .Pfv'i 
 
 ^ ,. y 
 
8 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 Coogee, by which the troops were travelling down the river, and 
 patriotic songs were sung by the immense crowds at the 
 embarkation. 
 
 The departure of the Victorian and Tasmanian contingents 
 from Melbourne by the Medic evoked an extraordinary outburst 
 of enthusiasm from all classes of the community. Favored by 
 fine weather, the demonstration far surpassed anything previously 
 seen in Melbourne. Special trains and steamers poured visitors 
 into the city from all parts of the country. These were aug- 
 mented by not a few Tasmanians, who journeyed across the 
 straits to see the little band of warriors fairly started on the 
 voyage. 
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC THRONG. 
 
 Hours before the time fixed for the start people commenced 
 to gather in the streets. The route from the barracks to the 
 Flinders-street railway station was soon a sea of faces. Every 
 window and balcony, and even the roofs were thronged. Bunting 
 flew everywhere. The Tasmanian contingent arrived in the fore- 
 noon, and received a rousing welcome. Many thousands of 
 spectators gathered on the wharves and along the route from the 
 barracks, where the Commandant reviewed both contingents in 
 the presence of the Governor, the Premier, and a large gathering 
 of leading citizens. 
 
 Lord Brassey, in a short address, said the tolony was justly 
 proud of the contingent, which represented untold numbers of 
 brave men. Every part of the Empire was, he said, ready to take 
 part in its defence. Never before had colonial forces represented 
 such patriotic devotion as the gallant baud about to sail in the 
 Medic. The incident marked a turning point in British history, 
 as it showed a firm resolve on the part of the people of the 
 Empire to stand together in the hour of trouble, and rally round 
 the old flag. In the name of the Queen he wished them all God- 
 speed and a safe return. 
 
 Sir Charles Holled-Smith, the Commandant of the Forces, 
 also wished the troops good luck, and expressed a hope that he 
 would see them all again. 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 » 
 
 Headed by the Permanent Artillery Band, followed by about 
 5000 troops, each company having a band, the contingents started 
 to inarch through the streets in one long procession, amid wild 
 enthusiasm. A strong body of mounted police had great diffi- 
 culty in keeping the line clear, and repeatedly had to drive back 
 the encroaching masses forcibly in order to allow the troops to pass. 
 
 An immense crowd gathered in the vicinity of the Parlia- 
 ment House and Prince's bridge, where there were triumphal 
 arches. The onlookers in Flinders-street gave tremendous 
 ovations. 
 
 The men were entrained at Flinders-street station for Port 
 Melbourne, where the Medic was lying. Their reception at the 
 port was a repetition of that in the city, the crowds being very 
 enthusiastic. The Medic got away at four in the afternoon, a 
 mighty cheer going up as she left the wharf. The vessel was 
 accompanied down the bay by a number of steamers, including 
 the Monowai, lent by the Union Company, carrying members of 
 Parliament and distinguished visitors. 
 
 FAREWELLS AND GOOD WISHES. 
 
 There were many touching scenes of farewell between the 
 men and their relatives. It was decided to attach Colonel Hoades, 
 Colonel Williams, Lieutenant Umphelby and Captain Johnston 
 as special officers to the contingent. They joined the Medic at 
 Adelaide. 
 
 The Premier (Mr. Lyne) said it was a red letter day in the 
 history of the colony. It was not so much the number of troops 
 as the moral support given to the Empire that wielded it together. 
 He announced that he was sending a message to the Queen in the 
 name of the Ministry and people thanking her for her gracious 
 expression of interest in the contingent, and stating that the 
 people of the colony would always be ready to take their share in 
 the duties and responsibilities of the Empire. 
 
 Lord Beauchamp, responding to the toast of " The Contingent," 
 said he was struck with the remarkable outburst of enthusiasm 
 shown throughout the colony. He believed and hoped that in the 
 
 4. 
 1I 
 
10 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 near future no British army would be considered complete unless 
 it included some colonial troops. His Excellency was sure the 
 colony would have every reason to be proud of the contingent. If 
 war could have been avoided it would have been, but now it had 
 come Great Britain was going to fight as it best could. 
 
 The Commandant (General French) said the men were a 
 splendid lot, and would compare with any colonial contingent. 
 They only represented about lO per cent, of those who volunteered. 
 
 TREMENDOUS DEMONSTRATION AT SYDNEY. 
 
 New South Wales, in bidding God-speed to the first section of 
 the Transvaal Contingent in the departing steamer Kent, emphat- 
 ically endorsed the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour's statement in the 
 House of Commons : — " We have the self-governing colonies with 
 us heart and soul." Despite adverse weather conditions, the dem- 
 onstration, both as regards size and the national expression of 
 loyalty, was one of the most remarkable witnessed in the colony. 
 An immense concourse, including thousands of visitors by special 
 trains from all parts of the colony, was packed in the streets, on 
 balconies, and on roofs along the entire line of march from Victoria 
 Barracks to Circular-quay. The route was gay with bunting and 
 patriotic devices, and flags were flying from most of the large 
 buildings in the city. The shipping in the harbor was also pro- 
 fusely decorated. 
 
 Unfortunately, heavy rain set in just about the time the 
 troops were leaving the barracks, and continue^' for the remainder 
 of the afternoon. While greatly marring the display as a military 
 pageant, the downpour failed to damp the enthusiasm of the 
 onlookers, who, waiting patiently in the pouring rain, gave vent 
 to their feelings by a long-continued burst of cheering, and waving 
 hats and handkerchiefs. 
 
 The departing troops consisted of forty Lancers to make up 
 the full strength of the detachment from London landing at the 
 Cape, eighty-six other officers and men and a medical corps. 
 Accompanying the troops on the Kent were 189 horses. 
 
 The men were escorted to the quay by detachments of various 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONMES IN THE WAR. • n 
 
 branches of the defence forces and regimental bands. Notwith. 
 standing their somewhat bedraggled condition, owing to the rain, 
 they presented a fine soldierly appearance. 
 
 As they filed through the barriers erected on the quay to keep 
 back the crowd, they were greeted with round on round of farewell 
 cheers from the assembled thousands. 
 
 Prior to embarkation, a valedictory lunch was given by the 
 agents of the Kent in honor of the departure of the troops to a 
 brilliant gathering, including the Governor, members of the Min- 
 istry, and about 500 leading residents. The proceedings were 
 most enthusiastic. 
 
 r 
 
 
 ;%i 
 
 \- 
 
 PATRIOTIC SPEECHES AND SONGS. 
 
 The steamer Medic, with the Victorian and Tasmanian con- 
 tingents aboard, arrived at Adelaide, October 30th. The troops 
 landed for a time and journeyed to the city by special train, 
 escorted by the local forces. They marched to the Town Hall 
 and were accorded a civic reception and luncheon. Great enthus- 
 iasm was shown by the crowds en route, and patriotic speeches 
 were made by the Premier, the Mayor, and others. 
 
 The troops in the Medic stood the trip along the coast well, 
 and soon settled down to their quarters and routine. On her coastal 
 trip the Medic passed a German mail steamer. That vessel was 
 gaily dressed in bunting, and cheered the contingents, while her 
 band played " God Save the Queen." 
 
 The Premier of South Australia (Right Hon. C. C. Kingston), 
 speaking at the reception to the contingents, wished them a safe 
 return to Australia. They were, he said, certain to acquit them- 
 selves like men, for they went to fight for Queen and country, 
 and constitutional freedom from a serfdom worse than death. 
 The proof that Britain was in the right was that Lord Roseberry 
 supported Lord Salisbury. The visiting officers were entertained 
 by the Officers' Club, the Governor (Lord Tennyson), presiding. 
 Exuberant patriotism was the keynote of the gathering. 
 
 The enthusiasm raised by the visit of the Victorian and Tas- 
 manian troops to Adelaide reached its height when the city bade 
 
 'k 
 
12 » 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIIIS IN THE WAR, 
 
 farewell to its own contingent. Never before were sucli crowds 
 seen, or such a universal outburst of loyal enthuGiasni or such a 
 display of flags witnessed in the South Australian capital. 
 Thousands of visitors from the country helped to make the dem- 
 onstration a splendid success. The troops paraded early in the 
 forenoon. Colonel Stuart, acting-commandant of the South Aus- 
 tralian forces, in a short address reminded the men of their 
 responsibilities and duties. They would, he said, carry their 
 lives in one hand, and their country's honor in the other. If they 
 implicitly obeyed and trusted their officers all would be well. 
 
 To the strains of military bands and accompanied by detach- 
 ments from various branches of the defence forces, the contingent 
 marched through the principal streets to the railway station, and 
 were entertained for Semaphore, one of the central suburbs and 
 marine outlets of Adelaide. The crowds massed all along the 
 route cheered themselves hoarse. From Semaphore a tug took 
 the troops aboard the Medic. The Mayor of Port Adelaide enter- 
 tained the contingent, members of the Ministry, and prominent 
 citizens at luncheon aboard the tug. Loyal speeches were made 
 by many of the guests. 
 
 NEW ZEALAND SHOWS HER PATRIOTISM. ' 
 
 His Excellency the Governor, informed the Premier that he 
 had received a telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colo- 
 nies to the effect that Her Majesty the Queen, desired to thank 
 the people of New Zealand for their striking manifestations of 
 loyalty and patriotism in their voluntary offer to send troops to 
 co-operate with Her Majesty's Imperial forces in maintaining her 
 position and the rights of British subjects in South Africa. 
 She wished the troops God-speed and a safe return. 
 
 The following communication was also received by the Secre- 
 tary of State for the Colonies: — "The prompt despatch of the 
 New Zealand Contingent, and the enthusiasm of the people of 
 New Zealand have given Her Majesty's Government the greatest 
 gratification, and have been hailed with enthusiasm by the people 
 of England. 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. » n 
 
 "On the twenty.first of October, 1805, was fought the famous 
 battle of Trafalgar, in which Nelsou lost liis life. Exactly 
 ninety-four years later a British cokniy, which was not then in 
 existence, despatched a troop of mounted soldiers to figlit for the 
 Empire, of which the mighty admiral was so great a builder. 
 Most appropriate was the date upon which it happened that the 
 first contingent of the colonial troops was sent upon the voyage 
 to the Cape. And to the youngest of the colonies belongs the 
 honor of being first able to telegraph to the Mother Land, Our 
 contingent has this day sailed for the Cape!' New Zealanders 
 realized the sentiment expressed by the late Vincent Pyke, 
 in his well-known song, 'The Old Flag,' composed in Duuediu in 
 1885— 
 
 Three crosses in the Union, 
 
 Three crosses in the Jack — 
 And we'll add to it now the Cross of the South, 
 
 And stand by it back to back. 
 Though other skies above us shine, 
 
 When danger's tempest lowers, 
 We'll show the world that Britain's cause 
 And Britain's foes are ours ! 
 
 "When, only a fortnight before, the first party of volunteers 
 for active service arrived in the camp at Karori — before even a 
 troopship had been commissioned — it was freely stated, in what 
 might be said to be expert circles, that it was impossible to get a 
 contingent away from the colony in less than a month. In a 
 little over two weeks the Defence Office achieved the impossible. 
 Men were seen coming into camp in small parties every day. 
 It might truthfully be said that 'naked (in the military sense, 
 came they into camp, and shortly they went out fully clothed.' " 
 
 All this was done through the combination of the Defence 
 Department and the manufacturers of the colony. Every man 
 was clothed, booted, spurred and mounted, the result of a pro- 
 digious amount of energy, so far-reaching as to include almost 
 every section of the community, from the supply of saddles from 
 Auckland, produce from the Bluff, horses from the runs of Wan- 
 
 L> i^ 
 
 If 
 
 iU 
 
 H: 
 
14 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 ganui, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury and Southland, wool ' for the 
 clothing from the sheepruns of both islands, and men from every 
 district in the colony. 
 
 It was gratifying to find that over three-quarters of the num- 
 ber of the men who formed the contingent were natives of the 
 colony they were going to represent. Many more had volun- 
 teered, but as they were not qualified riders, their services could 
 not be accepted. Others, again, who qualified in all other partic- 
 ulars, were under age, and yet others were refused because they 
 were married. A few acceptionally good men, including officers, 
 had their services accepted, even though they were married, but 
 their circumstances were found to be exceptional. 
 
 One officer left a wife and family, and also left behind him a 
 flourishing business. Some of the rank and file also relinquished 
 remunerative positions in response to what they considered the 
 call of duty. With the departure of nearly loo men who had 
 been employed upon the land, the backbone of the country suffered 
 somewhat, and to these the temptation of settling in the rich 
 countr} *they were to help conquer might, it was thought, prove 
 irresistible. At any rate. New Zealand's troop, from its com- 
 mander to the youngest trumpeter, was composed, for the most 
 part, of active, enthusiastic and ardent men, not one of whom was 
 found wanting when the hour of trial came to them. 
 
 INTENSE ENTHUSIASM IN WELLINGTON. 
 
 Red-lettered in the annals of Wellington will be Saturday, 
 2ist October, 1899. The native-born had no event in his memory 
 which compared with the enthusiasm displayed by the citizens 
 towards those sons of the colony who volunteered to risk life and 
 fortune in South Africa in the interests of the Empire. Towns- 
 folk and visitors assembled in thousands along the whole front of 
 Jervois-quay. Upon the southern portion of the street a platform 
 had been erected for the accommodation of His Excellency the 
 Governor and party, and the speakers who were to take part in the 
 official ceremony. The whole length of footpath and roadway 
 along Lambton-quay was crowded by half-past 2 o'clock. 
 

 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 15 
 
 At 2.30 the volunteers, under Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, 
 marched on Jervois-quay, the D Battery taking up the southern 
 position near the Star Boating Sheds, and forming the barrier 
 across the roadway. Then came the City Rifles, Guards, Civil 
 Service and Post and Telegraph Corps, the College Rifles, the 
 Zealandias, with the visiting representatives of the East and 
 West Coast Battalions. Of bands, there were more than had 
 previously been heard upon any parade in Wellington. Besides 
 those of the city, there were the Napier and Palmerston North 
 Garrison Bands, and the musicians of Pahautanui. After the 
 soldiers had marched the length of the quay, they divided their 
 ranks in two, and two deep, drove the people to each side of 
 the road, leaving a clear space for the Contingent to march 
 down. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE CONTINGENT. 
 
 At this time the wharf, the decks and rigging of the vessels 
 within sight, the windows and roofs of the buildings, and the 
 whole of Jervois-quay was one mass of palpitating humanity. 
 About 3 o'clock cheers were heard from the direction of Lambton- 
 quay, and a cry went up, "They come!" The bands stationed 
 along the quay had been enlivening the waiting time with the 
 strains of martial and patriotic music, but there came a moment 
 when emotion proved too much even for bandsmen. That 
 moment was when the troops for the front came marching round 
 from the Post Office into Jervois-quay, to the inspiring strains of 
 the Garrison Band. 
 
 The scene at that moment will never be forgotten by those 
 who had eyes to see and ears to hear. The enthusiasm was 
 frenzied in its intensity, and even the cynic was carried out of 
 his every day bitterness, and had perforce, to wave his hat with 
 his fellows. Handkerchiefs, umbrellas, canes, hats, ribbons of 
 many colors — the waving mass was kaleidoscopic. The ten 
 thousand heads in sight were turned towards the oncoming heroes 
 of the hour, whilst from every throat came cheers upon cheers, 
 punctuated with many excited exclamations. Nor were the 
 
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16* 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 veterans of the long-ago Maori War forgotten, as they were 
 sighted by the crowd. 
 
 The scenes of enthusiasm on the departure of colonial 
 troops which h ive already been described were not exceptional. 
 Similar demonstrations were witnessed as the loyal people of 
 various towns, came together to give the brave men a hearty send- 
 off who were going to defend the honor of the Empire. 
 
 We must, however, furnish a brief account of the departure 
 of the Bushmen's Contingent, which occurred in February, 1900, 
 over a month after the tremendous cheering that signalized the 
 departure of the second contingent on January 17th. The great 
 enthusiasm shown on the departure of the New South Wales 
 second contingent was repeated at Sydney on the 28th, when the 
 New South Wales Bushmen took ship at Woolloomooloo Bay for 
 South Africa. The Railway Commissioners gave special facili- 
 ties for country people to come in, and from an early hour the 
 streets began to fill up. 
 
 MOUNTED MEN AND FINE DISPLAY. 
 
 The throng extended all along the line of route. One factor 
 which assisted the spectacle was that the men who constituted the 
 main attrS,ction were mounted, and the papers had been asked to 
 to warn the public that it was dangerous to go near the bushmen's 
 horses. This kept the great majority back from the lines, but 
 many, nevertheless, ran in to greet friends, or merely to shake 
 hands with men because they were bushmen, and one boy was 
 killed by a kick from a horse. 
 
 As the troops moved along there were many humorous inci- 
 dents. Some men were snatching the handkerchiefs which girls 
 frantically waved to them and decorating their horses with them 
 or waving them in great bunches. One man's bunch must have 
 had 50 handkerchiefs in it. Men on the outer rank stooped over 
 and snatched kisses from the girls who lined the roadways, some- 
 times meeting with stiff resistance, real or feigned, but as a rule 
 the subject was either so surprised or so overcome with emotion 
 and enthusiasm as to yield easily. 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONICS LN THE WAR. #17 
 
 Some bushmen took male friends up 011 their horses with 
 tliem. ^ Others gave spurs or some other trapping to enthusiasts 
 who cried out for mementoes. A considerable number of the men 
 bore aloft flags on long poles. One man had a ring-tailed 'possum 
 which clung to his hand as he swung it round his head. "Bushie," 
 the regimental dog, was held by a diminutive trumpeter. 
 Altogether it was a scene of strong emotion and great enthusiasm. 
 Cheers rang out all along the route— cheers from the sailors from 
 the war ships as they swung along in their " whites," making a 
 stirring display, cheers for the bushmen, cheers for the lancers, 
 cheers for the Ministers, and cheers f©r the " Third Contingent," 
 who made a fine showing as they marched after the '' active ser- 
 vice" contingent — they had themselves volunteered for active 
 service and are going. 
 
 t>^ 
 
 ous mci- 
 
 WARM RECEPTION TO GALLANT BUSHMEN. 
 
 There must have been over 200,000 men, women, and children 
 out during the day (the trams carried 290,000, George-street 
 77>33o)> 3.nd all along the line of procession the hardy bushmen 
 could have had no cause of complaint as to the warmth of the 
 reception accorded to them. 
 
 The main avenues through which the troops were to pass 
 en route to the scene of embarkation, notably William, Pitt, and 
 Macquarie streets, were gaily decked with bunting, and no doubt 
 the patriotic Australian, as he sauntered down Pitt street, accepted 
 with thanks the encouragement and approval expressed in the 
 words " America salutes the brave Bushmen of Australia," which 
 an insurance company of New York displayed upon a wide ribbon 
 or scroll that crossed the street. Major Rennie was responsible 
 for this mark of cousinly good-will, and also for the other decora- 
 tions of the company's building, consisting of three large flags — 
 the American in the centre, flanked by the British and Australian 
 flags — while below appeared on one side the American shield, and 
 on the other the Australian. The brigade numbered in all between 
 t6oo and 1700 ofiicers and men. 
 
 It is important to note the opinion of Colonel Otter concerning 
 *bb2 
 
 ■>u^'u, . ^■-. .._.-, ^,^.-^^.^^,.. ^^y- 
 
18» 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 the buslimeii. A well informed officer, writing on this subject, 
 says : " Even if it were composed of picked dunderheads, specially 
 selected by skilled authorities in idiocy, the amount of drilling 
 and instruction th^t the Bushmen's Corps is receiving could not 
 but render a body that "would pass muster anywhere without 
 microscopic scrutiny. On the contrary, however, the men are, 
 and the authority for the statement is the experienced Colonel 
 Otter, their commanding officer, far and away above the highest 
 standard yet fixed among colonial troops. 
 
 " He is proud of them now, and he will hand them over on 
 their arrival at the Cape, with as much pride as it is good for a 
 commanding officer to feel. He never, he declares, in his eighteen 
 years' experience of colonial troops, ever came across a keener lot 
 of fellows, and he is delighted with the progress they have made 
 during the time there has been available for ' licking them into 
 shape.' To a man they are bright and alert, and they not only 
 make the most of the instruction afforded them, but they are con- 
 tinually on the alert to pick up the work of soldiering. 
 
 " He cannot, he says, speak too highly of the excellent work 
 done by the Adjutant, Captain Patterson, and the drill instructors. 
 They have been simply indefatigable, and it is most gratifjnng 
 that, no matter how much work may be given to the men, they 
 are always ready and willing for more." 
 
 MESSAGE FROM MELBOURNE. 
 
 Under date of February 21st, a report was received from 
 Arundel stating that the Boers captured a number of wounded at 
 Hobkirk's Farm, where the Victorian Mounted Rifles had a severe 
 engagement with the enemy, and treated them most kindly. The 
 isufferers were provided with mattresses, and eggs were given as 
 part of their food. 
 
 Lord Ranfurly cabled to Sir John Madden, the Lieutenant- 
 Governor, expressing his regret at the misfortune which befel the 
 Victorians at Hobkirk's Farm, and his "heartfelt sympathy at 
 the disaster to your gallant troops, who preferred death to sur- 
 render." 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 *1« 
 
 The work performed in the field by the New South Wales 
 medical corps called forth the highest praise from the British 
 generals. In the fighting around Koodoosrand the corps acted 
 with unflinching courage and devotion, the doctors and bearers 
 accompanying the Canadians and the Gordons in their gallant 
 rush on Cronje's position, and being among the first to enter the 
 trenches, from which they removed the Canadian wounded, under 
 alieavy fire. 
 
 Lord Roberts, after an inspection of the New South Wales 
 Field Hospital, warmly eulogized the perfection of the methods 
 employed, and expressed himself specially pleased with the tor- 
 toise tents, which are a novelty to the Imperial authorities. Dr. 
 Fiaschi, of Sydney, was extremely fortunate in his treatment of 
 the wounded, and was credited with having accomplished many 
 surgical successes. 
 
 VALOR OF AUSTRALASIAN TROOPS. 
 
 In the successful patrol work accomplished by General 
 French's cavalry division, which successfully prevented the scat- 
 tered bodies of Boer reinforcements from reaching Cronje's posi- 
 tion, a very important part was taken by the Australian troops. 
 
 Strong bodies of New South Wales Lancers and Queens- 
 land and New Zealand Mounted Infantry patrolled the country 
 and cut off any chance of escape from Cronje's laager in the river 
 bed. 
 
 On March 3d, Mr. Chamberlain sent to Mr. Lyne, the 
 Premier of New South Wales, a cable message, which he inti- 
 mated migut be made public for the purpose of pacifying public 
 anxiety. This message was understood to reproduce one sent 
 previously, excepting in particulars which it was considered 
 necessary to keep secret. In the cable received, Mr. Chamberlain 
 asked whether the Australian colonies could send to South Africa 
 2000 more bushmen in addition to those already sent or aoout to 
 be sent. 
 
 It was intimated '.hat these troops might possibly be required 
 for service outside the Cape Colony and Natal, and it was further 
 
 
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26^ 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THI. W\R. 
 
 stated that the Imperial Government was prepared to pay the men 
 five shillings per day from the date of enrolment, and also defray 
 all expenses of railway transport from any point in Australia to 
 the seaboard, of equipment and of transport. 
 
 The colonial Treasurers were requested to arrange for the 
 immediate payment of all these expenses, and were informed that 
 the Imperial Government would recoup the Government of the 
 colonies. The amended message also contained congratulations 
 on colonial loyalty in sending men and subscribing money to 
 assist the mother country in an emergency. 
 
 Simultaneously with Mr. Lyne's announcement of the receipt 
 of this amended cable, a telegram arrival from Brisbane, stating 
 that Mr. Lyne had communicated with Mr. Philip, the Premier of 
 Queensland, stating that New South Wales would do her share 
 towards supplying the troops asked for by Mr. Chamberlain. 
 
 It was added in the telegram from Brisbane that Mr. Philip 
 had answered that Queensland could send 500 men, and that Mr. 
 Lyne undertakes to send 750 men from New South Wales. 
 
 A great many people considered that the relief of Ladysmith 
 and the surrender of Cronje would alter the situation a great deal 
 but it was generally expected that a guerilla warfare, which 
 would make troops of the bushmen class valuable, would continue 
 for some time. 
 
 CONGRATULATIONS TO MAJOR-GENERAL HUTTON. 
 
 On May i8th it was officially announced that Major-General 
 Hutton's Colonial Brigade, which includes the Australian contin- 
 gents, had captured Commandant-General Louis Botha, Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the Boer army, and a number of other Boers 
 at a place 30 miles west of Kroonstad. ' 
 
 The Premier sent the following cable message to Major- 
 General Hutton: "Warmest congratulations of the Ministry 
 and people on success and capture of Botha." 
 
 The rejoicings in Melbourne, Sydney, Welljngton, Adelaide 
 and other towns throughout the Australian colonies over the relief 
 of Mafeking were a most striking exhibition of the loyalty and 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIKS IN THE WAR. 
 
 *21 
 
 patriotism of the people. At Sydney tliere was a irrcat 
 uprising. 
 
 "Mafeking has been relieved." The postin.^^ of those words 
 shortly after ii o'clock on the morning of May iSth, was the 
 signal for an outburst of jubilation, of cntliusiasni, of unre- 
 strained patriotism that shook the city with its intensity. 
 
 Some hundreds of people had waited patiently all the morn- 
 ing for the confirmation either of the glad news which had come 
 early the previous day, or of the depressing announcement which 
 bore the Pretorian official imprimatu. And now the doulits were 
 dispelled, the fears and forebodings which had grown grie\'onsly 
 strong through the hours of waiting, were swept away forever by 
 those four pregnant words. 
 
 CHEERING CROWDS AND MAGNIICENT DISPLAY. 
 
 The city seemed delirious with joy. In a purely metaphor- 
 ical sense, of course — drunk with a passion of patriotism. Seem- 
 ingly demented men careered down the street, yelling the good news 
 aloud. The jubilation was epidemic. To the utmost recesses of 
 the city the good tidings flashed, and in its wake surged cheering 
 crowds. City establishments which had not cared to risk a show 
 of flags until all danger of a disastrous contradiction of the 
 splendid story of success had passed away, suddenly blazed out 
 into bunting. There was a sudden and magnificent and unani- 
 mous display of color, gladdening to the sight. 
 
 It was not only the buildings which blossomed into brilliancy 
 rf raiment — into pictured patriotism. Glancing along the streets 
 it was to be noticed that three out of four passers by were decked 
 with three colors — the red, white, and blue. Khaki was consigned 
 to the oblividr of forgetfulness. The three-colored ribbons were over 
 all. Omnibus horses bore them, trams displayed them, prett}' 
 faces smiled above bows which had been deftly made up fron^ 
 them, elderly and decorous personages were even seen with tlieni 
 round their hats. 
 
 At some of the great millinery shops, the girk at the ribbon 
 counters, experienced to some extent what Baden-Powell and his 
 
 
 
 13^ 
 
 J%: 
 
 i^. ^k y^^mmmmiiriim;4Q^mmmiiNm!;^ 
 
22* 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 garrison have learnt at greater length, and with a more complete 
 thoroughness. That is to say, they were besieged. In some 
 instances quite early in the day all the available ribbon was sold 
 out. In others would-be purchasers found a wildly enthusiastic 
 good-humored, but strongly determined crowd pressing in close 
 formation towards the counters where the shop girls were 
 entrenched. As the day approached meridian tiny pieces of 
 tricolor were purchased at recklessly extravagant rates. 
 
 And all this time the ordinary business of the great com- 
 mercial heart of the city seemed to be absolutely paralyzed. 
 Everyone was too excited to vend or buy. Sydney gave itself up 
 unrestrainedly, whole-heartedly, unanimously, to the deification 
 of patriotic decoration and the apotheosis of national noises of 
 gratulation. Every instrument that could be requisitioned by 
 means fair or foul was pressed into this eructation of a delirious 
 clamor, which told of the joy which had caught Sydney up and 
 carried her way from the dull round of routine on a wave of 
 resonant enthusiasm. 
 
 SHRIEKS OF JUBILATION FROM STEAMERS. 
 
 On the harbor the steamers relentlessly used their sirens 
 and other ear-splitting apparatus. Every locomotive on shore 
 replied with a blaring shriek of jubilation. And in the mouths 
 of inevitable and insuppressible youths smaller instruments of 
 devastation shrilled out an unsparing concatenation of joy. 
 
 . The news being official, the government buildings were deco- 
 rated, and civil servants recklessly broke through the restraining 
 red tape, and loudly acclaimed the hero of the day. On the top 
 of the haunts of the accustomed tired departmental men were to 
 be seen flushed and excited crowds of erstwhile staid officials 
 courageously and fearlessly waving little banners, and behaving 
 in quite as boisterous a way as the abandoned general public. 
 
 Little cases of champagne, which were taken into many large 
 private and semi-public institutions the previous day, but which 
 had not been opened in consequence of the restless feeling that 
 the news might not be confirmed, had their contents widely pub- 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 23 
 
 lisHed to-day. Notably at the Merchants' Exchange was there 
 an imposing assemblage of well-known business men. The 
 reading room could barely accommodate the crowd. Cheers for 
 the Queen, for " Baden-Powell and the brave defenders of Mafek- 
 ing," for "General Bobs, who promised to be there on the i8th," 
 for " the Naval Brigade," and for " Kitchener, Buller, and our 
 boys " were given with inmense enthusiasm, and toasts in honor 
 of most of the pro British population of the world were honored. 
 
 A congratulatory cable was sent by the chairman on behalf 
 of the members of the Exchange at the close of the festivities. 
 Similar scenes occurred at several of the great city establishments. 
 Employer and employee joined in the celebration of the event, 
 which is bursting the Empire's "heart of pride" with thankfulness 
 to-day. From the upper windows of houses where numerous 
 employees are occupied, bands of girls frantically whirled flags 
 and flung patriotic kisses to the applauding populace below. 
 
 ROYAL SALUTE AND WHITE ENSIGN. 
 
 At 12 o'clock a royal salute of 21 guns was fired from the 
 flagship Royal Arthur, and from the battery at Dawes Point, and 
 from South Head. The warships all displayed the white ensign, 
 although the Admiral had received no direct intimation of the 
 relief of Mafeking. The firing of the salute was eagerly hailed 
 as a splendid opportunity for a recrudescence of cheering, and 
 thenceforward at intervals of a few minutes the air was smitten 
 with patriotic noise until lunch hour lessened the crowds. Between 
 noon and i o'clock the Governor drove through the principal 
 streets, and his Excellency was everywhere greeted with the 
 greatest enthusiasm. 
 
 There was no appreciable slackening in the demonstrative- 
 ness of the city's delight in the early afternoon. The military 
 authorities, Iwho at the Victoria Barracks during the morning, 
 expressed their joy, with the aid of guns and martial music, in 
 the afternoon sent the bands to play in the streets and parks. 
 This idea was greatly applauded by the public, who followed the 
 bandsmen round, and cheered and cheered again as some of the 
 
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 M-Mmi 
 
24 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 popular airs were plaj'ed with an intensity of feeling which was 
 evidently generated by the inspiring circumstances. 
 
 A tremendous crowd gathered early in the afternoon tfe hear 
 the Scottish Regiment's band, which had taken up a commanding 
 position opposite to the notice board from which the city had 
 learned the official confirmation. The crowd was evidently 
 pleased at the appropriateness of the band's choice of position, and 
 vociferous cheers were given for most things which it occurred to 
 them to cheer about, and there was a considerable number of them. 
 
 A body of cadets and the Naval Artillery volunteers paraded 
 the streets during the day. 
 
 LORD ROBERTS CONGRATULATED. 
 
 The following cable was forwarded by the Premier to Lord 
 Roberts : — "New South Wales congratulates you on the relief of 
 Mafeking, and accuracy in fixing date." 
 
 The British Colonies were intensely patriotic and loyal to the 
 Empire during the war in South Africa. The people of New Zea- 
 land were thrilled by the news of the relief of Mafeking, and every 
 reader will be interested in an account of the rejoicings throughout 
 the Colony that followed the rescue of the brave garrison, which 
 suffered untold privations and defended their honor and their flag 
 for 214 days. 
 
 For days and weeks the feeling had lain pent and slumbering 
 in the breasts of the people of Wellington that Mafeking must 
 soon be relieved, so vivid and complete is the faith of the British 
 public in the British soldier — a faith which the military exploits 
 of centuries have justified and confirmed. They knew that Col- 
 onel Baden-Powell and his gallant garrison and the loyalists 
 penned up there in that far South African town would not sur- 
 render. They realized that the hardships of the siege — the 
 dietary of locusts and horseflesh, the scarcity of water, the inroads 
 of disease, and the constant fusillade of shells — might entail 
 unspeakable misery upon Mafeking' s defenders — upon the women 
 and children as well as the soldiery — but they knew that these 
 would not induce the laying down of arms and capitulation to the 
 
AUSTRALASIAN LULUNIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 2fi 
 
 iittaclang Boer ; so they waited eagerly and hope fully the sign 
 that relief had come. 
 
 Rumors from uuauthenticated sources had found ready cre- 
 dence with those to whom the wish is ever father to the thought, 
 but the great bulk of people refrained from indulging in enthusi- 
 asm for which there was no legitimate justification. They just 
 bided their time as patiently as might be. On Saturday, May 
 19th, the time was fully ripe. At ten minutes past i o'clock a 
 telegraph operator was .sitting at his place, " getting has cables 
 through," when there came a ticking which denoted "Mafeking 
 Relieved ! " Regulations vanished. Springing to his feet, he 
 spread the tidings with a joyful shout. Instantly the air became 
 electric. 
 
 Then followed an explosion of patriotic rejoicing, the like of 
 which was never seen or heard of in the history of the capital. 
 "Mafeking relieved!" was shouted from the housetops; clanged 
 forth from bell-towers ; went echoing and bellowing through the 
 streets ; was taken up by every tocsin, and siren, and cannon in 
 the city ; and then re-echoed and reverberated to the farthest sub- 
 urbs in peans of rejoicing. 
 
 HURRIED IN FROM ALL QUARTERS. 
 
 Instantly business was suspended. The carpenter dropped 
 his hammer, the shoeman his last, the clerk his pen, the thrifty 
 housewife her broom, and all, with one accord, rushed off to make 
 preparations as for some great festival. From the uttermost 
 boundaries they came hurrying in — from Khandallah and Wades- 
 town, and from Worser Bay — desperate to be foremost to the centre 
 of the city. An animated crowd gathered, shouting and cheering 
 in an ecstacy of delight. From every point of the compass the 
 people came; in vehicles and afoot, or wending on bicycles a 
 tortuous and perilous course ; everybody shouting and gesticulat- 
 ing, and singing and rejoicing. Humanity bulged out of the 
 tramcars, and never was a transit service more inadequate for a 
 great emergency. 
 
 Soon there appeared in all the streets cabs and landaus laden 
 
 
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26 • 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 y 
 
 with the well-dressed citizens waving flags and behaving hilari- 
 ovAy ; whil&t drags, and carts, and brakes, and expresses, elah- 
 orate.ly betrimmed with flags and mottoes and devices, and contain- 
 ing men and lads in all sorts of quaint and queer costumes, and 
 playing a variety of weird-sounding instruments, were rattling to 
 and fro in every direction. 
 
 Acting, probably on a preconcerted arrangement, the school 
 children came together in large numbers, and presently issued 
 forth in procession in charge of their teachers, waving flags, and 
 giving forth the liveliest demonstrations of delight. Their 
 appearance in the streets was the sign for renewed expressions of 
 exultant enthusiasm on the part of the multitude. 
 
 By half-past 2 o'clock many thousands of people had gathered 
 in the large area separating the General Post Office and the 
 Queen's Wharf, and, viewed from the vantage ground of the 
 former, presented a sea of expectant faces towards the gallery 
 from which it was anticipated the official announcement of the 
 relief of Mafeking would be made. 
 
 GROTESQUE FIGURE OF PAUL KRUGER. 
 
 From a warehouse opposite, a life-sized effigy of Paul Kruger 
 dangled at the end of a pole, to which elevation it had been pro- 
 moted by means of a block and tackle. The figure was sur- 
 mounted with a boar's head, the lower part of the face being 
 surrounded by white wool, which imparted to it a singularly life- 
 like appearance, which was enhanced by the sober garb of black 
 in which the effigy was contained, and the inevitable bell-topper 
 which it clasped to its breast with characteristic poise. Several 
 persons provided agreeable diversion by leading off" a number of 
 patriotic songs from an elevation on the Post Office buildings, 
 which were taken up with great gusto by the multitude below. 
 
 Jupp's Band, which put in an early appearance, also did 
 much to fan the excitement by its spirited playing of a number 
 of popular airs. Meanwhile the Volunteers had been mustering 
 strongly, and presently they appeared with Colonel Pole Pentoii 
 at their head, and took up a position in advance of the crowd in 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONILS IN IllE WAR. 
 
 •n 
 
 front of the G. P. O. During this time the multitude hecanie a 
 little impatient, and vociferous retjucsts were made for tlie Acting- 
 Premier in shouts of " Ward! We want Ward !" Presently the 
 Hon. J. G. Ward presented himself on the balcony, and a great 
 burst of cheering went up. Mr. Ward was accompanied by Mrs. 
 Ward and his colleagues, Hons. W. C. Walker and W. Hall- 
 Jones, and their wives, and his Worship the Mayor (Mr. J. G. W. 
 Aitken), prominent on the balcony also being Sir Robert Stout, 
 Chief Justice ; Colonel Pole Penton, Mr. Justice Plimmer, Coun- 
 cilor Townsend, Mr. Wilford, and other citizen.s. 
 
 OFFICIAL TIDINGS OF MAFEKING'S RELIEF. 
 
 The Mayor immediately proceeded to business. He officially 
 announced, amidst a renewed outburst of cheering, that official 
 tidings had been received of the relief of Mafeking. He was 
 quite sure, he said, that every heart in New Zealand that day 
 rejoiced in the hearing of that good news. (Renewed cheering.) 
 It was one of the noblest defences ever carried out — (great 
 applause) — ^but it had entailed an immense amount of suffering, 
 which they could not forget. CoL tie] Baden-Powell had shown 
 himself to be made of the pluck of uhich great English generals 
 had ever been made. ("Three cheer for Baden Powell !" given 
 with tremendous enthusiasm.) He was sure that every heart 
 would be thankful to God for the good news which had come. 
 (Prolonged applause.) He called upon the Acting-Premier to 
 address them. 
 
 The Hon. J. G. Ward, who received a great ovation, said : 
 "Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens of New Zealand — I have the 
 inexpressible pleasure of announcing to you the happy event of 
 the relief of Mafeking. (Enthusiastic cheers.) The news has 
 been confirmed by the receipt of cable messages from most 
 authentic sources in Australia. (Cheers.) I deeply regret that 
 the Right Hon. the Premier is not here to perform the duty now 
 imposed upon me ; because, as you know, he has taken the keen- 
 est possible interest in co-operating with the people of the colony 
 in sending men to help the Mother Country in fighting for the 
 
 ii ' 
 
 mtrm^^iiummsii&^m^. 
 
28 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 maintenance of our great and glorious Empire. (Here there was 
 great cheering, and the crowd sang ' For He's a Jolly Good 
 Fellow'). Immediately on receipt of the information, I sent the 
 following cables : — ' To Colonel Baden-Powell, Mafeking. — On 
 behalf of the people of New Zealand I desire to tender you our 
 heartiest congratulations on the successful result of your heroic 
 defence of Mafeking, and express to you warm appreciation of 
 the noble way in which that defence has been maintained by you 
 and the men imder your control. Your noble defence will never 
 be forgotten by the people in this portion of the British Empire, 
 whose highest respect and goodwill you will have. — (Signed) J. G. 
 Ward, Acting Premier.' (Cheers.) ' 
 
 COLONEL BADEN.POWELL'S NOBLE DEFENCE. 
 
 "The following cable was also despatched: — 'To Lord 
 Roberts. — On behalf of the people of New Zealand I desire to 
 tender you our heartiest congratulations on the successful relief 
 of Mafeking, and to express our warm appreciation of the noble 
 way in which that defence has been maintained by Colonel Baden- 
 Powell and the men under his control. — (Signed) J. G. Ward, 
 Acting Premier.' (Cheers.) ' 
 
 " And at the request of tlie officers of the New Zealand 
 Post and Telegraph Department I sent another message as 
 follows : * To Colonel Baden-Powell, Mafeking. — On behalf 
 of 3500 New Zealand Post and Telegraph officials, offer you 
 warmest congratulations upon successful issue, heroic stand, 
 yourself, officers and men. Your magnificent defence will 
 never be forgotten. — (Signed) J. G. Ward, Postmaster-General.' 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 " Fellow citizens, it is more than seven months since Baden- 
 Powell, with his brave 600 men, first took charge of Mafeking, 
 and when he did so, the gravest fears were entertained from end 
 to end of the British Empire that with the heavy odds against 
 him he would not be able to hold out for long. But we have 
 since learnt that he has shown himself to be a true warrior, full 
 of courage and possessed of wonderful resource. (Loud cheers.) 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 * 29 
 
 He built trenches, behind which he and his noble band of men 
 have withstood the determined attacks of the Boers. (Cheers. 
 
 " Through those seven long, weary months he had shown 
 what British pluck and British resource could do against 
 tremendous odds (cheers) and with his 600 noble men he has 
 resisted the whole combination of the Boer forces from outside of 
 Mafeking. (Enthusiastic cheers.) He has protected the women 
 and children, he has succored the sick and he has maintained the 
 prestige of the flag, which we are so proud to live under (cheers) 
 and during the last few days of the defence of Mafeking, when 
 it might naturally have been expected that their privations had 
 worn them out, he and his men have still further demonstrated 
 their wonderful vigor and resourcefulness by killing fifty-four 
 Boers and capturing General Eloif. (Tremendous cheers.) 
 
 BRAVE HEROES OF THE WAR. 
 
 " Can we not truthfully say Ithat, * Stormed at with shot and 
 shell, Baden-Powell stood the test well, with his brave six 
 hundred.' (Loud cheers.) We must not forget on such an 
 occasion to pay tribute to Lord Roberts, to Lord Kitchener, to 
 those brave leaders, Buller, White, French, Warren, Hector 
 McDonald, Wauchop, Kelly-Kenu}'^, Pole-Carew, and last but not 
 least Majors Robin, Jowsey, Francis and Cradock — those splendid 
 men whom we have sent from New Zealand to share with the 
 Imperial forces in South Africa the honors, the glories, the 
 difl&culties and dangers of fighting for the Empire. (Enthusiastic 
 cheeys.) 
 
 "I wish now to show you some tangible evidence of what our 
 men have already done in South Africa. I hold in my hand here 
 a Boer flag. (Deafening and prolonged groans.) Ladies and 
 gentlemen, let me tell you the history attached to this flag. 
 (Further groans.) That is a flag which was captured by Major 
 Cradock and his men of the second contingent from the Boers 
 (loud cheers) and I now show it to you half-mast high (cheers) 
 and upside down. (Great cheering.) This flag will show you 
 that Major Cradock and the second contingent had made their 
 
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 «, '■..''cv^Mrr-''>^'^fUikii'Wif-\pij^jm^^^ 
 
80 » . 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 presence felt in South Africa. It will show you that they went 
 there to fight (cheers) and it is a splendid tribute to the services 
 they are rendering to the Mother Country that they should have 
 been able to wrest the flag from the enemy and send it to New 
 Zealand, where it will remain as an evidence of the prowess of her 
 devoted sons who fearlessly fought the foe on behalf of the Mother- 
 land. (Enthusiastic cheers.) 
 
 And let me point out to you that in this flag you have the 
 emblem of what the Boers intended it to be — a South African 
 Republic — because it is the combined flag of the Transvaal and 
 Orange Free State. (Groans.) This is signified by the stripe of 
 yellow across the Transvaal flag. It showed that they were 
 united, but in spite |of their union Major Cradock and his men tore 
 it from them and sent it home to New Zealand. (Enthusiastic 
 cheers.) And I may here fittingly paraphrase those words with 
 which you are all so familiar and say : * We've hoisted the Union 
 Jack ; We've beat the Boers back ; And England will see it 
 through.' (A voice : ' Three cheers for Baden-Powell,' followed 
 by prolonged cheering.) 
 
 AN EVENT TO BE REMEMBERED. 
 
 "The relief of Mafeking will never be forgotten so long as the 
 history of the British Empire lasts (cheers) and I am sure it 
 will never be effaced from the recollection of New Zealanders 
 (cheers) because in our small way we have done what we could 
 to back up the dear old Mother Country by sending our men, by 
 subscribing our money, and by sending our women as nurses to 
 attend the sick and the wounded. We have shown the old Country 
 that we in this distant land are prepared to take our share in the 
 responsibilities of defending and increasing the realms of the 
 Empire. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, this is Saturday afternoon (laughter 
 and cheers) and we are not going to mark this great event by 
 having an ordinary half-holiday, and I have the pleasure of 
 informing you that Monday has already been proclaimed by the 
 Government a general holiday throughout the colony. (Loud 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR 
 
 * 31 
 
 cheers.) This has been doue because we know that the people of 
 New Zealand are anxious to show in a proper way and proper 
 spirit their appreciation of the noble deeds performed by those 
 brave men who have so heroically defended Mafeking, and on 
 Monday we will show the outside world that we are true and loyal 
 Britishers in every sense of the term. (Prolonged cheering and 
 ' God Save the Queen' sung with great enthusiasm.) 
 
 " ' God Save the Queen ' has been sung and our beloved Sov- 
 ereign will be overjoyed to know that her brave soldiers at Mafe- 
 king have upheld the honor and prestige of that great Empire 
 over which she has so nobly ruled and I may say in the words of 
 Kipling : 
 
 ' Hail ! snatched and bartered oft from hand to hand 
 I dream my dream by rock and heath and pine 
 
 Of Empire to the northward ; ay, one land 
 From lion's head to Hne.' 
 
 " We in this distant part of our Empire can say that we are 
 proud of our Queen, we are proud of our country, we are proud 
 of our noble defenders, and are especially proud of our brave 
 Baden-Powell and his men. (Great cheering and a chorus of 
 voices, ' We're proud of Baden-Powell.') I can only rejoice that the 
 pent-up feelings of the masses of people in New England are now 
 happily relieved, and that the defenders of Mafeking have tri- 
 umphed over Boer treachery and aggression. (Cheers.) 
 
 " And if it is necessary in the future, I know that we shall all 
 be prepared to stand by a nation which possesses men of the stamp 
 of Baden-Powell, and those other ofl5cers and men who have fought 
 so well in South Africa (cheers) and we will continue, if needed, 
 to send men, women and money to assist in upholding 'the 
 Union Jack of Old England.' (Cheers.) I now ask you to give 
 three hearty cheers for Lord Roberts. (These were enthusiasti- 
 cally given.) Let us give three ringing cheers for Mafeking' s 
 brilliant defender Baden-Powell. (Uproarous cheering, and the 
 band played, while the crowd sang ' For he's a Jolly Good 
 Fellow.') 
 
 " And now let us remember, while we are rejoicing over and 
 
 
 
 
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 ir-r.*B«n.,-*«n-!4a*n^««* ^it^jmimi 
 
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82 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 celebrating a never-to-be-forgotten victory, that the colonials are 
 in . the forefront of the battle (cheers) and they have assisted 
 in the capture of Botha. (Enthusiastic cheering.) And I should 
 not be surprised to learn that some of them formed part of the 
 force that came to the timely relief of Mafeking. I therefore ask 
 you to give three ringing cheers for the New Zealand boys at the 
 front. (The cheering was given again and again, and the band 
 played ' Rule Britannia.') 
 
 " In concluding, let us rejoice and thank God that victory has 
 been again on our side." (Here there was a most enthusiastic out- 
 burst of feeling. The crowd cheered, bands played, flags, hats 
 and handkerchiefs were waved, and the demonstration continued 
 in the most exciting manner for some time.) 
 
 HONOR TO AN IMPERIAL SOLDIER. 
 
 Speech-making over, the crowd dispersed, and the volunteers 
 formed into line and paraded from the Government Buildings 
 through the principal streets of the city. The scene en route was 
 one of great enthusiasm. When the garrison returned to Jervois 
 quay. Colonel Penton, who was attended by Captain Owen, 
 addressed a few words to the men, thanking them for attending 
 so readily to do honor to an Imperial soldier. It was not a usual 
 thing to do on parade, but he would ask them to give three hearty 
 cheers for Colonel Baden-Powell and his officers and men, who 
 had so nobly defended Mafeking. The response was a hearty 
 one. The volunteers then marched to the Drill-shed, where they 
 were dismissed. 
 
 Other processions then presented themselves for the admira- 
 tion of the spectators, and much amusement was created by the 
 ingenious devices improvised in honor of the occasion. There 
 were flags on every flagstaff, and many of the shops were gay 
 with patriotic designs and decorations. In Cuba street a particu- 
 larly noticeable streamer stretched across the thoroughfare bore 
 on one side the words, " Hurrah for gallant Mafeking and Colo- 
 nel Baden Powell," and on the other, " We have upheld the 
 honor of our Queen, our Country and our Colony ! " 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAu. 
 
 * as 
 
 In the 'evening tlie scene assumed carnival proportions. 
 Many of the shop windows were especially illuminated and decor- 
 ated, and red, white and blue were the predominating colors in the 
 streets. At the General Post Office the illuminations were bril- 
 liant, and reflected great credit on the taste and ingenuity of the 
 staflf. Flags of an ornate character were in every window, mau)'^ 
 of them bearing devices appropriate to the occasion. "Relief of 
 Mafeking " burned out in red white and blue lettering over the 
 main entrance, and above in the tower, a searchlight added its 
 fierce rays to the illuminations. On the roof a party of pyrotech- 
 nists were busy dispatching a fine selection of rockets into space, 
 which vied with those sent up from elevations in other parts of 
 the city. 
 
 With a view to the entertainment of the public, a screen had 
 been thrown over the main entrance to the General Post Office, 
 and there were depicted, by means of limelight, pictures of an 
 appropriate character in reference to which an assemblage of many 
 thousands expressed approval or disapproval, as inclination dic- 
 tated. Right throught till midnight parties of revellers paraded 
 the streets waving flags and singing patriotic songs, and it may 
 safely be said that Wellington has never in her previous history 
 witnessed such scenes of sustained and heart-felt enthusiasm. 
 
 -V 
 
 A ROYAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 After the ceremony that took place outside the General Post 
 Office to celebrate the relief of Mafeking, a number of gentlemen, 
 at the invitation of the partners adjourned to Messrs. W. M. Ban- 
 natyne and Go's offices, where several loyal and patriotic toasts 
 were proposed and drunk in bumpers. That of "The British 
 Army," coupled with the name of Colonel Baden-Powell, proposed 
 by Mr. Harold Beauchamp, was received with great enthusiasm. 
 The speaker referred to the magnificent courage, skill and 
 resourcefulness displayed by the hero of Mafeking. The story of 
 the defence of Mafeking would constitute one of the brightest 
 pages in Britain's history. 
 
 Mr. Walter Nathan proposed the health of the ministry, and 
 
 CC3 
 
 ^1 
 
 ,••1 
 
 : '>r'*jmfm,-^mii^iim^^jmr^. 
 
34 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 in doing so remarked that the action of the government in so rap- 
 idly equipping and despatching 2000 troops and 3CXX) horses to 
 uphold the honor of the Empire had evoked admiration from every 
 portion of Her Majesty's dominions. In replying, the Acting- 
 Premier (the Hon. J. G. Ward) alluded to the versatility of Colo- 
 nel Baden-Powell — his literary, artistic and histrionic abilities, 
 which equalled his skill as a great soldier— and he (Mr. Ward) 
 claimed that it was the man of many parts, who, nowadays, came 
 to the front and remained there. 
 
 The toast of the "Post Office Officials," associated with the 
 Secretary, Mr. Wm. Gray, was proposed by Mr. Beauchamp, who 
 spoke in very complimentary terms of the fine patriotic spirit 
 shown by the department. Mr. Wm. Gray suitably replied. "Our 
 Guests" was proposed by the Hon. J. G. Ward and responded to 
 by Mr. Beauchamp. During the proceedings "Soldiers of the 
 Queen" was excellently sung by Mr. F. V. Waters, the company 
 of course, joining heartily in the chorus. Among those present 
 were the Hons. W. C. Walker, W. Hall-Jones and Jas. Carroll. 
 
 SIGNAL LIGHTS AND TRANSPARENCIES. 
 
 The Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company's premises 
 were brilliantly illuminated on Saturday night in honor of the 
 relief of Mafeking. Signal lights, flags and transparencies were 
 used with splendid effect. Beneath the flagstaff in the centre of 
 the building photos of Baden-Powell and Lord Roberts were prom- 
 inently placed, surrounded by the motto, "All honor to our heroes 
 of Mafeking." The effect of the setting was enhanced by the 
 presence of a Heretaunga horseman and a Wellington naval, 
 ' standing, rifle in hand, on either side of the central flag. The 
 ) Garrison Band visited the station, followed by a large crowd, 
 numbering some thousands, about a quarter to nine, and special 
 illuminations weije contrived for the entertainment of the visitors 
 whilst listening to the serenade. 
 
 When the train steamed in at a quarter to ten a stirring 
 scene presented itself. The engine was fitted with red lights, and 
 on approaching the station passed over a series of detonators. 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 * 35 
 
 which exploded with tremendous effect at the s.nine time that a 
 special exhibition of colored lights and rockets was made in the 
 vicinity. The display reflected great credit upon the directors of 
 the company and upon their officials, especially Mr. Daniel 
 Skinner, under who.se supervision the arrangements for decoration 
 and illumination were carried out. 
 
 In the churches of the city on Sunday there were thanks- 
 givings for the relief of Mafeking. The Rev. J. G. S. Bartlett, 
 in his sermon at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral at morning prayer, said 
 that "during the last few weeks our thoughts had been specially 
 directed towards that gallant little band in Mafeking. We had 
 hoped and prayed, as no doubt they had hoped and prayed, that 
 reli'ef would come to them. Now the whole empire rejoiced that 
 deliverance had come. The British arms had continually fought 
 for the oppressed and the afflicted, as our nation was ever on the 
 side of justice and freedom. 
 
 FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE AND LIBERTY. 
 
 "As in the past, so to-day we were fighting, not for conquest, 
 but for liberty and right. And God had blessed our nation in this 
 work, and our joy abounded for all the mercies which He had 
 bestowed upon us. For it was God alone who could give us 
 victory, and we blessed and magnified His great and glorious 
 name for this latest victory. We ascribe all the glory to Him 
 who was the only giver oi victory. Might He give us grace to 
 improve this great mercy to His glory and the advancement of 
 His kingdom, to the honor of our Sovereign and our country, and 
 as much as in us lay to the good of all mankind." 
 
 A united thanksgiving meeting in recognition of the relief 
 of Mafeking, was held in Wesley Church, Taranaki street Sunday 
 evening, and, although the weather was unfavorable, some five 
 hundred persons were present. The ministers and congregation 
 represented the Wesley an. Primitive Methodists, Congregational 
 and Baptist among other churches. The services consisted of 
 prayers and appropriate hymns. In the prayers the dominant 
 note was thanks to God for the latest victory that has attended 
 
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 ^mr »^r^ vO'jmmmt'mkiMm v^jmrlft 
 
 
a« * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 the British arms. There were numerous expressions of confidence 
 in the righteousness of the British cause, and the hope was voiced 
 in more than one instance that the result of the war would be for 
 the benefit of the dark population of the Transvaal and the Orange 
 Free State. Nearly all the prayers contained petitions that the 
 day might soon come when national disputes would be settled 
 without recourse to the arbitrament of war. Before the blessing 
 was asked, a verse of the National Anthem was sung. 
 
 Before the commencement of the morning services at St. 
 John's Presbyterian Church, on Sunday, the Rev. J. Paterson 
 alluded to the receipt of the intelligence of the relief of Mafeking, 
 and requested the congregation to join in singing the National 
 Anthem. -" - . - ' "^ _ • 
 
 AUCKLAND WILD WITH ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 Tiere were great rejoicings in Auckland over the relief of 
 Mafeking. Guns boomed, bells rang, and the city was gay with 
 flags, the streets being crowded. The Governor unfurled the 
 Union Jack at the Parnell School, and in his speech made refer- 
 ence to the good news. He said the Empire would come out of 
 the war far stronger and more united than ever before. The 
 gallant defenders of Mafeking and the troops from all parts of 
 the Empire iu South Africa showed that the same blood flowed in 
 the veins of Britishers at Home and in the colonies as flowed in 
 the veins of those who fought at Waterloo and in the Peninsular 
 War. He also referred to the splendid loyalty of New Zealand, 
 as exemplified in connection with the war. On driving through 
 town after the ceremony, his Excellency was heartily cheered by 
 the public. 
 
 A feature of the celebrations was a crowd of about some 
 thousands of people in front of the " Star " ofiice, where the pro- 
 prietors gave a splendid lantern show, introducing pictures of the 
 British heroes of the Boer war, all of which were received with 
 great cheering. The picture of Colonel Baden-Powell was a 
 signal for tremendous cheering, which was continued for several 
 minutes. 
 
 The city was wildly enthusiastic at night. At 8 o'clock the 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COIAINIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 # s 
 
 o7 
 
 volunteers marched through the streets. A short halt wus made 
 at Government House, and His Excellency gave a brief address. 
 He spoke of the heroic conduct of the garrison, and at the rejoic- 
 ings throughout the Empire at the news of Mafeking's relief , 
 No one would rejoice more sincerely than Her Majesty the Queen. "' 
 The procession then proceeded to the top of Queen street, where 
 speeches were delivered by Mr. A. Kidd (representing the Mayor, 
 who was indisposed), the Rev. G. MacMurray (vicar of St. Mary's, 
 Parnell), Pastor Clark (Baptist Tabernacle) and Mr. G. Fowlds, 
 M. H. R. 
 
 On the motion of Mr. MacMurray, a resolution was carried, 
 expressing thankfulness to Almighty God for the relief of Mafe- 
 king, and sympathy with the relatives and friends of those of the 
 heroic garrison, who had been slain. The Doxology and National 
 Anthem were heartily sung, and the volunteers fired a joyous 
 salute. 
 
 Hawera celebrated the relief by sports and the distribution 
 of gifts for school children in the afternoon, and in the evening 
 the town was illuminated and there was an open-air concert and 
 a series of patriotic speeches. Prior to the public display there 
 was a thanksgiving service at the Anglican Church, attended by 
 the Mayor, and councillors and others. 
 
 WANGANUI ECHOES THE REJOICING. 
 
 The official confirmation of the relief occasioned an outburst 
 of spontaneous rejoicing at Wanganui. For a couple of hours 
 after the news was announced a pandemonium prevailed — bells, 
 steam whistled and guns making the echoes ring. A royal salute 
 was fired by the guns at the Soldiers' Monument, and the Bat- 
 talion Band paraded. On the initiative of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Watt, a congratulatory telegram was sent to Lieutenant Baden- 
 Powell. The employees at the Easton Railway workshops 
 headed a specially improvised band. They marched down the 
 town and took up a collection for the Indian Famine Relief Fund 
 of ;^5 los- The official demonstration was held in the evening 
 in Cook's Gardens. The volunteers paraded, and speeches were 
 
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 ^^'^ 
 
 
 ■^•'^ •w*'^ vi^Mmm^mc!tim:^ii^jm^. 
 
 
38 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 / 
 
 made. The scene in the gardens was one to be remembered, and 
 was of the most impressive character. 
 
 The news of the relief caused intense excitement in Pal- 
 merston. Bells were rung, sirens blown, and a band assembled 
 in the Square, where the National Anthem was played. There 
 was a great gathering of people in the town, and business was 
 suspended for several hours. . . 
 
 The Mafeking news was received at Pahiatua with every 
 demonstration of delight. The band turned out, the National 
 Anthem and patriotic airs were sung, and a procession was formed. 
 -/ On receipt of the news of the relief of Mafeking, the band- 
 playing, bell-ringing and gun-firing made a most deafening din at 
 Greymouth. In the evening the fire brigade held a torch-light 
 procession, with a band preceding them. 
 
 GRAND JUVENILE PROCESSION. 
 
 The relief of Mafeking was celebrated at Westport by a 
 juvenile procession, and in the evening the volunteers, the band 
 and fire brigade marched to the Town Hall, where addresses were 
 delivered by Bishop Mules, Mr. Scanlon (the Mayor), Messrs. 
 McKen«ie and Colvin. Patriotic songs were sung, and the volun- 
 teers fiired three salutes. The town was gay with bunting, and 
 and the people very enthusiastic. 
 
 The news of the relief of Mafeking was announced by the 
 hoisting of flags on the post office and the ringing of the Cathe- 
 dral and fire bells at Christchurch. The wildest enthusiasm pre- 
 Tailed, and business was practically suspended. A trades proces- 
 sion was organized and paraded the streets. At 3 P. M. the 
 Mayor and the leading citizens delivered short addresses to a 
 dense crowd in Cathedral Square. The volunteers with big guns 
 and rifles fired a feu-de-joie (fire of joy), and bands played. In 
 the evening the streets were illuminated, bonfires were burned in 
 Hagley Park, and several effigies of Paul Kruger, which had done 
 duty during the day, were cremated. - 
 
 The news of the relief of Mafeking was the signal for every 
 bell in the town of Timaru to ring out a united and merry peal. 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 • 39 
 
 The ringing was kept up all through the afternoon. Shops and 
 other business houses closed at once, and immense crowds 
 gathered in the streets. Flags were displayed at all points, and 
 the crowds cheered themselves hoarse. In the afternoon the 
 Garrison Band and the military, the friendly societies, cyclists 
 and citizens formed a procession. The procession was over a mile 
 long, and after parading the principal streets the crowd massed 
 in front of the post office. 
 
 Patriotic speeches were made from a window by the Mayor 
 (Mr. John Hole), Archdeacon Harper, Commandant Laing 
 Meason (who made special reference to the women at Mafeking), 
 Mr. Kent, the Rev. W. Gillies, Mr. R. C. Tennent and the Rev! 
 J. N. Buttle, each taking a different view of the subject. The 
 crowd cheered enthusiastically, especially at [every reference to 
 Colonel Baden-Powell and the Queen. 
 
 TORCHLIGHT PARADE AND SPEECHES. 
 
 At night there was a great torchlight procession. More 
 speeches were made, and the reading of a telegram from Mr. 
 Ward led to great applause. A huge bonfire was lit, and there 
 was a splendid display of fireworks. Never before was such a 
 happy and magnificent celebration seen here. 
 
 The demonstration in connection with the relief of Mafeking 
 began at 3 o'clock in the morning at Oniaru, when the "Times" 
 hands rang the bells. In a few minutes six railway engines which 
 were drawn up in line had their whistle valves opened and were 
 shrieking, while every other whistle and bell in the town joined in 
 chorus. No other public demonstration was made till the official 
 news was received, when the towns-people gave up business and 
 went in for jubilation. At night there wf.s a great torchlight 
 procession, the town being illuminated. 
 
 On news arriving at Dunedin confirming the report of the 
 statement that Mafeking had been relieved, a large crowd 
 assembled at the Town Hall, where the Mayor gave a brief 
 address. In view of this fine demonstration — ©ver which the- 
 people were now self-complacent — no further steps were taken to 
 
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 ■'- * 
 
 ■c v^Mmm^smuym: ^^Fmm, 
 
40 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 celebrate the event. The streets were however, thronged by good 
 humored crowds. * • ' 
 
 Confirmation of Mafeking's relief reached Invercargill about 
 1.30 p. m., and within a quarter of an hour the commotion in the 
 main streets was something to remember. Flags were flying in 
 every direction. The fire, church, factory and dinner bells were 
 ringing, and the noise of instruments, from tin whistles to a big 
 drum, rent the air. The Garrison Band turned out and played 
 through the streets to the rotunda, where the throng listened to 
 patriotic speeches by several public men. At night the celebra- 
 tions continued in the form of a fireworks display. 
 
 MELBOURNE SHOUTS AND WAVES FLAGS. 
 
 The news from Mafeking electrified Melbourne. From early 
 mom the people began to throng in from all the suburbs to the 
 city, and trams and trains poured their ever increasing loads of 
 humanity all the forenoon into the heart of the metropolis. The 
 march of the Victorian naval and military forces was the great 
 attraction of the day, and no better evidence of the enthusiastic 
 favor with which the defenders of the country were regarded 
 could be found than the immense crowd which assembled at every 
 point along the line of route to add their acclamations to the gen- 
 eral outburst of fervid rejoicing at the relief of Mafeking, and the 
 triumph of its gallant defender, Major-General Baden-Powell. 
 
 A military officer who took part in the procession, and who 
 had a good opportunity of estimating the number of people in the 
 streets, gave it as his opinion that no fewer than 200,000 persons 
 took part in the unparalleled display of loyal enthusiasm. The 
 city was splendidly decorated with flags, and public and private 
 buildings vied with each other in gorgeous ornamentation. 
 
 With military punctuality the march of the Victorian forces 
 began exactly at half-past two o'clock, the prearranged time. With 
 a handful of mounted policeman to clear the way, the military 
 commandant, Major-General Downes, on horseback, accompanied 
 by his staff, left the barrack square at the head of a force which 
 represented every local arm of the service. Navy, artillery, engi- 
 
AUSIRALASIAN COLONICS IN THE WAR. 
 
 • 41 
 
 nc-c, militia infantry, army service, iinibulance, the Melbourne 
 Scottish Regiment, and the cadets were all included, and it is a 
 noteworthy fact that for a purely metropolitan parade, in which 
 none of the country corps were included, it was the largest ever 
 held in Melbourne. "* * 
 
 No fewer than 2,407 officers and men of all ranks took part 
 in the parade, and so admirably had all the arrangements been 
 made that not a single hitch occurred in the military organization. 
 The welcome which was given to the troops was something to 
 remember, for the people in the streets seemed to rccogni/.e that 
 the men who were marching before their eyes were the brothers- 
 in-arms of the Victorians who showed such devoted heroism on 
 many a South African battlefield, and the comrades of those who 
 fell at Rendsburg were surely well worth cheering. • 
 
 ' " MARCHING REGIMENTS AND BANDS. 
 
 When the troops arrived in the city the crowd fairly surged 
 across the line of march, and as the procession swung round the 
 corner of Swanston street and Collins street, the soldiers had 
 great difficulty in continuing their progress. The formation of 
 fours in which they started was broken up, and singly or in pairs 
 they slowly worked their way along, with many halts, to the 
 objective, which was Parliament House. Many of the regiments 
 were accompanied by their bands, and when the entire populace 
 took up the strains and chanted "Soldiers of the Queen" in a 
 chorus that echoed from the Town Hall to the Government offices 
 in Spring street, the effect was soul-stirring. 
 
 At Parliament House, His Excellency the Lieutenant-Gover- 
 nor, who was accompanied by Lady Madden, by taking advantage 
 of a friendly side gate, was able to place himself in the position 
 assigned to him, and, surrounded by his Ministers and by the 
 officeis of Parliament, he addressed the assembled troops with all 
 his customary eloquence. "It was his first duty," he observed, 
 "to convey Her Majesty's gratitude to her brave soldiers, and to 
 her well-beloved people." He went on to say that it was to show 
 the gladness of their hearts that they were honoring Major- 
 
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 r^jmmm^mC'Wtm'tQK^ 
 
42 » 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 General Baden-Powell and his glorious band of British heroes 
 who stood so valiantly to their guns at Mafeking. 
 
 Then with a crash of loyal music, aud amid the hurrahs of 
 the people, who filled every inch of standing space almost as far 
 as the eye could see, the procession marched off once more, taking 
 the route down Bourke street and Elizabeth street, and so by 
 Flinders street to the St. Kilda road. There were a few- 
 awkward moments for the police and mounted officers in 
 Bourke street and Elizabeth street, owing to the danger- 
 ous practice of throwing fireworks, which was indulged in 
 by many persons whose enthusiasm got the better of their judg- 
 ment, but fortunately, serious accidents were avoided, and the 
 troops were disbanded quietly on the St. Kilda road again. 
 
 And then, with waving of flags and salvos of cheering, with 
 songs and toasts, illuminations, and impromptu processions, 
 Mafeking Day wore to a close, and the unparalleled manifesta. 
 tion of rejoicing that will live long in thp memories of all who 
 took part in it, was over. 
 
 HOW THE VICTORIANS FELL. 
 
 A Boer described to one of the war correspondents the mag- 
 nificent courage displayed by the Australians when they attempted 
 to rescue the Worcesters who had fallen into a Boer trap. The 
 fight took place near Colesberg during the struggle round that 
 town. 
 
 "What do you think of Australians as fighters?" 
 
 He carried one arm in a sling, and the bandage round his 
 neck hid a bullet wound. " The Australians can fight," he said 
 simply. " They wounded me, and — they killed my father." 
 
 " Tell me, comrade, of the Australians who fell. They were 
 mj'^ countrymen." 
 
 "It was a cruel fight," said the young man. 'We had 
 ambushed a lot of the British troops — ^the Worce.«V:rs, I think 
 they called them. They could neither advance nor retire ; we had 
 penned them in like sheep, and our field cornet. Van Leyden, was 
 beseeching them to throw down their rifles to save being slaught- 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 43 
 
 ered, for they had no chance. Just then we saw about a hundred 
 Australians come bounding over the rocks in the gully behind 
 us. There were two great big men in front cheering them on. We 
 turned and gave them a volley, but it did not stop them. They 
 rushed over everything, firing as they came, not wildly, but as 
 men who know the use of a rifle, with the quick, sharp, upward 
 jerk of the shoulder, the rapid sight, and then the shot. 
 
 " They knocked over a lot of our men, but we had a splendid 
 position. They had to expose themselves to get to us, and we 
 shot them as they came at us. They were rushing to the rescue 
 of the English. It was splendid, but it was madness. On they 
 came and we lay behind the boulders, and our rifles snapped and 
 snapped again at pistol range, but we did not stop those wild men 
 until they charged right into a little basin which was fringed 
 around all its edges by rocks covered with bushes. Our men lay 
 there as thick as locusts, and the Australians were fairly trapped. 
 They were far worse off than the Worcesters up high in the 
 ravine. 
 
 ♦'FORWARD, AUSTRALIA! NO SURRENDER I" 
 
 " Our field cornet gave the order to cease firing, and called on 
 them to throw down their rifles or die. Then one of the big 
 ofl&cers — a great rough-looking man, with a voice like a bull — 
 roared out, ' Forward, Australia ! No surrender.' Those were the 
 last words he ever uttered, for a man on my right put a bullet 
 clean between his eyes, and he fell forward dead. We found 
 later that his name was Major Eddy, of the Victorian Rifles. 
 
 "He was as brave as a lion, but a Mauser bullet will stop the 
 bravest. His men dashed at the rocks like wolves ; it was awful 
 to see them ; they smashed at our heads with clubbed rifles or 
 thrust their rifles up against us through the rocks and fired. One 
 after another their leaders fell. The second big man went down 
 early, but he was not killed. He was shot shrough the groin but 
 not dangerously. His name was Captain M'Inerney. There was 
 another one, a little man named Lieutenant Roberts ; he was 
 shot through the heart. Some of the others I forget. The men 
 would not throw down their rifles ; they fought like furies. 
 
 
 
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 Mmfrnvmimm:' 
 
44 
 
 Australasian colonies in the war. 
 
 " One man I saw climb right on to the rocky ledge \yhere Big 
 Jan Aldrecht was stationed. Just as he got there a bullet took 
 him; and he staggered and dropped his rifle. Big Jan jumped 
 forward to catch him before he toppled ovei che ledge, but the 
 Australian struck Jan in the mouth with his clenched fist aud 
 fell over into the ravine below and was killed. , • 
 
 '' We killed and wounded an awful lot of them, but some got 
 away ; they fought their way out. I saw a long row of their dead 
 
 and wounded laid out on the slope of a farmhouse that evening 
 
 they were all young men, fine big fellows. I could have cried to 
 look at them lying so cold and still." - 
 
 HEROISM OF COLONIAL TROOPS. 
 
 A special correspondent at the front in South Africa writes 
 thus enthusiastically concerning the Australian troops and their 
 heroism : 
 
 " It seems but yesterday since Major-General Hutton com- 
 manded in New South Wales. Now he commands the Austra- 
 lasian Brigade in South Africa. A federal force at the front is an 
 accomplished fact. The scattered Australasian units have been 
 Jbronght together, and welded into a very efficient fighting brigade. 
 Much good ought to result from the new order of things. The 
 fighting material was there ; it needed but organization to put it 
 into shape. 
 
 " The choice of a brigadier is a particularly happy one. 
 Major-General Hutton knows his men — Australasians and 
 Canadians. It has long been Lord Roberts' desire that the 
 colonial troops, as a body, should form i. distinct fighting unit. 
 Innumerable difficulties stood in the waj'-, but the genius of 'Bob.s' 
 overcame all in a manner that effectually quenched the slumber- 
 ing fire of dissatisfaction. With any of the local Australasian 
 officers in command there would have been trouble in store for the 
 brigade, but no exception is taken to our ex-commandant's 
 appointment. He is the old indefatigable Hutton— the tireless 
 worker and keen administrator. 
 
 " I met him an hour after he stepped off the train at Bloem- 
 
AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 * 45 
 
 fontein. He had had a fatiguing journey from Kimberley, but with 
 Major Lord Rosmead, his aide-de-camp, he was starting off to 
 hunt up the New South Wales troops. Then his shoulder straps 
 were bare, but next morning he had mounted the cross swords of 
 a major-general. Legge and his men he found bivouacking in a 
 mud vlei, with shelter improvised out of blankets. Colonel 
 Knight and his contingent was east of Karee Siding, twenty-five 
 miles from Bloemfontein, holding our most advanced post, with 
 the enemy sniping night and day, and a couple of feet of water 
 in the trenches. 
 
 "One of the General's first acts — after visiting the Australians 
 in hospital — was to send a case of provisions to Legge' s starving 
 command, for the supply of bully and " forty-nines " — army 
 biscuit — had given out. That the army moves on its belly is with 
 him an article of faith. ' Eat first, then I want you to work.' 
 Such were his instructions. 
 
 BRILLIANT PARADE AND INSPECTION. 
 
 " Next day there was a parade and inspection. The men rose 
 from their rain-sodden bivouac looking like so many retrievers 
 emerging after a dip at Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. They stood to 
 attention in two feet of mud. The horses looked tucked up and 
 famished, but they carried their riders to the assault of an imagi- 
 nary kopje. The next and succeeding days the Queenslanders 
 and New Zealanders had a day out, under precisely similar con- 
 ditions. The last-named two profess to see that no good will come 
 of the amalgamation. We don't want Hutton ; we will lose our 
 identity and our respective Governments will kick against the 
 arrangement, say they. 
 
 " We were favored by a visit from Messrs. Sleath and O' Conor, 
 members of the N. S. W. Parliament, who are here to study 
 the South African problem on the spot. Their arrival was not 
 heralded by any beat of drum, and there was no deputation to 
 meet them at the station. They arrived unobtrusively in a goods 
 truck one morning before daylight, having successfully run the 
 gauntlet of British military officialism, from Bethulie Bridge. 
 
 
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 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 The member for Wilcannia now boasts an extensive military 
 vocabulary. Such terms as ' frontal attack,' ' turning movement ' 
 ' enfilading fire,' ' infantry in echelon,' flow from him unceasingly. 
 " He and his colleague were taken for Boer spies at Bethulie 
 while pursuing their laudable efforts to get to the front. The 
 adventure is best given in Mr. Sleath's own words : *We arrived 
 at De Aarsoon after the enemy had retired northwards from Ner- 
 val's Pont. Although duly accredited from Capetown, we were 
 told we could not proceed. Finding it impossible to get through 
 by way of Norval's Pont, which is the most direct route, we had 
 to resort to strategy, and decided to get round the British flank at 
 
 Bethulie. 
 
 MISTAKEN FOR BOER SPIES. 
 
 " < 
 
 On arrival at the latter point, and after a heated interview 
 with a beardless subaltern, who surveyed us through a monocle, 
 we were told that we could not prgceed. In fact, we were detained 
 pending the receipt of instructions from headquarters. To while 
 time,' continued Mr. Sleath, * we climbed a neighboring kopje, in 
 order to reconnoitre. Our appearance there Caused something 
 like consternation in the camp below. They took us for Boer 
 spies, who had come to see what was doing, and they turned out 
 their whole available force in order to capture us. I didn't like 
 the looks of things,' added Mr. Sleath, ' especially when I saw one 
 crowd with fixed bayonets working round on our rear. I first 
 thought the camp commandant had arranged a review for our 
 particular edification. 
 
 " * We were soon undeceived. Some one called out to us to 
 halt. I thought this somewhat funny, seeing that we were halted. 
 Anyhow, I thought it was time to vacate the position, so O' Conor 
 and myself d icided to retire on our base — the local hotel. We 
 had not gone very far before we were surrounded, so there was 
 nothing for it but unconditional surrender, and we went back to 
 camp, hemmed in by a glistening line of bayonets.* 
 
 " ' We've caught them, sir, ' reported the officer in charge of 
 the party to the camp commandant. Visions of two members dig- 
 ging their own graves preparatory to being shot flashed across 
 
* . AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. » 47 
 
 the minds of Sleath and O'Conor. Certainly for a few minutes 
 things looked black for the pair, and the Wilcannia and Sher- 
 brooke seats became very near to being declared vacant, owing to 
 the sudden cleath of the respective members. Explanations fol- 
 lowed. Though satisfied as to their identity, the commandant 
 wore the air of a man who was sorry to have to forego a real pleas- 
 ure. Sleath and O'Conor were given their conge, and were told 
 to trek at once. They lost no time in shaking the inhospitable 
 dust of Bethulie off their feet. 
 
 " A train came along, they boarded an open trr.ck, and wedg- 
 ing themselves in among camp kettles and quartermaster's stores, 
 they duly reached the capital of the Orange Free State. Neither 
 of them appears to be particularly impressed with the British 
 army or its officers. The member for Wilcannia feels sure if some 
 of the officers were put into a stockyard in daylight they would 
 lose themselves in attempting to get out. Certainly the visitors 
 have seen whatever there has been co see. They even inspected 
 the New South Wales contingents. Mr. Sleath has developed a 
 keen military instinct, and is bent on becoming the expert of the 
 House. He is amassing facts and figures, which he intends to 
 spring upon an astonished Parliament in due course, and upon a 
 a gentleman whom he dubs ' the Paddington Pompom.' 
 
 A DAY AT THE FRONT ENOUGH. 
 
 " Yesterday Wiicannia's elect arraying himself in a khaki 
 helmet, visited our outposts 20 miles northeast of here, where the 
 N. S. W. Mounted Infantry are on duty. It is asserted that he 
 scored an outer off a Boer, who was injudicious enough to show 
 himself while Sleath was looking along a rifle barrel. Not keen 
 on bivouacing in a foot or so of water, Mr. Sleath returned to 
 Bloemfontein, after a day at the front on active service. 
 
 " Two days ago both members were granted an interview by 
 Lord Roberts. The Field Marshal chatted amicably for ten 
 minutes, and concluded by expressing a hope that his arrange- 
 ments would permit him to visit Australia at the conclusion of the 
 war. ' Lady Roberts is just as anxious as I am to see Australia,' 
 
 
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48 * 
 
 AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES IN THE WAR. 
 
 added his Lordship. Lady Roberts has relatives living ai 
 Geelong (Vic). 
 
 "Since the enemy smashed up Broadwood's column aud 
 captured the waterworks at Sauna's Post, cutting off the city 
 supply, there has been an epidemic of sickness among the troops. 
 The scarcity of water, the want of shelter of any kind from the 
 heavy rain that has fallen intermittently for a couple of weeks, 
 has led to an outbreak of enteric. Death has been busy in the 
 ranks of the Australians. Corporal Harkus, of the Lancers, 
 succumbed on April 4, after a short illness. He was one of the 
 Aldershot contingent, and one of the best all-around men that 
 our Lancer Regi^Mcnt possessed. His comrades deplore the loss 
 of a true soldier and a sterling good fellow. 
 
 ESCAPED BULLETS TO DIE IN HOSPITAL. 
 
 " He was with French's division at Koodoosrand and Paarde- 
 berg, took part in all the fierce fighting and trying marches that 
 marked the cavalry advance eastward to Bloemfontein. He 
 survived the bullets only to fall a victim to the fever. He died in 
 the New South Wales Hospital. All that human care and skill 
 could do was done for him by Major Fiaschi and his staff. Two 
 days before Harkus died Major- General Hutton saw him, and the 
 visit seemed to brighten him up considerably. Lieutenant Basche 
 of the Mounted Infantry, also a victim to fever, was buried, the 
 funeral being attended by General Hamilton, commanding the 
 Mounted Infantry Division ; Major-General Hutton, Colonel 
 Knight, Captain Legge, Lieutenant Newman, and other N. S. W. 
 officers. About a month ago, on the March across the Free 
 State, Basche sustained a severe fall from his horse, owing to the 
 animal putting its foot in a meercat hole. He was recovering 
 from the injury when he was attacked by fever. 
 
 " Basche was a valued member of the N. S. W. Army Service 
 Corps, and, if I remember rightly, was a clerk in the N. S- W. 
 Treasury. Both he and Corporal Harkus are buried in the pretty 
 little cemetery at the base of Monument Hill, where already 
 many an Australian sleeps his last sleep." 
 
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