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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 41488
   :PG.Title: Ten Months in the Field with the Boers
   :PG.Released: 2012-11-24
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Anonymous
   :DC.Title: Ten Months in the Field with the Boers
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1901
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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TEN MONTHS IN THE FIELD WITH THE BOERS
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      Cover

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   .. _`GENERAL DE VILLEBOIS-MAREUIL`:

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      :alt: GENERAL DE VILLEBOIS-MAREUIL

      GENERAL DE VILLEBOIS-MAREUIL

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      Ten Months in the
      Field with the Boers

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      By
      An Ex-Lieutenant of
      General de Villebois-Mareuil

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      With a Map and Portrait

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      London
      William Heinemann
      1901

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      *All rights reserved*

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      To
      GENERAL DE VILLEBOIS-MAREUIL

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*To you, General, who, from the Paradise of the
Valiant, can read in my heart the sentiments of respect
and affection that guide me, I dedicate these lines
in token of the profound admiration of your former
Lieutenant.*

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TRANSVAAL, 1899-1900.

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   I

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'No room, sir!'

This was the phrase that greeted my friend
De C---- and myself at the door of every
carriage we tried.

The fast train for Marseilles leaving Paris at
8.25 was, indeed, full to overflowing that night
of December 23; by eight o'clock not a place
was left.

Finally, after treading on a good many toes,
and exchanging a good many elbowings, we
installed ourselves more or less comfortably--a
good deal less, to be accurate--one in the front
of the train, the other close to the luggage-van.

A last clasp of the hand to the comrades who
have come to the station with us, and we are off.

The lights of Paris begin to die out in the
distance; conversation languishes; the
monotonous rumble of the train lulls the travellers
into drowsiness; heads nod and droop in the
dim light of the lamp.

'La Roche!  Wait here five minutes!'

We jump out.  C---- and I meet again.

'Well, how are you getting on?'

'Not very well.  And you?'

'Very badly!'

And, much depressed, we return to our
respective carriages.

At last the patience under discomfort habitual
to men of our unsettled lives asserts itself, and
we sleep soundly till we reach Arles, when we
find two seats together.

At Marseilles we were kindly received by a
pleasant cousin of mine, and by a delightful
lady, also of my kindred.

The 24th we spent with some comrades,
officers of the neighbouring garrison, and on the
25th we and our baggage were safely on board
the *Natal*, of the Messageries Maritimes.

I make special mention of our baggage, which,
in preparation for the campaign we are about to
undertake, consists of two little canteens.  The
two together weigh exactly 38 kilos, making
about 19 kilos each.  They hold all our
belongings, including our two revolvers and two
hundred cartridges.  We are not overloaded
with baggage.

The *Natal* is one of the 'fine steamers' of
former days, fairly large.

We first take possession of our cabin, which
opens into the dining-saloon.  Then we go
up on the bridge, where we are introduced to
Colonel Gourko, who is also on his way to the
Transvaal, as Russian military attaché.  We
had met him the evening before at the station,
for he arrived by the same train as ourselves.
But his fluent French, and his rosette of the
Legion of Honour, which he always wears by
courtesy in France, had made us take him for
some important functionary on his way to
Madagascar!...

We ask his pardon.  But the minutes pass.
Hand-shakings, good wishes, bursts of emotion,
the time-honoured formula of departure have
been gone through; the gangways are taken
up, the ropes cast off; we steam out of port.
The handkerchiefs that flutter on the quay and
on the pier gradually diminish, the houses
seem to flatten, Notre Dame de la Garde
dwindles, becomes smaller and smaller, till at
last it is a mere speck on the horizon.  Then
it disappears altogether; we are on the open sea.

I shall not thrill with ecstasy, nor pour out a
tribute of emotion to the 'blue immensity,' for,
though I have many parts--as you, my readers,
will readily believe, especially such of you as do
not know me--I am no poet.  The dinner-bell
finds De C---- and me prosaically wrangling
over 150 points at piquet.

The dining-saloon is large, but there are few
diners.  We take a general survey.

The captain, who is supposed to preside over
the meals, is not well, and does not appear.  In
fact, we scarcely see him at table during the
passage.

Colonel Gourko, Captain Ram, and Lieutenant
Thomson, the Dutch military attachés, Captain
D---- of the Marines, with his charming young
wife and their son Guy--who is soon one of our
firmest friends--an engineer, a naval doctor, a
young lady on her way to set up as a milliner
at Tananariva, an English journalist, and Henry
de Charette, a volunteer for the Transvaal,
where his health will prevent him from playing
a very active part, make up the sum total of
diners, or very nearly so.

We further discovered on board Messieurs de
Breda, a former cavalry officer, Pimpin, Michel,
a distinguished artillery officer, and a few others
destined to be our pleasant comrades in the
future.

As at least fifteen of us are bound for Lourenço
Marques, and as we have reason to fear a visit
from some English cruiser not unaccustomed to
such travellers, we have all adopted the most
extraordinary callings.  One of us is a
commercial traveller in the wine or drug trade;
another is a dealer in apparatus of various kinds.
I also met a bird-seller, a manufacturer of blinds,
and an agent for bitumens!

C---- and I are modest!  We are in quest
of purchasers for 'Calaya,' a febrifuge of
extraordinary virtues, a specific for fever, dysentery,
headache, toothache, etc.

The weather is superb; but our boat is slow,
and we rarely make 300 miles in the twenty-four
hours.

We reach Port Said on December 31.  For
New Year's Day we get up an entertainment
with a lottery on board, and, thanks to Madame
D----, it proves a great success.

The profits, amounting to nearly a thousand
francs, were handed over to the Widows and
Orphans' Fund of the Messageries Maritimes.

The prizes offered by the passengers were of
the most curious description, and as we were
bound for sunny climes, there were more than
twenty umbrellas among them.  Chance, with
perhaps a little extraneous help, made a good
many of these fall to the share of Colonel
Gourko, who took the little joke in excellent part.

Breda undertakes the refreshment buffet, with
the help of a charming young girl, and presides
with great dignity.

After leaving Port Said the company is
increased by the members of a Russian
ambulance going to the Transvaal.  They keep very
much to themselves, and every evening they
meet together on the lower deck to sing their
vesper prayer.  The sacred chant, in itself very
imposing, takes on a solemn grandeur in the
picturesque setting of the Red Sea.

At Aden we go on shore, and make an
execrable lunch, washed down, however, by
some excellent Chianti and Barolo; then we go
to see the famous cisterns, in which there is
hardly ever any water now.

We also pick up a new passenger, Captain
B----, of the Royal Field Artillery, who also is
for Durban on warfare bound.  Our approaching
hostility does not prevent us from being the
best of friends throughout the passage.  He
wears the medal of the Soudan, too, which gives
him a further title to our sympathies.  He
describes his very interesting campaigns in India
and Egypt.  He was present at Omdurman--'the
great battle,' as he calls it.

Ever since we started we have been hearing
terrific accounts of Guardafui.  Few vessels, it
appears, escape disaster at this point!  But the
sea is like oil, to the great mortification, no
doubt, of all our ancient mariners.

Now we are bound straight for Madagascar.
For eight days we shall be between sky and
water.  Let us turn them to account for a rapid
retrospect of the causes which have led to the
war in which we are about to take part.

It will not, I think, be necessary to dwell on
the origin of the Boers.[#]

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[#] Boer means peasant; Burgher denotes a citizen.

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Colonists sent out in 1652 by the Dutch
East India Company, they landed at the Cape
of Good Hope, discovered two centuries before
(1486), and settled there, employing themselves
in agriculture and cattle-breeding.

At the time of the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, 300 French Huguenots joined them,
bringing up the number of the colonists to about
1,000.  The fusion of the two races was rapid,
and the French tongue disappeared among them.
Many of the French names even were corrupted--Cronje
was originally Crosnier--but many,
on the other hand, have persisted in their Gallic
form--Villiers, Marais, Joubert, Du Toit--and
their bearers are very proud of their French
descent.  But England, anxious to acquire the
colony when it began to prosper, sent out a
number of emigrants, reinforcing them steadily,
till they became an important factor in the
community.

From 1815, when Cape Colony was recognised
as a British possession by the Treaty of Vienna,
English policy has been hostile to the Boers,
who, for their part, received the English settlers
in no friendly spirit.

About 1835 the Boers, under the pressure
of the vexations to which they were subjected,
began their exodus to the north--the Great
Trek, as they still call it--and founded the
Orange Free State, recognised in 1869 by
Europe, and the Transvaal.

They were not left long in the enjoyment of
the territory they had wrested from the Kaffirs.
Diamondiferous deposits were discovered in the
Orange Free State in 1871; the English
promptly confiscated the find on the pretext
that it belonged to a native chief under their
protection.

In 1877, the Zulus having risen against the
Boers, England intervened for the alleged
pacification of the country, sent her troops to
Pretoria, and annexed the Transvaal.

But in 1880 the Boers revolted, and under
Joubert inflicted a crushing defeat on the English
at Majuba Hill, on the frontier of Natal,
February 27, 1881.

The treaty of August 3, 1881, recognised
the independence of the Transvaal under the
suzerainty of the Queen.  Another treaty, signed
in London, February 27, 1884, recognised the
absolute independence of the Transvaal.

On January 2, 1896, the famous Jameson
Raid, still fresh in men's memories, was checked
at Krugersdorp.

Wishing to satisfy the claims of the Uitlanders,
the President reduced the term necessary for the
acquisition of electoral rights from fourteen to
nine years.  Finally, in 1899, England,
constituting herself the champion of the foreigners,
instructed Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of the
Cape, to demand a further reduction of the
term to five years.

This measure meant the rapid intrusion of
the alien into the administration, and the gradual
swamping of the Boers.  It would have been the
ruin of Boer autonomy.  The President refused.
'Her Majesty's subjects,' he said, 'demanded
my trousers; I gave them, and my coat
likewise.  They now want my life; I cannot grant
them that.'

All these demands were but so many pretexts
intended to mask the true designs of England
from the European Powers.  But they are
manifest to the least discerning.  On the one
hand, there are gold-mines in the Transvaal, and
speculators demand them.  On the other, Cecil
Rhodes has declared that 'Africa must be English
from the Cape to Cairo.'  War had therefore
long been foreseen, and the Transvaal quietly
prepared for the struggle.

Under cover of an expedition into Swaziland,
which was nothing but a march of some few
hundred Burghers who had never fired a shot
except at game, considerable armaments had
been made from 1895 onwards.

Krupp supplied them with field-guns of 12
and 15 pound.  Maxim-Nordenfeldts were
bought.  These quick-firing guns throw
percussion-shells to a distance of about 5,000
metres; their calibre is 35 millimetres.  The
English have a great respect for these little
pieces, which they have christened 'pom-poms,'
in imitation of the noise made by their rapid
fire.  The same firm supplied small calibre
Maxim guns for Lee-Metford cartridges.  The
cartridges are fixed to strips of canvas (belts),
which unroll automatically, presenting a fresh
cartridge to the striker the instant its predecessor
has been fired.

Lastly, the Creusot factories received orders
for guns of the latest pattern: four 155
centimetres long, with a range of about 10,000
metres, which the Boers call 'Long Toms,' and
two batteries of 75 millimetre field-guns.

These cannon (model 95) were furnished with
all the latest improvements.  They fire very
rapidly, and the brakes, situated on either side
of the piece, absorb the recoil, the carriage being
the fulcrum, and the trunnions the points of
contact with the piece.  They have a range of
about 7,000 metres.  They are loaded by means
of cartridges, the whole charge enclosed in a
single metal case.  When efficiently served, they
will fire from fifteen to twenty shots a minute.

We have advanced indeed since the year
1881, and the cannon made in the Transvaal
itself, with cartwheel axle-trees riveted and
braised together![#]

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[#] This is preserved in the museum at Pretoria, side by
side with a mitrailleuse labelled 'Meudon,' given to the
President by the Emperor William.

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A large stock of Mauser, Martini-Henry
and Steyr rifles (1887 pattern), with plentiful
ammunition, was also bought by the Boer
Government.

The weapon most in favour is the Mauser rifle
of 1891, calibre 7.5 millimetres.  It is sighted
up to 2,000 metres.  It has a magazine
containing five cartridges.  The movable
straight-levered breech-block has a safety-bolt.

The cavalry carbine, also much appreciated,
is a reduced model of the rifle.  The mechanism
is the same, and it also has a magazine holding
five cartridges, but the movable breech-block
has a bent lever.  This carbine is sighted up to
1,400 metres.

These two weapons are of great precision,
but I have heard it objected since my return
that the wooden grip which covers part of the
barrel causes an unequal heating and cooling of
the metal between the covered and uncovered
parts, giving rise to occasional explosions or
distortions.  Personally, I saw no instance of this.

The Martini-Henry rifles, carbines, and
muskets are sometimes preferred by the older
Boers.  They are of an obsolete pattern, and
have an insignificant range of only 800 metres
for carbines and muskets.  They are 11
millimetres in calibre, and their leaden bullets have
no casing of harder metal.  To some persons
they have the advantage of disabling a man
more rapidly and effectually at a short range
than bullets of smaller calibre.

Events now follow closely one on another.
On September 26, 1899, the Volksraad issued
the following proclamation from Bloemfontein:

'The Volksraad, considering paragraph 2 of
the President's speech, and the official
documents and correspondence submitted therewith,
having regard to the fact that the strained state
of affairs throughout the whole of South Africa,
which has arisen owing to the differences between
the Imperial Government and the Transvaal,
threatens to lead to hostilities, the calamitous
consequences of which to the white inhabitants
would be immeasurable, being connected with
the Transvaal by the closest ties of blood and
confederacy, and standing in the most friendly
relationship with the Imperial Government;
fearing that, should war break out, a hatred
between European races would be born which
would arrest or retard peaceful developments in
all States and colonies of South Africa, and
produce distrust in the future; feeling that the
solemn duty rests upon it of doing everything
possible to avoid the shedding of blood;
considering that the Transvaal Government during
the negotiations with the Imperial Government,
which extended over several months, made every
endeavour to arrive at a peaceful solution of the
differences raised by the aliens in the Transvaal,
and taken up by the Imperial Government as
its own cause, which endeavours have unfortunately
had only this result, that British troops
were concentrated on the border of the
Transvaal, and are still being strengthened--resolves
to instruct the Government still to use every
means to maintain and insure peace, and in a
peaceful manner to contribute towards a solution
of existing differences, provided it be done
without violating the honour and independence of
the Free State and the Transvaal; and wishes
unmistakably to make known its opinion that
there exists no cause for war, and that a war
against the Transvaal, if now undertaken by the
Imperial Government, will morally be a war
against the whole white population of South
Africa, and in its consequences criminal, for, come
what may, the Free State will honestly and
faithfully fulfil its obligations towards the
Transvaal, by virtue of the political alliance
existing between the two Republics.'

On the 29th Mr. Chamberlain, more aggressive
than ever, laid down certain impossible
conditions:

\1. The franchise to every Uitlander after five
years of residence, unencumbered by any
formalities that might restrict the privilege.

\2. An absolute separation of the executive
and judicial power in the Transvaal.

\3. Abolition of the dynamite monopoly.

\4. Dismantlement of the fortress of Johannesburg.

\5. A special municipal government for
Johannesburg.

\6. Official recognition of the English language,
and an equal use of it and the Dutch tongue.

During the first days of October the situation
became more and more serious.  Certain attempts
at conciliation were still made.  On October 5,
President Steyn demanded that the massing of
troops on the frontier should cease.  But on
the 6th Sir Alfred Milner replied that he could
not accede to his request.  Mr. Steyn accordingly
wrote to the Governor of Cape Colony 'that
the success of further negotiations was very
doubtful, as the Transvaal would refuse any
conditions whatever laid down by Her Majesty's
Government if British troops continued to arrive
while negotiations were in progress.'

Finally, on October 10 the Boer ultimatum
was handed to Mr. Conyngham-Green.  The
Transvaal Executive had demanded an answer
within twenty-four hours, but the delegates of
the Orange Free State got the term extended to
forty-eight hours.

War was declared on October 11.  The Boer
commandos grouped themselves in two principal
centres, the Orange Free State and Natal.  In
the Free State, Du Toit and Kolby invested
Kimberley on October 14.  Cronje advanced
against Methuen in the south-east, Schoeman
against Colesberg, and Olivier to meet Gatacre
south of Aliwal North.

In Natal, Botha, Schalk Burgher, Lucas
Meyer and Prinsloo, under the Commander-in-Chief
Joubert, marched upon Ladysmith.

On October 20 a desperate engagement took
place at Glencoe.  General Symons, himself
mortally wounded, lost sixty killed, 300 wounded,
and 300 prisoners.  The Boers had seventy men
killed.

On October 21, at Elandslaagte, the German
Legion and the Scandinavians, surprised by the
enemy, were slaughtered by the English Lancers
after a heroic resistance.

On the 23rd, at Dundee, Generals Yule and
White were obliged to fall back on Ladysmith.

Finally, on October 30, under the very walls
of the town, at Lombard's Kop, General White,
beaten again, lost 300 dead and wounded,
1,200 prisoners and ten guns.

On November 2 Ladysmith was invested.

To judge by the behaviour of the Boers at
this juncture, it would have seemed that the
siege of the three towns, Mafeking, Kimberley
and Ladysmith, was the end and object of the
whole campaign.

They had at this stage of the war one of the
most magnificent opportunities imaginable.  Full
of confidence, flushed with success, well equipped,
and more numerous than they would ever be
again, they might have reckoned on the
co-operation of the Cape Boers, who, believing in
the possible success of their brethren, were
preparing to throw in their lot with them.

Against them they had some 40,000 English,
half of them only just disembarked, unacclimatized,
untried in warfare, the other half discouraged
by recent events and scattered over a
vast area.

Order and effort prolonged for one week
only would have overwhelmed and annihilated
the English army.  Cape Colony and Natal
would have thrown off the yoke, associating
themselves with the Transvaal and the Orange
Free State, and the United States of South
Africa would have been a power to reckon with.
But no!  Nothing was attempted.  Joubert
seemed to be hypnotized before Ladysmith, Du
Toit before Kimberley.

And, quietly and undisturbedly, England
gradually disembarked the 200,000 men Lord
Kitchener thought necessary for the work in hand.
Nevertheless, for two months more the
incapacity of the English generals all along the
line thrust the flower of the Queen's battalions
under the deadly fire of the Mausers, without a
chance of fighting for their lives, so to speak.

On November 10, at Belmont, Lord Methuen
was repulsed with heavy loss.  A month later,
at Stormberg, General Gatacre ventured an
advance without scouts, without a map, blindly
following a guide whose course he did not even
verify by a compass.

The advance took place in the utmost
disorder, though it had been arranged forty-eight
hours, previously.  The ambulance lost touch
with the detachment, and went its own way.
The 2nd Battalion of the Northumberland
Fusiliers lost its ammunition-waggon.  The
column advanced in close order to within
100 yards of the Boer entrenchments without
any warning, and was decimated.  Gatacre lost
100 men killed and 700 prisoners.

On December 11, at Magersfontein, Lord
Methuen had a second disaster to deplore.
Half an hour after midnight, after twenty-four
hours of artillery preparations and
bombardment of the Boer entrenchments, five Highland
regiments advanced in line of quarter-column.
The night was dark, and rain was falling in
torrents.  At half-past three in the morning
the English halted, not very sure of their route.
In an instant a deadly fire poured out from the
rocks.  They were less than 200 yards from
the trenches occupied by Cronje's men.

The Black Watch was decimated.  General
Wauchope fell, crying: 'My poor fellows!
'twas not I who brought you here!'  The
Marquis of Winchester was also killed.

The whole body was demoralized, and it was
not possible to make the fugitives lie down till
they had reached a distance of several hundreds
of yards.  'It was,' says an eye-witness, 'one of
the saddest sights that could wring the heart of
an English soldier of our times.'

In this turmoil of confusion and indecision,
Lord Methuen only gave the order to retire
towards four o'clock in the afternoon.  More
than a thousand dead strewed the battle-field,
and no help was given to the wounded till the
following day.

In the last letter he wrote to England,
Wauchope said: 'This is my last letter, for I
have been ordered to attempt an impossible
task.  I have protested, but I must obey or give
up my sword....  The men of the Modder
River army will probably never follow Lord
Methuen in another engagement.'

Finally, on December 15, the Battle of
Colenso was fought.  I borrow an account of
it from Sir Redvers Buller's telegram despatched
from Chieveley Camp in the evening:

'I regret to report serious reverse.  I moved
in full strength from camp near Chieveley this
morning at 4 a.m.  There are two fordable
places in the Tugela, and it was my intention
to force a passage through at one of them.
They are about two miles apart, and my
intention was to force one or the other with one
brigade, supported by a central brigade.

'General Hart was to attack the left drift,
General Hildyard the right road, and General
Lyttleton in the centre to support either.

'Early in the day I 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, I fear suffered
a great deal.  Colonel Brooke was severely
wounded.

'I 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 I heard that the whole of
the artillery I had sent to that attack--namely,
the 14th and 66th Field Batteries and six naval
12-pounder quick-firing guns, the whole under
Colonel Long, R.A.--were out of action, as it
appears that Colonel Long, in his desire to be
within effective range, advanced close to the
river.  It proved to be full of the enemy, who
suddenly opened a galling fire at close range,
killing all their horses, and the gunners were
compelled to stand to their guns.'

Desperate efforts were made to bring back
the guns, but only two were saved by the
exertions of Captain Schofield and two or three
of the drivers.

It was here that Lieutenant Roberts, of the
66th Battery of Artillery, son of Field-Marshal
Lord Roberts, met a glorious death.

'Some of the waggon-teams got shelter for
troops in a donga, and desperate efforts were
made to bring out the field-guns, but the fire
was too severe, and only two were saved by
Captain Schofield and some drivers, whose
names I will furnish.

'Another most gallant attempt with three
teams was made by an officer whose name I will
obtain.  Of the 18 horses, 13 were killed, and
as several of the drivers were wounded, I would
not allow another attempt.

'As it seemed they would be a shell mark,
sacrificing loss of life to a gallant attempt to force
passage unsupported by artillery, I directed the
troops to withdraw, which they did in good order.

'Throughout the day a considerable force of
the enemy was pressing on my right flank, but
was kept back by the mounted men under Lord
Dundonald and part of General Barton's brigade.

'The day was intensely hot and most trying
to the troops, whose conduct was excellent.

'We have abandoned ten guns, and lost by
shell-fire one.

'The losses in General Hart's brigade are, I
fear, heavy, though the proportion of severely
wounded is, I hope, not large.

'The 14th and 66th Field Batteries also
suffered severe losses.

'We have retired to our camp at Chieveley.

'The Boer losses are said to be over 700 men.'[#]

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[#] This statement does not appear in the *Times* report
of General Buller's telegram.--TRANSLATOR.

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No, General, we did not lose 700 men that day.

General Botha's report gave 8 dead and 20
wounded, while more than 2,000 English lay
on the battle-field.

Round about the batteries especially the
carnage had been terrible.  The Boers, ambushed
on a little kopje on the further side of the
Tugela, 300 metres from the cannon, kept up
an unerring fire for an hour.

December 15, be it noted, has long been a
day of rejoicing in the Transvaal.  It is the
anniversary of the Battle of Bloedriver, when
Pretorius, to avenge the massacre of Pieter
Retief and over 500 Boers, defied the bands
of the Zulu chief Dingaun.  This was on
December 15, 1838, and on that eventful day
Pretorius and his 400 men left 3,000 Zulus on
the field, with a loss of only three wounded
themselves.

After Colenso the victors had another splendid
opportunity.  They might have pushed forward
with the armies of Natal and the Free State.
The English troops had, it is true, been
reinforced, but the arms of the Republics were
still victorious in every direction.

In the beginning, on the whole, the elements
of success were overwhelmingly with the Boers.
These were superiority of numbers, of
marksmanship, a profound knowledge of the country,
of which no accurate maps exist, and the great
distances between their opponents and such
reinforcements as the latter could depend on.
It might have been said that the fortune of war,
taking into account the right and justice of
their cause, had been pleased to place all the
elements of victory in their hands.  But neither
the advice offered by the most authoritative
voices and based on the great teachings of
military history, nor the entreaties dictated by
the most generous devotion to the cause of the
Boers, could rouse the superiors in command
from the apathy that seemed to have overtaken them.

Christmas passed in rejoicings on both sides.
The belligerents exchanged Christmas and New
Year good wishes by the medium of shells
specially prepared, containing sweets,
chocolates, etc.  New Year's Day found them all
much in the same positions.  The bombardment
of the three towns, Mafeking, Kimberley,
and Ladysmith, continued.

However, on January 6 Joubert made up
his mind to attack--if, indeed, that strange
encounter, aimless and incoherent, can be called
an attack.  Was it an assault by the besiegers
or a sortie of the besieged?  Perhaps both.
It took place at Platrand.  Four or five hundred
of Prinsloo's men were seriously engaged; the
others (there were 6,000 round the town) took
up positions early in the morning, quitted them
towards ten o'clock to come back and breakfast
in camp, returned to them later, and remained
for the rest of the day 1,800 yards from the
town, which was no longer defended, without
firing a shot, without a thought of throwing
themselves against it or of going to the help of
their comrades, hotly engaged close by.  In the
evening they went back quietly to camp, while
the commandos of Zand River, Harrismith,
Heilbron, and Kroonstad had fifty-four killed
and ninety-five wounded.  The English lost
138 killed and over 200 wounded.  A little
dash, decision, and cohesion, and the town
might have been taken.  Such was Colonel
de Villebois-Mareuil's opinion.

But even in the full flush of success we shall
never find among the Boers that eagerness, that
scorn of death, that enthusiasm which sweep
troops forward and make great victories.

The same day, at Colesberg, an *accident* (this
word is a happy invention of General French's
to denote a reverse) cost the English 150 lives,
among them that of Colonel Watson.

The sieges followed their--I will not say
normal--course, for the ill-defended towns
ought long ago to have been taken by the
Boers.  Such was the general situation, more
or less, when we landed.





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   II

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Time passed, the screw laboured round, and on
January 12 we arrived at Diego Suarez.

'Passengers for Lourenço Marques change
steamers!'

For the *Natal* is bound for Mauritius, along
the east coast of Madagascar.  We shall
therefore spend the night on shore.

Wandering about the town, we meet Colonel
Gourko, whom we invite to dinner, as we are
in a French colony.  I can't pride myself much
on this meal, in the name of French culinary art.

The next day I lighted on a quartermaster of
the Marine Artillery, whom I had known in the
Soudan when he was only a gunner.  He went
off to find the other Soudanese campaigners of
the settlement, and in a quarter of an hour I
was surrounded by half a dozen old comrades.
They were all in high spirits, for it had been a
day of promotions, and several of them were
toasting their new stripes.

I spend a full hour with them, recalling the
old days spent in the colony that all who have
once known regret.

The hour of parting draws near; several
subalterns return to their duties, while my old
friend and a newly-promoted officer come to see
me off.

The *Gironde*, also of the Messageries Maritimes,
plies from Diego Suarez to Durban and
*vice versâ*.  Several artillery and marine officers,
having heard of my presence, have come to wish
me godspeed on board.  I am much touched
at this token of sympathy from unknown
friends, for, setting my humble personality
aside, it is a homage to the noble cause I am
on my way to uphold.

But the bell rings, the anchor is weighed, and
we are off.  If the *Natal* was an old 'fine
steamer,' the *Gironde* is a *very* old one.  She
was formerly one of the swift and elegant
Indian liners, but now, obsolete and worn-out,
is reserved for this little auxiliary service till
such time as some sudden squall shall send her
to the bottom.

Nevertheless, we arrived safely at Mozambique,
where some few days before a terrible
cyclone had destroyed part of the native village.
Huts were overthrown and lying in fragments,
trees torn up by the roots, telegraph-wires
broken; an air of mournful desolation hung
over the district.

Meanwhile, the buxom negresses of the quarter
went about their daily work, apparently unmoved
at the ruin of their dwellings.

We pay a visit to the fort, a very curious
sight, with its mediæval battlements bristling
with cannon two hundred years old, and its
soldiers armed with flintlock muskets.  All
these excellent Portuguese warriors seem to be
impressed by a sense of their lofty mission.
They even demurred a little before admitting us
into their 'citadel.'

We take up the Archbishop of Mozambique,
I believe; he is brought on board by a military
launch, with all the honours due to his rank,
and saluted by the guns of the fort.

We leave Mozambique the same evening.

Every day there were superb sunsets, glories
of deep purple, blue, blazing red, green, yellow
and pink, vivid pieces of impressionism that
beggar description.

Thus, still avoiding shipwreck, we come to
Beira, where we land our prelate, who is received
by a numerous staff of officers; troops line
the quays, and salutes are fired!

Portugal has certainly a remarkable colonial
army.  Among the others there is a huge
captain, bursting out of his tunic.  Each of his
long commands, incomprehensible to me, seems
to produce consternation in his troop, followed
by a series of perfectly diverse manoeuvres.

We turn away that we may avoid laughing
aloud, for the moment is a serious one...  Two
or three trombones attack the Portuguese national
air.  A good many of the worthy soldiers have
shouldered arms, and the majority have presented
them....  His lordship passes.  He gets into
a little 'lorry' pushed by natives, and goes off
quickly, while the troops disperse.  They are
worthy of those I have several times seen at Lisbon.

I think if I were the Portuguese I would
prefer none at all to such as these....  And,
then, the suppression of the military budget
would perhaps enable them to pay their dividends.
In the afternoon we embark a band of
Englishmen coming from Rhodesia to enlist as
volunteers at Durban and Cape Town.  They
invade the saloon with their friends, and sing
'God save the Queen.'  Some of the Frenchmen
present retort with the Marseillaise; the
situation becomes strained, fists are clenched, and
finally a certain number of blows are exchanged.
We have on board a grandson of President
Kruger's, whose home is in Holland.  After
having been arrested once, conducted to Durban
and sent back to Europe, he is making a second
attempt to enter his country.  Thanks to a
strict incognito, only laid aside for two of us,
he succeeds in his design.

At night we arrive off Lourenço Marques,
where, without let or hindrance, we disembark
on January 21.

We order a bottle of Moët in the saloon to
drink the health of Captain B----, whom we
are leaving, and against whom we are going to
fight presently.

'Your good health,' he says, 'and I trust we
shan't meet later on!'

We part with a hearty shake of the hand.
At the Custom-house we easily get our
artistically-concealed revolvers through, but the
Customs officers fall upon the uniforms, arms
and harness belonging to Colonel Gourko.
They decline to pass anything, in spite of all
explanations.  The Colonel is obliged to go and
fetch the Russian Consul and the Governor.  We
take up our quarters at the Hotel Continental,
which, we are told, is the best.  Five of us are
packed into one small room on improvised beds,
where we are devoured by mosquitoes ... and
this costs fourteen shillings a day!

Colonel Gourko, having recovered his baggage,
joins us there, and, in his turn, invites us to
dinner.  He does things in a princely fashion,
and the bill must have been one that Paillard
himself would have hesitated to present.

All sorts of obstacles are invented to prevent
our departure.  Firstly, of course, our passports
have to be *visé*, but before this can be done we
have to get stamps, which are only to be had at
the opposite end of the town; we have, further,
to produce a certificate of good conduct (having
only arrived the night before!).  Then more
stamps, then a note from the French Consul,
then more stamps; and the office where you
get the signature or the paper is never the same
as the one that sells the stamps.

At last all formalities have been carried out.
Our pockets are bulging with some dozen papers
covered with innumerable signatures and a
shower of stamps.  Cost: over 50 francs--10,850 reïs!

We go to the station at seven o'clock the
following morning.  There are a great many
police officers on duty.  By the Governor's
orders no one is to be allowed to start for the
Transvaal with the exception of the Russian
ambulance.  We all exclaim shrilly, and hurry
off to the Consul.

Upon our formal declaration that this order
will injure us in our business, he proceeds to
the Governor and remonstrates, with the result
that we are authorized to start next morning,
there being only one train a day.

We spend the day wandering about the
town, which is of little interest.  The great
square planted with trees is pleasant, however.

We see the funeral procession of an officer of
the English man-of-war stationed here.  The
coffin, covered with the Union Jack, is placed
on a little gun-carriage drawn by sailors;
others line the way.  Officers in full uniform
follow, and a company of red-coats bring up the rear.

This is our last encounter with the 'soldiers
of the Queen' before we open fire upon them.
They are already numerous in South Africa,
and every day brings reinforcements.

At the beginning of hostilities there were
about 25,000 men distributed over Natal and
Cape Colony.  From November 9 to January 1
seventy-eight transports have brought 70,000
men, completing the fifth division; 15,000
volunteers have been raised on the spot, making
in all 110,000 men.

The sixth and seventh divisions, a contribution
from the colonies, will bring them up to
22,000; 3,000 yeomanry and 7,000 militiamen
will complete the total of 152,000 promised for
the month of February.  The seventh division
started from January 4 to January 11, bringing
nearly 10,000 men and eighteen cannon.

Engagements at the rate of 3,600 francs
(£124) are being made on every side--1,600
(£64) on enlistment, 2,000 francs (£80) at the
end of the war.  Enlistments in our Foreign
Legion are affected and fall off considerably.

The City of London, by means of a public
subscription of £100,000, raises a corps of
volunteers.  This desperate system of enlistment
is severely criticised, even in England.

'What a humiliation,' says Mr. Frederick
Greenwood in the *Westminster Gazette* of
January 2, 'to have to cry Help! help! at every
crossway to pick up a man or a horse.'

Seventeen new battalions are to be raised
after January 15.  The choice of men rests
with the colonel or the lieutenant-colonel
commanding the regimental district.  They are
required to be aged from twenty to thirty-five,
to have gone through a course of instruction
in 1898 or 1899, and to hold a certificate of
proficiency in shooting.  But, as a fact, many
of these certificates are given by favour, and a
third of the volunteers are from eighteen to
twenty years old.  The effort made by the
country has been considerable.

On January 19 the eighth division was
mobilized.  It comprised the sixteenth and
seventeenth brigades under the command of
Major-Generals B. Campbell and J. E. Boyes;
Batteries 89, 90, and 91, and the 5th company
of Engineers, making a strength of 10,540 men,
1,548 horses, eighteen cannon, and eight
machine guns.

The eighth division is under the command of
General H. M. L. Rundle, aged forty-four,
who has already served in the Zulu campaign,
at the siege of Potchefstroom in the Transvaal
in 1881, and in the Egyptian and Soudanese
campaigns from 1884 to 1898.





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   III

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To return to our journey.  On the morning of
the 24th, at 10 o'clock, we took the train and
departed, happy to leave Lourenço Marques.
The last station on the frontier is Ressano-Garcia;
again our papers are examined.  If we
paid highly for them, they at least do good
service.

The train rolls on again, and in a few
minutes we are on the soil of the Transvaal.
All along the line, at every little bridge, bands
of armed Boers are posted.  Komatipoort
Station is also occupied by troops.  Everyone
gets out.  There is a minute inspection of all
papers, even of private letters, and we are
conscientiously searched.  Having satisfied our
challengers, we are allowed to go on.  The
trains travel very slowly in this very broken,
varied country.  We ascend almost
uninterruptedly, and the line seems to run either along
the sides of rocky mountains or the edges of
bottomless abysses.  Many of the spots we pass
are extraordinarily picturesque.  In the evening
we arrive at Watervaalonder, and the train
stops; for in this country neither trains nor
men are in a hurry.

A Frenchman, named Mathis, keeps a hotel,
at which we sleep.  He receives us with much
affability, and talks enthusiastically of the game
in the neighbourhood.  He is a Nimrod.

The next day we start again, and in the
evening we are at Pretoria.  My friend Gallopaud
is at the station, and takes us to the
Transvaal Hotel, where the guests of the Government
are quartered.

On the 26th, thanks to the good graces of
M. Grunberg, we are presented to M. de Souza,
Mr. Reitz's secretary, for whom we have letters
of introduction.

We take the oath of fealty as burghers, and
receive our weapons, Mauser carbines, the stock
of which is getting low, cartridges and belts.
Horses and saddles are already giving out.  We
are impatient to be off, but shops and offices are
all closed on Saturday at one o'clock and
throughout Sunday.

We take advantage of the holiday to inspect
the town.  Pretoria, as everyone knows, is the
capital of the Transvaal.  It is the seat of
the Government, which is composed of two
Chambers, the First Volksraad and the Second
Volksraad.  Each is composed of twenty-nine
members, elected by direct suffrage.  The
President of the Republic and the Commander-in-Chief
are elected by the members of the First
Chamber, the former for five, the latter for ten
years.  They are eligible for re-election for any
length of time.

The President, Paul Kruger, familiarly known
as 'Oom Paul,' was Commander-in-Chief for a
long time before he became President.  The
present Generalissimo, Joubert, was his rival in
the Presidential elections.

The Transvaal revenue is drawn for the most
part from heavy royalties on the mines, and
a crushing tax on explosives; in 1897 an
income of 112,005,450 francs (£4,480,218)
was received, against an expenditure of
109,851,400 francs (£4,394,056).

The general aspect of Pretoria is depressing;
only two or three streets show any animation.
The circumstances of the moment are not
certainly such as to enliven the town, but I
have been told that even in times of peace it is
never very cheerful.

Stretching over a wide area, it is intersected
by little tramways, the cars drawn by two
consumptive horses.  In the centre is Government
House, a huge building of freestone, massive
and ungraceful, though not without certain
pretensions to the 'grand style,' I believe.  On each
side a sentry of the Presidential guard paces up
and down.  Under the colonnade of the main
entrance, which faces a large open space, a few
steps lead up to a vast hall, with a monumental
staircase at the end.  On each side of the hall
two wide corridors run round the building, and
give access to all the different offices.  We find
the whole place, hall, corridors and offices,
crowded with busy people, some soliciting,
others solicited, all hurrying hither and thither.
With the exception of some few buildings of
several storeys grouped round the palace and in
the main street--the post-office, the clubs, the
banks, the hotels and the large shops--all the
houses are little one-storey cottages surrounded
by gardens.

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On Monday morning we are able to have
horses, which we go and catch ourselves in the
great courtyard which serves as a dépôt.  We
have also some old English saddles, and after
buying some rugs and some indispensable
provisions, we are ready to start at about five in
the evening.

Our departure is fixed for eleven o'clock, by
the special train which is to take *Long Tom* to
Kimberley, where we are to join Colonel
Villebois.  This *Long Tom*, a 155 millimetres Creusot
gun, is a personage, a celebrity.  It weighs 2,500
kilogrammes; its carriage weighs the same.  Its
fame is derived from its history.

One night last November, at Lombard's Kop,
in front of Ladysmith, where the gun was
mounted, sixty English, taking advantage of
the slumbers of the Boer sentinels, stormed the
hill, seized the cannon, and finding it
impossible to displace it, damaged the two ends with
dynamite.  After this the burghers, coming
up in force, retook the gun, brought it to
Pretoria, and repaired it in a remarkable manner.
It was, however, shortened by about 25 centimetres.

After these adventures it has become a sort of
prodigal son, a legendary weapon beloved of
those great children we call the Boers.  It is,
therefore, no small honour to be called upon to
escort *Long Tom*.  We share this honour with
a gunner named Erasmus, a strange being, who,
after being severely wounded at the taking of
'his cannon,' had sworn only to return and fight
in its company.

On this Monday night, accordingly, at eleven
o'clock, in a downpour of rain, we and our
horses take our places in the train, which,
profiting no doubt by its being a 'special,' starts
an hour after time.  It consists of three or four
first-class coaches with lateral corridors.  These
coaches, which are comfortable enough, and very
high in the ceiling, have in each compartment
two seats of three places each, covered with
leather, and in the centre a folding-table about
50 centimetres wide.  At night a second seat,
which is raised in the day-time, or serves as a
luggage-net, makes a sleeping-berth, so that
four travellers in each compartment can rest
comfortably, a convenience highly desirable in
a country where journeys often last forty-eight
hours, and even six or seven days, as from Cape
Town to Buluwayo and Fort Salisbury.

Travellers install themselves as they please,
without any sort of constraint.  Luggage is not
registered, and the carriages are invaded--I use
the term advisedly--with weapons, saddles,
bridles, bandoliers, provisions, dogs, if one
has any, rugs, trunks and bundles.  No officials,
no staff, no warning cries, no notices
forbidding travellers to get out while the train
is in motion.  A station-master, and hardly
anything more.

A bell rung three times at short intervals
announces the departure of the train.  You get
in, or you don't get in; you stand on the
footboard, climb on to the roof of the carriage,
leave the door open or shut it, get into a truck
or cattle-van--it's your own look out.  You
are free, and no one would dream of interfering
with you in the matter.

In the carriages passengers sleep, drink, eat,
sing, shoot and gamble, and every morning a
negro comes and cleans up.

There is a little of everything among the
debris--old papers, empty preserve-tins,
fruit-parings, tobacco-ash, cartridge-cases, empty, and
sometimes broken, bottles.  An inspector on
the P. L. M. would go mad at the sight.

While the cleaning goes on, we go and ask
for a little hot water from the engine, and make
our morning coffee.  On trucks that we go and
fetch ourselves we load up heavy carts of
provisions, ammunition, and cannon.  Finally, we
heap up pell-mell in open cattle-vans, mules
and horses in some, oxen in another.  And
casualties are no more numerous than in
Europe, where we arrange them like sardines
in a box--'thirty-two men, eight horses.'  The
beasts of these regions, like the men, have
apparently learnt to take care of themselves
from their earliest infancy.

During the journey of Tuesday a springbock,
a kind of antelope, startled by the engine, is so
imprudent as to run along by the train at a
distance of about 300 metres.  From the tender
to the last van a brisk fire suddenly opens.  The
engine-driver slows down, then, as the creature
falls, stops altogether.  A man gets down,
fetches the quarry, and comes quietly back.
The train goes on again, the springbock is
cut up, and at the next station the
engine-driver gets a haunch as an acknowledgment
of his good-nature.  This is indeed travelling
made enjoyable!

But there are always folks who like to cut
down the cakes and ale!  In April, 1900, a
penalty of £5 sterling was decreed for persons
who fire a gun or a revolver in a railway-station
or a village.

In every station--and they are legion--the
whole feminine population has gathered, and
sings the Boer hymn as soon as the train
appears.  And at every station the following
ceremony takes place: A deputation comes to
Erasmus, and begs him to show *Long Tom*.
Erasmus mounts on the truck where the cannon
is installed, and opens the breech.  Each woman
passes in front of it, putting either her head or
her arm in, with cries of admiration.  Then
Erasmus closes the breech, gets down, and the
Transvaal hymn, sung in chorus, alternates
with that of the Orange Free State until the
departure of the train.

On Tuesday evening at six o'clock we arrive
at Brandfort.  It is too late to unload the gun,
and we spend the night in the village, where we
are very well received.

Early on Wednesday we begin our task,
with the help of the whole village, and to the
accompaniment of the national hymn.  The
young girls all have sharp, forced voices, but
from a distance the effect of these voices in
chorus is not unpleasant.  As to the male
choirs, which are heard on every possible
occasion, they are really charming and very
impressive.  Their music is very slow, and
almost exclusively devotional in its rhythm.

Towards three o'clock on Thursday the
convoy is ready.  Thirty bullocks have been
harnessed to *Long Tom*.  The rest of the
convoy consists of some twenty waggons of
provisions and ammunition.  As we set off,
two or three photographers make their appearance.

The column, escorted by some sixty Boers,
moves off towards Kimberley, in the midst of
enthusiastic demonstrations.  The waggons are
heavy four-wheeled carts, with powerful brakes;
the back part is covered with a sort of rounded
tent stretched over hoops.  This tent is the
home of the travelling Boer.  In it he keeps
his mattress, his blankets, his utensils, his arms,
while the front part is reserved for the heavy
stores--millet, flour, biscuits, etc.

The driver walks beside his team, armed
with a long whip, which he wields in both
hands.  The thick cane handle is often about
10 feet, and the lash, of strips of undressed hide,
from 15 to 20 feet long.  The management of
this whip is no easy matter, and it is curious to
see a good driver, at the moment when an effort
is required, giving each of his twenty or thirty
bullocks the necessary stroke in an instant.

The Burgher himself is mounted, shabby
and ragged, dressed in a faded coat, a shapeless
hat, and long trousers without straps.

For some time on the march we had a neighbour
whose ulster, formerly, no doubt, of some
normal hue, had turned, under the rains of years
(I had almost said of centuries), a pinkish colour,
with green reflections, like a sunset at sea.  And
the happy owner of this prism seemed quite
unconscious that, amidst much that was
extraordinary, he was perhaps the most extraordinary
sight of all.

One warrior was mounted on a wretched old
English saddle, to which were slung pell-mell a
mackintosh, a many-coloured rug, a coffee-pot,
a water-bottle, and a bag containing a medley
of coffee, sugar, tobacco, biscuit and *biltong*
(dried meat).  Two bandoliers, and sometimes
his rifle, were slung across his body, the latter
horizontally on his stomach, when he was not
carrying it upright in his hand, like a taper.
His braces hung down his back.  He had a
single spur, for the Burgher rarely uses two,
thinking a second an unnecessary luxury.
Indeed, he relies much more on his *shambock* (a
thong of hippopotamus hide) than on his single
spur for the control of his horse.

Thus equipped, he shambles along on his
jade, which trots, canters and gallops at intervals,
silent, his legs well forward, his feet stuck out,
catching at his over-long stirrups.  His military
organization is on a par with his equipment.

The 'commando' is the only military division
known among the Boers.  A commando is a
levy of the men of a district, under the
leadership of a field-cornet or a commandant.  These
grades, which are ratified by the Government,
are independent of any hierarchy, and merely
imply a difference in the number of electors.

I say electors advisedly, for the field-cornets
are chosen by their men, and, in their turn,
take part in the nomination of the generals.
This arrangement works well enough when
electors and elected are of one mind.  But
when the leader wants to carry out some plan
which his electors disapprove, he runs the risk
of being cashiered and replaced by one of the
majority.

I do not know what are the results of this
system in politics; but, applied to an army, it
is disastrous, for very often the leader, brave
enough himself, dares not engage his men, lest
he become unpopular; and this, I think, has
been the main cause of the total absence of
offensive action on the part of the Boers.
Perhaps, indeed, it will prove one of the main
causes of their final overthrow.

The commandant, or field-cornet, chooses
among his men a 'corporal,' who acts as his
auxiliary.  These 'commandos,' the effective
numbers of which are essentially variable, are
called after the chief town of the district from
which they are drawn: Heidelberg Commando,
Carolina Commando.  And not only do they
vary considerably, according to the population
of a district, but the field-cornet himself never
knows how many men he has at his disposal,
for the Burghers have no notion of remaining
continuously at the front; when one of the
number wants to go back to his farm nothing
can stop him.  He goes, though he will come
back later for another spell of service.  Desertions
of this kind often took place *en masse* the
day after a reverse.

The Johannesburg Politie and the Artillery
are the only troops in the Transvaal which can
be described as more or less disciplined.  The
Politie are the police-force of Johannesburg and
Pretoria.

In times of peace the men wear a uniform
consisting of a black tunic, cut after the English
pattern, and black trousers.  On their heads
they wear a little hard black cap, with a button
at the end, and for full dress a white peaked
cap with a badge bearing the arms of the
Transvaal.  On the collars of their tunics are
three brass letters: Z. A. R. (Zuid Africa
Republic).  But during the campaign their
uniform has disappeared, and they are not to
be distinguished from the ordinary Burghers.
A certain discipline obtains among them, and
they receive regular pay, which is reduced in
time of war, as their families are then in receipt
of indemnities in kind.

These men are the only ones who can be
relied on to hold a position they have been told
to keep.  The other Burghers will only fight
if they choose, and if they can do so without
much risk.

The fighting strength of the Johannesburg
Politie is about 800 men, with four lieutenants,
under Commandant van Dam, an energetic and
intelligent man.

The guns, of which I have already given a
brief description--four *Long Toms*, a dozen
75 millimetres Creusot guns, some thirty
Krupp field-pieces and old Armstrongs--are
served by a body of artillery whose barracks
are at Pretoria.  I do not say nineteen or twenty
batteries, for there are no groups or
detachments.  Each gun is used separately, according
to the needs of the generals or the fancy of the
artillerymen.

The corps consists of thirty officers and about
400 men.  They wear a black tunic and
breeches, and a sort of shako much like that
of the Swiss army.  In the field this shako is
replaced by a large felt hat looped up on one
side, and the rest of the costume undergoes any
modification that suggests itself to the wearer.

They were at first under the command of
Commandant Erasmus, who was superseded
after the affair of Lombard's Kop, below
Ladysmith.[#]

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[#] Commandant Erasmus must not be confused with the
Adjutant Erasmus who was with our party.  The same
names are very frequent throughout the Republics, the
natives of which are mainly sprung from the few families
who originally settled there.  Thus there are some twenty
Bothas, thirty Jouberts, etc.

.. vspace:: 2

The artillery of the Free State, composed of
old Armstrong guns and a few Krupp guns
lent by the Transvaal, is served by a corps who
look like the artillerymen of a comic opera.
They wear a drab tunic and breeches with a
great deal of orange braid, and are inferior
even to their colleagues of the Transvaal.

All told, then, the army consists of some
40,000 to 50,000 Burghers, without cohesion
and without discipline, field-cornets who do not
obey their generals, and who cannot command the
obedience of their men.  Over them are titular
generals and vecht-generals (generals appointed
for the term of the campaign only), for the
most part ignorant of the very elements of the
art of war, and at variance one with another.

How often during this campaign are we led
to ponder over the phrase we have been
mechanically reciting for ten years past:
'Seeing that discipline is the strength of armies!'

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We have a six days' march before us.  The
bullocks are accustomed to travel by short
stages of two hours, followed by an hour's rest.
At night, however, we advance by stages of
four or five hours.

The soil over which we pass is bare and
sandy, of a uniform grayish-yellow tint, and
produces nothing but short, coarse grass, which
serves as fodder for the oxen and horses.

At every halt the cattle are let loose, and
when the rest is over the Kaffir 'boys' go off in
pursuit of them, often to a considerable distance.
Water is scarce, and generally bad.

Very often on the way we are received with
delightful hospitality at the farms we pass.
These houses are clean, and often even those
which stand quite alone in the bush have a
parlour adorned with photographs, religious
prints, and Scripture texts in large characters.
The furniture is simple, but there is very often
a harmonium, for the singing of hymns is a
frequent exercise in a Boer household.

Nevertheless, a respect for musical
instruments is not carried to extremes.  At Dundee,
for instance, a Burgher had made a shelter for
himself with a piano taken from an English villa.

The head of the family, often an old man
with a white beard, is an absolute and much
respected master in his home.  He presides at
meals, waited on by the women, who do not
eat till the men have finished.  The menu
invariably consists of eggs and mutton cooked
together in a frying-pan, bread or biscuit, and
fruit.  The drink is coffee with milk.

The Boer women are not well favoured.  As
a rule, they are thick-set and weather-beaten.
They wear large pink or white sun-bonnets,
very becoming to the young girls.

The traveller is a guest, received as if he were
an old acquaintance; and whatever the hour
of his appearance, he is at once offered coffee
with milk, and, when they are in season, peaches.

At the time of our journey a good many men
were at the front; but there are often some
dozen children with the women, making large
households.  They all live pell-mell in two or
three rooms.

In time of peace the Burgher is a keen
sportsman; this is, indeed, the reason of his
wonderful skill as a marksman, for he always shoots
with ball-cartridge; shot is never used.  In
time of war he is a hunter still.  He fights as
he hunts, the game alone is changed; but as
the quarry has means of defence more efficacious
and violent than those of the ostrich or the
springbock, he is often less persevering in
pursuit of it.

When the Burgher halts to hunt or to fight,
he dismounts, shelters his horse behind some
rock, and leaves it loose, taking care to pass
the bridle over its neck.  All the horses are
trained to stand perfectly still when they see
the reins hanging in front of them thus,
and, no matter how heavy the fire, they will
not stir.

The Boers have a way of their own of
reckoning distances.  When, for instance, they
tell you that it is seven hours from a certain
place to another, don't imagine that you will be
in time for dinner if you set off at noon; the
seven hours in question are a conventional term.
They are hours at the gallop, and it is supposed
that a swift horse, going at his utmost speed,
could cover the distance in seven hours.

The immense concessions given by the
Government are not cultivated, for the Boer has a
rooted dislike to work; his black servants
grow the necessary mealies, and keep his
numerous flocks.  As his wants are very primitive,
this suffices him.  To procure sugar, coffee,
and other necessaries, he goes to town and sells
two or three oxen.

The rifle and cartridges furnished by the State
in time of war become the Burgher's property.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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On the march in war-time this system of
halting the oxen because they are hot, and the men
because they want to drink coffee at every farm,
is neither very rapid nor very practical.  We do
not arrive at Boshof till the fifth day.  This is
the spot fated to be the grave of our venerated leader.

Boshof, in contrast to its surroundings, is a
gay little oasis, traversed by a cool stream.  It
boasts green trees and pretty villas.  Two
ambulances are installed here, but they shelter
only two or three wounded as yet.

At the end of the village is a pool, which
delights us vastly.  We spend the afternoon in
it, after lunching with the field-cornet.

The town is *en fête*, as at Brandfort, to receive
us, or rather--away with illusion!--to receive
*Long Tom*.

We start again in the night, and reach
Riverton Road.  We are now on English
territory, in Cape Colony.

Towards noon, M. Léon comes to meet the
cannon, the arrival of which has been anxiously
expected for the last two days.

We are only an hour from the camp, which
we reach at a gallop.  There, at Waterworks--the
reservoir that supplies Kimberley--we find
Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil.

Need I describe that frank and energetic face,
with its searching blue eyes, and its benevolent
smile, sometimes a little ironical, always subtle;
the clear voice; the concise manner of speech,
brief without being brusque?  Even at that
stage a look of sadness had stamped itself upon
his face; he saw that the men for whom he
was to lay down his life would not follow the
counsels dictated by his profound knowledge
and unquenchable devotion.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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We had been expected for two days, and
twice the Colonel had had good luncheons
prepared.  Then, giving us up, he had ordered
nothing, and we took his kitchen by surprise.

We find with him Baron de Sternberg, that
charming Viennese, whose inexhaustible good
spirits are famous throughout London and
Paris.  In the evening he works in his tent at
a history of the war, and composes the most
delicious verses in German.  The Colonel also
works hard.

*Long Tom* arrives some time after us.

Our laager at Waterworks is a large square,
measuring some 200 metres on every side,
planted with trees, and containing the machinery
for distributing the water.  It looks like an
oasis in the midst of the vast yellow plain.  In
the distance are a few kopjes.  We are about
700 metres from Kimberley.  The camp is
commanded by General du Toit.

Kampferdam, where the cannon has been
taken, is 3 kilometres to the south, and 5,500
metres from Kimberley.  It is a kind of whitish
peak, about 50 metres high, formed of the
refuse from the diamond mine below.

The night of Tuesday to Wednesday is spent
in the construction of the wooden platform on
which *Long Tom* and his carriage are to be
mounted.

The English searchlights fix their great
round eyes upon us from time to time, but there
is nothing to show that the enemy has noticed
anything abnormal in our proceedings.

All night long the work goes on with feverish
activity, for Léon, who is superintending the
operations, wants to fire his first shell at
daybreak.  But it is no easy task to hoist up that
mass of 5,000 kilos, especially with
inexperienced, undisciplined, and obstinate men,
and the cannon is not ready till ten o'clock.

One of our party, Michel, an old artilleryman,
the holder of some twenty gunnery prizes, gives
the workers the benefit of his experience, and as
he cannot find any sights, Erasmus artlessly
proposes to make one of wood!

At last the first shot is fired!  I am certain
that at this moment not a single Boer is left in
the trenches.  Everyone has rushed out to see
the effect produced.  It is of two kinds.
Firstly, our shell, badly calculated, bursts far off
in the plain; then, no sooner has it been fired,
than an English shell from the Autoskopje
battery, 3,500 metres to our right, falls and
explodes among the machinery of the
Kampferdam mine.  This exchange of compliments
goes on till near twelve o'clock.  This is the
sacred hour of lunch.  The fire ceases.

As coffee is a liquid which has to be imbibed
slowly, firing does not begin again till nearly
four o'clock.  It is very hot, for it is the height
of summer.

During this interval, the Colonel has been
several times to General du Toit, to ask for
fifty volunteers.

The Colonel's plan is to batter the town with
a storm of shells (we have 450) for two hours,
from four to six, and thus demoralize it; then,
with fifty men, whom the French contingent
would lead, to seize the Autoskopje battery,
which is but poorly defended, at nightfall, and
thence to gradually creep up to the town
through a little wood, which would mask the
advance.  The plan was very simple, requiring
but few men, and had every chance of success,
because of the surprise it would have been to
the English, who had never been attacked
hitherto.

'Wait a bit,' said Du Toit; 'I will lay your
plan before the council of war to-morrow.'

In vain the Colonel tells him that the success
of the plan depends on its immediate execution.
He can get no answer.  The evening is wasted.

General du Toit is a big, bronzed man, with
a black pointed beard and a straight and
penetrating gaze.  Though very brave personally,
he has never dared to engage his men.

The latter are very well pleased with their
role of besiegers.  They will appreciate it less
when the *Long Cecil* comes upon the scene.
Hitherto, the long *far niente*, comparatively free
from peril--the town, under the command of
Colonel Kekewich, was defended by such a small
garrison that *sorties* were impossible--has only
been broken by the singing of hymns, the
brewing of coffee and cocoa, and the occasional
pursuit of a springbock.

Every evening a guard, composed, I fancy, of
anyone who chose to go, went off, provided
with a comfortable stock of bedding, to do duty
round the camp.

Others, the valiant spirits, remained at the
three batteries where were installed *Long Tom*,
the three Armstrongs, and the Maxim.

*Long Tom's* battery was by far the most
popular, for several reasons.  In the first place,
its processes were much more interesting than
those of the small guns; then, its defenders
were much more sheltered, owing to the
proximity of the mining works; and finally, a
good many former miners were always on the
look-out for a stray diamond or two.

Among the besiegers of Kimberley, indeed,
we met with a good many adventurers who
took no other part in the campaign.

Men of all nationalities, many of them
familiar with the town, having worked in the
mines here, they came in the hope of finding
some diamond overlooked in the sudden
cessation of mining operations....  Then, too,
they knew that Cecil Rhodes was in the town,
having had no time to fly or to carry off his
treasure.

Then, again, there are bankers and jewellers
in Kimberley, and if the Boers had taken the
town....

It appears that Cecil Rhodes was quite aware
of this danger, and I have heard that he
attempted to manufacture a balloon which was
to have carried 'Cecil and his fortunes' to a
safer city.

In any case, his gratitude to his defenders
was very lively.  And, in addition to other
liberalities, he presented a commemorative medal
to them all.





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   IV

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Failing an assault, we resume the bombardment.
The firing is slow and inaccurate.  The
English reply in much the same fashion, when
suddenly their new cannon appears on the
scene, not altogether to our surprise, for some
intercepted letters had warned us of its
manufacture.  It was the famous *Long Cecil*.

The *Long Cecil* was a gun of about 12
centimetres, made in Kimberley itself during the
siege with a piece of steel taken from the
machinery of the De Beers mine.

The piece was drilled and rifled with the
means at the disposal of the besieged.

The closing of the breech, a somewhat
fantastic arrangement, was based on the Canet
system.  In default of a trial field, the range
was arrived at from observations of actual firing
against us.

*Long Cecil* accordingly began to speak, and
to speak very much to the point.  Several
times we were covered with earth, and I am
certain that out of twenty shells, the extreme
error was not more than 200 metres.  One
fortunately fell diagonally on *Long Tom's* very
platform, rebounded, and burst a little way off.
Seven men were killed.

The next day, Thursday, passed in almost
precisely the same fashion.  Towards five o'clock
the interchange of amenities between *Long Tom*
and *Long Cecil* began, and lasted till 8.30; at
8.30, breakfast.  After breakfast, the guns went
to work again till 11.  At 11, lunch, rest.
From 4 to 6, another cannonade.  At 6, dinner.

This respect for meal-times is charming, and
greatly facilitates life in the field.

It is a pity the attention of the Powers is not
called to this subject by an international
convention!  Many affections of the stomach would
be hereby avoided.

Encouraged by the example of their big
brothers, the little 12 and 15-pounder Krupps
and Armstrongs join in the concert.

The English have five, and we have four.  It
is delightful, and one can't complain of a single
second of boredom.

On Friday, the Colonel's request is still
unanswered.

'Wait a little while!'

Sternberg has had enough of it.  Recognising
the impossibility of persuading Du Toit to take
decisive action, he starts off to Jacobsdal, where
the English make him a prisoner.  He was a
great loss, for he had an extraordinary repertory
of adventures, which he told in a very amusing
manner, and, besides, he was a capital cook.

The 'boys' in these regions, greatly inferior
to those of the Soudan in this respect, claim to
be cooks as soon as they know how to light a
fire.  Accordingly, we prepare our meals
ourselves.  Tinned meat, a bit of roast mutton, or
a stew, are the usual dishes.

The Colonel eats very little, and only takes
grilled meat; he drinks tea or milk, and never
touches wine or spirits.  He does not smoke.
He is a striking contrast to the rest of us, who
eat like ogres, drink like sponges, and smoke
like engines!

Our contingent, consisting of Breda, Léon,
Michel, Coste, my friend De C---- and I,
remain with Villebois.

Michel has calculated the ranges, and we fire
all Friday night.  The points aimed at are:
the searchlights, Cecil Rhodes' house, the Grand
Hotel, the last high chimney on the left, and
that on the right.

Erasmus was unable to suppress a gentle
amusement at the sight of our preparations for
night-firing.  But when he grasped the idea
that we were in earnest, and that his *Long Tom*
was being loaded, the benevolent smile with
which one would watch a spoilt child engaged
in some innocent folly changed to a look of
real anxiety.  He thought poor Michel had
gone mad.  He finally got used to the novel proceeding.

Firing ceased on both sides about 12.30 a.m.
Early on Saturday morning it began again.
One of our shells fell on the De Beers magazine,
transformed into an ammunition factory, and
caused an explosion and a fire.

The English, despairing of silencing our
*Long Tom* with their *Long Cecil*, replied to
every shot at the town by a shell into our
laager.  The accuracy of their fire with this
gun at a range of about 7,000 metres was
remarkable.  We were indeed a capital target:
a green rectangle of 200 metres in the midst of
a yellow, arid plain.

The shell arrived in thirty-four seconds, but
did no great damage, for a watchman gave the
alarm, 'Skit!' each time when he saw the
smoke, and we retreated into shelter.

The telegraphists of the staff, who were
working in a little house, were placed in
communication with the watchman by means of a
bell, and, warned half a minute before the
arrival, they had time to take refuge in a
neighbouring trench.

We learnt later that a similar system had
been adopted in Kimberley as a protection
against *Long Tom*, and hence the small
number of killed during the siege.  One of the
first victims of *Long Tom*, however, was the
engineer of the *Long Cecil*, who had just
finished his work.  A shell burst on his house
and killed him in his bedroom.  Another cause
of the slight mortality on both sides was the
bad quality of the fuses for the projectiles,
which often burst imperfectly, or not at all.
Thus, one of the English shells fell in the
machinery of the waterworks, only a few inches
from our reserve of a hundred shells, and
happily failed to explode.  Another went
through a cast-iron pipe, over a centimetre
thick, and buried itself in the earth without
exploding; its fuse was completely flattened on
the projectile by contact with the pipe.

Nevertheless, a good many, too many indeed,
*did* burst with satisfactory results--to those
who fired them.

A good many of the Boers accordingly took
the precaution of digging a sort of tomb several
feet deep, in which they piled mattresses and
blankets.  They spent all night and part of the
day lying in this shelter.

On Saturday morning, on arriving at the
battery, we were surprised by a whistling sound.
The English, harassed by the fire of *Long Tom*,
had dug trenches during the night to a distance
of about 1,200 yards, and had manned them
with riflemen.  Their fire was not yet very
galling, because of the distance between us.

Colonel de Villebois, seeing clearly what
would happen, renewed his request for a party
of men.  He now only asked for twenty-five to
make an assault that very night, for he pointed
out that the *shanjes* (trenches) would be pushed
forward during the night, and that our battery
would become untenable.  But he was repulsed
by the eternal 'Wait a little while!'

Long convoys of Kaffirs that the English
could no longer feed came out of the town
every day, preceded by huge white flags.  Some
were allowed to pass after a parley, others
were sent back again.

The Colonel feared that an attempt would be
made against *Long Tom* by night, as a sequel
to the offensive movement on the part of the
garrison indicated by the making of the trenches.

Everyone goes to spend the night at the
battery, and we take the opportunity of firing at
the town.  It proves to be merely a pastime.
The English reply, but do not attack us.

On Sunday, February 11, we rest all along
the line.  The Burghers sing hymns in chorus,
and do not cease till late in the evening.  A
sort of patriarchal simplicity obtains among
them.  Yesterday the Colonel was shaving.  A
Boer entered without saying a word, sat down
on his little camp-bed, and remained there
motionless.  The Colonel, used to their ways,
took no notice, but waited for the visitor to
explain his visit.  As this was prolonged
considerably, the Colonel continued his toilet by
a tub taken *puris naturalibus*.  The Boer
remained, staring silently at him.  At last, his
toilet ended, the Colonel explained to the
visitor that he must go, as he wanted to close
his tent.  The Boer departed without a word.
About ten minutes afterwards he came back
with a friend, who explained that he wanted
the Colonel's razor.  He would bring it back
*afterwards*.  It was very hard to make him
understand that the Colonel wished to reserve
the implement for his private use.

On this Sunday, the day of rest, we accordingly
went off to bathe at a spring four kilometres
from our laager.  We enjoy this peaceful
pastime in the company of a young clergyman
who was at one time in the camp.  When *Long
Cecil* began to bombard us, he judged its
war-like thunders to be incompatible with his sacred
function, and set up his tent beyond its range.

On Monday morning the firing began again
early.  Léon and the Colonel went off to the
battery.  Our horses had been turned out to
graze by mistake, so we did not start till an
hour after them.  On arriving, we found the
balls whistling more smartly than on Saturday.
We could plainly distinguish the buzz of the
dum-dum bullets amidst the whir of the
ordinary charge.

During the two nights, the English had
pushed forward their trenches to a distance of
from 700 to 800 yards from us.  We went up
on the platform, where the Colonel, his glass in
his eye, was talking imperturbably to General
du Toit.  At the same moment we saw Léon,
who was standing behind them, spin round and
fall across the gun-carriage.  The poor fellow
had been shot right through the forehead just
above the eyes.

The Colonel at once raised him in his arms,
others started off in haste for an ambulance;
but the bullets were now falling round us like
hail.  Two horses were wounded in an instant,
and a Burgher fell, a bullet clean through his
body.

Poor Léon was still conscious.  He bid us all
good-bye calmly, taking a particularly
affectionate leave of the Colonel, to whom he was
greatly attached.  The Colonel took a little
water to wash the blood from his face, and
placed the empty pannikin on the parapet of
sacks filled with earth behind which we were
sheltered.  So heavy was the English fire that
the pannikin instantly fell to the ground pierced
by a bullet.

At last a cart appeared with an attendant
and a stretcher.  The wounded, who numbered
about a dozen by this time, received first aid;
then Léon was carried off on a stretcher.

What a journey was that march of three
kilometres, the first part of which was performed
under a rain of bullets!  The head of the
wounded man was swathed in cloths, which we
kept wetting continually, holding an umbrella
over his head, for the heat was intense--it was
eleven o'clock in the morning.  Blood poured
from his mouth and nose.  Poor fellow! we
made up our minds that it was all over with him.

We reached Waterworks in two hours.  But
the little house that had been turned into a
hospital was no longer safe since the bombardment
of our camp had begun.  A telegram
had therefore been sent to Riverton Road, where
there was an ambulance-station with a good
doctor.  Towards one o'clock an ambulance-carriage
arrived and carried off our comrade.

On Tuesday, the 13th, we missed the salute
*Long Tom* had been in the habit of giving the
enemy at daybreak.  What had happened?
We sent off for news.  General du Toit replied
that Erasmus declared the gun was broken, and
could not be fired.  He himself had not been
to inquire into the damage, and seemed to be
no more concerned than if he had been told
it was raining at Chicago.  We set off to
Kampferdam in great distress, expecting to
find the gun a wreck.

As we approached, however, we saw that it
was still in place, apparently wondering at its
own silence.  We examined it carefully all over,
but could find nothing to account for the
catastrophe, and, in despair, we sent for Erasmus.

Standing back a couple of paces, he showed
us that one of the beams of the platform, which
had received the full force of the recoil, had
sunk some few centimetres.  It was a matter of
no importance, and did not interfere with the
firing in any way.  But Erasmus, I suppose,
did not feel inclined to work the gun that day.
He had told Du Toit that it was broken, and
the General had at once accepted the statement.
After a severe reprimand to the recalcitrant
gunner, the firing recommenced as usual.

Our provisions began to run out in camp, in
spite of a stock of potatoes we had discovered
at the waterworks.  It was accordingly arranged
that we should start off with two others of the
party to get fresh stores, and a cart and mules, at Pretoria.

The Colonel, believing that the lack of
offensive action among the Boers would prolong the
siege indefinitely, determined to set out himself
on the 15th for Colesberg, where we were to
rejoin him in a few days.  We started on the
14th, bound for Brandfort and Pretoria.

On setting out, my mare, an excellent mount,
but very fiery, brought me suddenly to the
ground, to the great amusement of the Colonel.
The same accident having happened to Breda a
day or two before, it began to be looked upon
as a special privilege of the ex-cavalry officers!

At nightfall we arrived at Riverton Road,
where Léon was lying.  During the evening
the Colonel himself came over to inquire for
him.  He had had a good day, and the operation
that was judged necessary had been fixed for
eleven o'clock that night, to avoid the heat of
daylight.  We waited about the door of the
baggage-shed, which had been converted into
an ambulance.

The operation, which proved perfectly successful,
lasted an hour and a half.  The doctor,
a Scotchman called Dunlop, assured us that our
poor friend was out of danger.

At daybreak on the 15th we started, the
Colonel for the camp, we for Brandfort.  It was
terribly hot, and we were in a hurry, for a
rumour of Lord Roberts' arrival had got about.
It seemed likely that there would be some more
lively work on hand very soon, and we were
anxious to get through the drudgery of
revictualling as quickly as possible.

In the evening we reached Boshof, where a
good many wounded had been brought since
our last visit.  We rode all day on the 16th,
slept in the bush, and started again at daybreak
on the 17th.  Towards noon we took a rest of
an hour and a half, and consumed a tin of
corned beef.

It was nearly two when we mounted again
under a sky of fire, not to draw rein till we
reached Brandfort at ten o'clock on Sunday
morning, save for a compulsory halt of two
hours from three to five in the morning, when
the darkness made it impossible for us to
continue our journey in the trackless sand and
tangled bush.

We had been in the saddle twenty-six hours
out of thirty to accomplish our journey of
120 miles, and had taken three and a half days,
riding over sixty kilometres a day, in average
heat of from 38° to 40° (centigrade), without
fodder and almost without water, in a wild,
unknown country.

Our horses were dead-beat, and we entered
the village on foot, dragging the poor brutes by
their bridles.  What was our stupefaction to
hear that the siege of Kimberley had been
raised without any engagement the very day
after our departure!

The surprise, it seems, had been complete.
There was a cry of 'The English!' and then a
panic, which barely left time to carry off the
guns and waggons.  Part of the ammunition
was left behind, some provisions, *Long Tom's*
break and its platform.  The Colonel had
escaped with Breda.  But in the confusion one
of our comrades, Coste, was lost, and eventually
joined Cronje.

A story which amused us all at the time may
be told here.  A volunteer, no longer in his
first youth--well over fifty, in fact--had come to
join the Colonel just at the time of the English
attack.  A very eccentric character, and slightly
bemused by drink, he found himself in the thick
of the stampede, without any clear idea of what
it was all about.

Suddenly the Burghers, who had never seen
him in the camp before, struck by his odd
behaviour, demanded his passports.  Not
understanding a word of Dutch, he had some difficulty
in making out what they wanted.

At last he produced the necessary paper.
The pandours of the moment scrutinized them
carefully, then, shaking their heads in the
fashion which among all races implies negation,
they said:

'No good!  *Obsal!*' (mount).

Two men ranged themselves on either side of
the unlucky wight, a complete novice in
horsemanship, and galloped off with him to a farm
several miles off.

'Dismount!  Your passports!'

About fifteen persons, men, women and
children, were grouped round a table.  The
passport, handed round once more, is
discussed by the assembly, each person present
giving an opinion.  The general verdict is
unfavourable, for heads are again shaken.

'No good!  *Obsal!*'

The poor volunteer, aching from his furious
gallop, begins to think things rather beyond a
joke; but, anxious to conciliate, he remounts,
and gallops off again under escort.  On arriving
at another farm another inspection, also
unfavourable, takes place.

'No good!  *Obsal!*'

This time the worm turns.  Pale, exhausted
and racked with pain, he opposes the force of
inertia to the rigour of his tormentors, who,
convinced that he is a spy, set him against a wall
and load their rifles.  This argument is so
convincing that he remounts, and finally makes
them understand that he will be able to find
someone to answer for him at Brandfort.

Two days later he arrived there, fasting,
exhausted, and still guarded by his escort.
Fortunately he was recognised and released.  He
never returned to the front.

.. vspace:: 1

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

We leave for Pretoria by the first train, and
arrive on the evening of the 20th.  We at once
set to work on our re-victualling mission.

Two days later, I got a telegram from
Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil.  Having heard
of the arrival of a good many French volunteers
at Pretoria, he agrees to take the command of
them, and orders me to get them together.  A
letter to M. Reitz, sent off at the same time,
explains the project.

Among the new arrivals are ex-petty officers,
ex-sailors, ex-legionaries ... a motley crew.
Their equipment will take several days, and it is
arranged that they are to join us at Colesberg,
for which we start by that evening's train.

During this short sojourn at Pretoria I was
presented by Colonel Gourko to Captain D----,
the French military attaché, one of the most
charming men I have ever met.

We noticed numerous placards on the town
walls, giving notice of thanksgiving services for
February 26 and 27.  It is the anniversary of
Majuba Hill, which is celebrated every year
with great pomp.  This year, in spite of the
national pre-occupation in current events, the
traditional custom is to be kept up.  The usual
review of the troops by the President and the
Commander-in-Chief cannot, of course, take
place; but the shops and offices will be closed
for forty-eight hours, and the whole population
will flock to the churches.

Shortly after our departure, at a station the
name of which I forget--perhaps intentionally,
for I feel a qualm of remorse at the recollection
of it--a little fox-terrier playing about the train
jumped into our carriage.  We were just
starting....  It would have been cruel to throw
the poor little beast on to the platform at the
risk of maiming it or causing it to be run
over....  In short, we kept her, and
christened her Nelly.  She was very pretty,
pure white, with a black patch on her head and
another on her back.  I felt remorseful--until
the next station; then I overcame my
scruples.  I am so fond of dogs.

At Brandfort, a counter-order awaits us,
directing us to go to Bloemfontein, where the
Colonel awaits us, in consequence of Lord
Roberts' latest operations.  We land our cart,
our mules, and our provisions.  But our
worn-out horses have to be replaced.  The Colonel,
impatient to be gone, will not wait for us, and
starts for Petrusburg, where we are to join him
as quickly as possible.

On the 28th, the news of Cronje's
capitulation reaches us.  We know nothing of the
details, but the moral effect is terrible.

We had got together hastily at Pretoria a
cart, harness, mules, and three black boys.
Individually, each of these acquisitions is highly
satisfactory.  The cart is a superb omnibus,
freshly painted gray; the harness is almost new,
the mules very handsome--a little black one in
particular.  The boys were chosen to suit all
tastes: one tall, one short, and one of medium
height.  But it proves very difficult to establish
any sort of cohesion between these various
elements.

At the first attempt the harness breaks, the
mules bite and kick.  It needs the cunning of
an Apache even to approach the little black one.
The boys are stupid, and speak neither Dutch
nor English, nothing but Kaffir.  The omnibus
alone remains stationary, but it creaks and
groans in a pitiable fashion when touched.

A second experiment is no more successful
than the first.  The third gives a better result:
the vehicle moves, and even goes very near to
losing a wheel.

This remarkable result is achieved, firstly,
because all the rotten leathers of the harness are
in pieces, after a double series of joltings and
strainings; only the solid ones are left.
Secondly, the pretty little black mule has run
away, after breaking some dozen halters, so that
we are saved the trouble of harnessing her.
Lastly, we have stationed the three boys at a
safe distance, begging them on no account to
help us, and Michel, who as an old artilleryman
is an adept in harness, does wonders.  Finally
we get off, escorting our omnibus, which groans
aloud at every step.

We look like 'The Attack on the Stage
Coach' in Buffalo Bill!





.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large

   V

.. vspace:: 2

On the morning of the 7th, the road to
Petrusburg was blocked, and the guns were roaring in
front of us.  Marais, Botha's adjutant, joined
us.  At the first sound of the guns we left the
waggons, and galloped off in the direction he
pointed out.  The battle of Poplar Grove was
about to be fought under our eyes, though we
were unable to take a very active part in it.

The engagement went on mainly oh our right;
we were on the left of the Boer lines.  In front
of us was a kopje occupied by a hundred rifles.

About 11 o'clock the English cavalry charged
at the guns, about two miles away.  The firing
slackened.  Then about 2 o'clock the English
began to shell us furiously with shrapnel, also the
kopje forming the Boer centre.  An outflanking
movement completed the demoralisation of the
Boers, and at 3.30 the retreat became general.

President Kruger came by this morning to
announce that he had made the following peace
proposals:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   'BLOEMFONTEIN,
   '*March* 5, 1900.

'The blood and tears of the thousands who
have suffered by this war, and the prospect of
all the moral and economic ruin with which
South Africa is now threatened, make it
necessary for both belligerents to ask themselves
dispassionately, and as in the sight of the Triune
God, for what they are 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 administration over all South
Africa, independent of Her Majesty's
Government, we consider it our duty solemnly to
declare that this war was undertaken solely as
a defensive measure to safeguard the threatened
independence of the South African Republic,
and is only continued in order to secure and
safeguard 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 whatsoever
in person or property.

'On these two conditions, but on these alone,
are we now, as in the past, desirous of seeing
peace re-established in South Africa, and of
putting an end to the evils now reigning over
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,
confident that that God who lighted the
inextinguishable fire of the love of freedom in the
hearts of ourselves and of our fathers will not
forsake us, but will accomplish His work in us
and in our descendants.

'We hesitated to make this declaration earlier
to your Excellency, as we feared that, as long
as the advantage was always on our side, and as
long as our forces held defensive positions far in
Her Majesty's colonies, such a declaration might
hurt the feelings of honour of the British people;
but now that the prestige of the British Empire
may be considered to be assured by the capture
of one of our forces by Her Majesty's troops,
and that we are thereby forced to evacuate other
positions which our forces had occupied, that
difficulty is over, and we can no longer hesitate
clearly to inform your Government and people
in the sight of the whole civilized world why
we are fighting, and on what conditions we are
ready to restore peace.'

.. vspace:: 2

Lord Salisbury replied as follows:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   'FOREIGN OFFICE,
   '*March* 11, 1900.

'I have the honour to acknowledge your
Honours' telegram, dated the 5th of March,
from Bloemfontein, of which the purport is
principally to demand that Her Majesty's
Government shall recognise the "incontestable
independence" of the South African Republic
and Orange Free State "as sovereign international
States," and to offer on those terms to
bring the war to a conclusion.

'In the beginning of October peace existed
between Her Majesty and the two Republics
under the Conventions which were then 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 British residents
in the South African Republic were suffering.
In the course of these negotiations the South
African Republic had, to the knowledge of Her
Majesty's Government, made considerable
armaments, and the latter had, consequently, taken
steps to provide corresponding reinforcements
to the British garrisons of Cape Town and
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 an insulting ultimatum, declared
war upon Her Majesty; and the Orange Free
State, with whom there had not even been any
discussion, took a similar step.  Her Majesty's
dominions were immediately invaded by the
two Republics, siege was laid to three towns
within the British frontier, a large portion of
the two colonies was overrun, with great
destruction to property and life, and the Republics
claimed to treat the inhabitants of extensive
portions of Her Majesty's dominions as if those
dominions had been annexed to one or other of
them.  In anticipation of these operations, the
South African Republic had been accumulating
for many years past military stores on an
enormous scale, which, by their character, could only
have been intended for use against Great Britain.

'Your Honours 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 which Great Britain has suffered
for having in recent years acquiesced in the
existence of the two Republics.

'In view of the use to which the two
Republics have put the position which was given
to them, and the calamities which their
unprovoked attack has inflicted upon Her Majesty's
dominions, Her Majesty's Government can only
answer your Honours' telegram by saying that
they are not prepared to assent to the independence
either of the South African Republic or of
the Orange Free State.'

.. vspace:: 2

It was to be war, then, to the bitter end.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

At the beginning of the retreat, a field-cornet
came to ask my advice, as often happened.
He disregarded it, as always happened.  I
wanted them to destroy the reservoirs, burn the
forage, and poison the wells all along the line
of retreat.[#]  He would never consent.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] The writer apparently made this monstrous
suggestion quite seriously.--TRANSLATOR.

.. vspace:: 2

Later on, when I was a prisoner, an English
officer of rank, who had taken part in the
march across the Orange Free State, told me he
had suffered terribly from thirst, and he assured
me that if the measures I had advised had been
taken, Roberts' 40,000 men, for the most part
mounted, would never have achieved their task.

But at the moment time failed me to prove
to the brave field-cornet, by the teaching of
history in general, and of the wars in Spain
in particular, what excellent results might be
obtained by such a method of defence.  Minutes
were becoming precious, and we made off as
fast as we could, while in the distance we saw
half our convoy blazing, fired by bursting shells.

Towards half-past nine we lay down on the
veldt, without pitching any tents, and keeping a
sharp look-out.  By eleven the last of the Boer
stragglers had passed.  Colonel Gourko and
Lieutenant Thomson had been made prisoners.

On the 8th we were astir at daybreak.  Our
three boys went off to find our beasts, which had
strayed far in search of pasture, on account of
the scanty herbage, in spite of their hobbles.
They were all recovered, however, with the
exception of one mule, which remained deaf to
every summons, a most inconsiderate proceeding
on his part, seeing that the English were at
our heels.

Time being precious, we started off as well as
we could with our reduced convoy.  Suddenly
one of our boys, big John, stood tiptoe on his
long feet, gave a sweeping glance around, and
went quietly on his way.  Half an hour later,
he began again to increase in height and
to study the horizon....  We could see
absolutely nothing.  As my acquaintance with
John was slight, I imagined that he probably
suffered from some nervous affection.  But this
time he sniffed the air loudly, and, without a
word, darted off obliquely from our track.

An hour passed, and he did not return.
Grave doubts of his fidelity began to afflict us.
At last, two hours later, we noticed a speck on
the horizon, then two.  It was John with the
missing mule.  John is an angel--a black angel!

All the farms we passed on the road had
hoisted the white flag.  At noon we reached
the point where the road to Bloemfontein
bifurcates.  A few Burghers were gathered there.
We pitched our tents.

During the evening the French military
attaché, Captain D----, passed, and told us
that Colonel de Villebois was only about an
hour distant from us.

On March 9 we set out to join him.  We
found him with about fifty men, coming from
Pretoria.  These men were divided into two
companies, the first under Breda, the second
under me.  Directly we arrived it was agreed
to start at ten o'clock.  We stopped long
enough to add our cart to the Colonel's convoy,
which we were to pick up near the farm of
Abraham's Kraal.  The 'French Corps' was formed!

About four o'clock we arrived on the height
of Abraham's Kraal.  The farm so-called lies
along the Modder River, which flows from east
to west.  Its steep, bush-entangled banks are
bathed with yellow, turbid water, whence its
name--Modder (Mud) River.  A line of
kopjes, starting from the edge of the river,
stretches several miles south of it.  In front
of them, to the west, lies a barren yellow plain.
Far off on the horizon lie the kopjes of Poplar
Grove, where we were forty-eight hours before.

The Colonel, who has gone off on a scouting
expedition with his troop, is not to be found.
We wait for him vainly all the evening with
General Delarey's staff, in company with Baron
von Wrangel, an ex-lieutenant of the German
Guards.  In this expedition a young volunteer
named Franck, a quartermaster of the Chasseurs
d'Afrique, whose term had just expired,
distinguished himself by his coolness and his boldness
under fire.  He was a brave fellow, as he was
to prove later on.

Night came on fast, our chief was still absent,
and we went off to sleep at a little deserted farm,
with the officers of the Johannesburg Politie.
We lay down beside them and slept like men
who have been in the saddle for twelve hours.

On March 10, at 5 a.m., we started for
General Delarey's bivouac.  It might have
been 6.30, when Vecht-General Sellier passed
us at a gallop, crying: '*Obsal!*  The English!'

Our positions, chosen the night before, were
as follows: Our right, with the Modder River
beyond, consisted of about 400 men of the
Johannesburg Politie, with a Krupp gun, an
Armstrong, and two Maxims.  Then a space
in the plain, where a commando of 200 men,
with three cannon and a Maxim gun, constituting
our centre, had taken up a position early
in the morning.  Finally, to the south, on our
left, 300 men on a round kopje, fairly high.

At Poplar Grove two days before we had
numbered several thousands; but the Boers,
discouraged by the check they had undergone,
had returned to their farms, refusing to fight.
This was a proceeding very characteristic of
these men, slow physically and morally,
profoundly obstinate, astute rather than intelligent,
distrustful, sometimes magnanimous.  Easily
depressed and as easily elated, without any
apparent cause, they are a curious jumble of
virtues and failings, often of the most
contradictory kinds.  The sort of panics frequent
among them are due, I think, rather to their
total lack of organization than to their temperament;
for, not to speak of individual instances
of valour, by no means rare among them, the
Johannesburg Politie, with their very primitive
discipline, have shown what might have been
done by the Boers with some slight instruction
and some slight discipline.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] Ten years ago the Duc de Broglie, in his 'Marie-Thérèse
Impératrice,' wrote as follows of the campaign of
1744 against Frederick the Great:

.. class:: left small

'Prince Charles had not even all his force at his
disposal....  All that had been left him were the Hungarian
levies, who had indeed been the main strength of the
Austrian army; but these irregular troops, passing from
ardour to discouragement with that mobility proper to
men with whom enthusiasm does duty for experience and
discipline, now thought of nothing but of a speedy return
to their homesteads, and entered reluctantly upon every
enterprise that retarded this return.  Whole companies
deserted the flag and took the road for Hungary.'

.. class:: left small

These words, written of the Hungarians of the seventeenth
century, are literally applicable to the Boers of
to-day, and it is curious to note--though I do not for a
moment compare Lord Roberts to Frederick the Great--that
the Hungarians often inflicted a check on the King
of Prussia, just as the Boers have occasionally stopped the
English Marshal.

.. vspace:: 2

They alone had remained, with a handful of
foreigners and some stray men from various
commandos.

The Heilbron Commando, consisting of over
200 men, was represented by the corporal and
three men.  All the rest, the commandant at
their head, had gone home; hence their reduced
fighting strength.  At last all the remnant of
the force was in its place, behind little rocky
entrenchments hastily thrown up.

In the distance a long column of 'khakis'
defiles, marching from north to south, presenting
its left flank to us from a distance of seven or
eight miles, and preceded by a body of mounted
scouts.

We go to inspect the mounting of our guns,
which are arriving on our left and in the centre
of our line.  Then we return to the kopje
where we were before with the Johannesburg
Politie.  Captain D----, the French military
attaché, is there following all the movements.

About eight o'clock an English detachment
essays a movement against us, and we open fire
with our Krupp gun.  English regiments defile
against the horizon till eleven o'clock.  Some
Maxims and a battery of field-guns have been
mounted against us.

Between the English and Boer lines a herd of
springbock are running about in terror under
the shells.  The poor beasts finally make off to
more tranquil regions and disappear.

The Maxims fire short, but after a few seconds
the field-guns find the range, and fire with a
certain precision.  Two shrapnel-shells fired
one after the other burst over our heads.  My
right-hand neighbour gets a bullet just below
his right eye, and falls against me; I am covered
with his blood.  He died soon after.

As I bathe his face, I see Captain D----
hobbling back.  I go to him.  He has been
struck on the hip by a ball, which, having
fortunately spent most of its force, has not
penetrated the flesh.  The wound was not
dangerous, but it swelled a good deal at once, and
caused a numbness in the leg.  I hastily applied
the necessary dressing, which the Captain had
with him, and then went to fetch his horse.

After his departure, we return to the kopje.
The Mounted Rifles advance in force.  We
wait till they are about 500 metres off, and
then open a heavy fire upon them, supported
by the two Maxims.  They retreat rapidly,
leaving some dozen of their number on the
field.  We make four prisoners.  They are
sailors who have been mounted, lads of barely
twenty.  There is a lull after this attempt.

About four o'clock the artillery fire begins
again with redoubled fury, heralding a violent
charge by the infantry, who have been concentrated
under the shelter of the field-guns.  A
simultaneous charge is made on our left wing.
All along the line and on both flanks we sustain
a heavy fusillade from the enemy.  Although
protected to some extent by our rocks, our
losses are pretty heavy.

The English come up to be killed with
admirable courage.  Three times they return to
the charge in the open, losing a great many
men.  At nightfall they are close upon us.

I go in search of Colonel Villebois, who
means to rest his men in a little wood behind
a kopje on the banks of the Modder.  We
have eaten nothing since the night before.

At eight o'clock comes an order for a general
retreat.  We learn that an outflanking
movement is to be attempted against us.  In the
evening General Delarey telegraphed as follows:

.. vspace:: 1

'The English are advancing upon our positions
in two different directions.  They have
begun to bombard General Sellier, and are
keeping up a sharp rifle-fire.  We have been
heavily engaged from nine o'clock this morning
till sunset.  The federated troops fought like
heroes.  Three times they repulsed a strong
force of the English, who brought up fresh
troops against us every time.  Each attack was
repulsed, and at sunset the English troops were
only about forty metres from us.  Their losses
were very heavy.  Our own have not yet been
ascertained.  A report on this point will
follow.'

.. vspace:: 1

We found afterwards that Roberts' entire
army was present, some 40,000 men, and that
he had engaged over 12,000.  Our losses were
380 men out of about 950.

At 8.30 we set out hastily for Bloemfontein,
carrying off our prisoners and wounded on
trolleys drawn by mules.  About eleven o'clock
we pass some English outposts, which are
pointed out to us on our right at a distance of
only a few hundred metres.

At three in the morning we arrive at the
store where we had bivouacked two nights
before.  We leave our horses to graze in a
field of maize, and take a short rest.  About
five we are greeted by distant volleys.

'*Obsal!*'

But my horse is dead lame in the right hind-leg.
I try to bind it up with the remains of an
old waistcoat.  Impossible.  He cannot drag
himself along.  I am forced to 'find' another
which is grazing near by.

I seem to be forming predatory habits.  Here
I am now with a dog I 'found,' which follows
me faithfully, on a horse I also 'found'!  But
it is in the cause of liberty.

Besides, these habits are so much in vogue
among the Boers.  I could tell a tale of one of my
comrades, to whose detriment some half-dozen
horses had been 'found' by the Burghers (the
process is called by them *obtail*).  And, to
conclude, my find was no great acquisition.

We finally arrive at Bloemfontein about
three o'clock in the afternoon.  Here we meet
numbers of English men and women, smartly
dressed in summer costumes, smiling and cheerful,
starting out in carriages to meet the victors.
They are not aggressive, however; our sullen
bearing perhaps warns them that a misplaced
exuberance might have unpleasant consequences.

We find our convoy at the entrance of the
town, and we pass through to our camp on the east.

Poor capital!  What terror, what disorder
shows itself on every side!  The shops have
been hurriedly shut; men, carriages, riders pass
each other in every direction, and the two main
streets are encumbered with an interminable
string of bullock-waggons.  In the market-place
and in the market itself an improvised
ambulance has been set up, and the wounded are
being tended.  On every threshold stand women
and children, whose anxious eyes seem to ask:
'Where are they?'





.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large

   VI

.. vspace:: 2

We start again on the 12th, at three in the
morning.  Not a Burgher remains with us.
They have all gone off in the directions of
Wynburg and Kroonstad.

On the 13th we are on the bridge of the
Modder River.  We establish ourselves in a
deserted farm, and execute some stray ducks,
which would no doubt have died of hunger but
for our timely appearance--a most painful end,
I believe.

Scouts are sent out.  In about an hour the
English are suddenly sighted.  We rush to
the road, and in ten minutes a barricade is
thrown across it.  I am in the centre with the
others.  But the English hang back, and finally
go off.

Towards noon we start in the direction of
Brandfort, where our convoy, which was to
travel day and night, is expected to be by this
time.  It is about 4.30 when we come in sight
of the village.

There is a cloud of dust on our left, then
two despatch-riders on bicycles fly past us.  The Lancers!

We set off at a gallop to get to the houses
before them.  It is a steeplechase between
us.  After an hour's ride we arrive at the same
time as the head of the enemy's advanced guard,
which falls back at a gallop.  We try to pursue
them, but our broken-down horses can carry us
no further.

We rush into the village, while our men
hastily harness our carts.  The Colonel sends
us to take up a position to cover their retreat,
for there are two squadrons of Lancers in the
little wood 500 metres from the village.  The
Landdrost, fearing reprisals, comes to beg me
not to fire.  I give him these alternatives--to
hold his tongue or to be shot.  He prefers the
former, and I see him no more.

Meanwhile, C---- and Michel get down a
cannon from a truck at the railway-station.
The terrified artillerymen refuse to work it.
But the English, not knowing what our
numbers are (we are barely twenty-five), dare
not attack us, and we get away in the night.

Our rallying-point is Kroonstad, the new
capital of the Free State.

On the 15th we are at Wynburg.  We leave
it again on the morning of the 16th by the last
train, setting fire to the railway-station and
destroying the reservoirs.  Comfortably
installed in a train we made up ourselves, at
Smaldeel we are invaded by a whole
commando....  Six men to every carriage, with
their six saddles, six bridles, six rifles, six
cloaks, a dozen blankets, and some twenty
packages....  Ouf!

These good Burghers, who smoke as long
as they can, are without the most elementary
ideas of ordinary civility of behaviour.  Their
familiarity of manner is extraordinary; happily,
they show no resentment if one retorts in like
fashion.  One of them, to steady himself
during his slumbers, thrusts his foot--and such
a foot!--into the pocket of C----'s coat.
C----, put quite at his ease by this proceeding,
does not hesitate to increase the comfort of his
own position by a reciprocal thrusting of his
foot into the waistcoat of his sympathetic
*vis-à-vis*.  They form a touchingly fraternal
group, and in this position they sleep for ten
hours.  At every sudden stoppage, the rounded
paunch of the good Burgher acts as a buffer,
deadening the violence of the jolt for my
friend.

My *vis-à-vis*--I had almost said my
opponent--much more formal, is content to
plant a bag on my knees, and a box on my
feet....  How beautiful is the simplicity of
rustic manners!

At last, on March 17, we reach Kroonstad
and establish our camp there.  We take
advantage of this sojourn to pursue the
education of our 'boys.'

In consequence of our having 'chummed'
with other comrades, our suite has taken on
alarming proportions; we look like a company
of slave-dealers.

The biggest and oldest of our boys is called
John.  He seems to have an inordinate affection
for straws, with which he delights to adorn the
calves of his legs.

The second is also called John; he is one of
the best.  We have christened him 'Cook,' in
allusion to his functions.  An old stove, found
in a house that had been burnt, gives him quite
an important air when he prepares our meals.

The third is called Charlie.  He is very
intelligent, an excellent mule-driver, but a
thorough rascal.

The fourth, who is chocolate-coloured, is
good at guarding the mules at the pasture.
He is called 'Beguini,' which means little.

The fifth is not of much use for anything,
but he is very fond of his master, a sympathetic
survivor of 'Fort Chabrol.'

The sixth belongs to no one.  But noting
that his compatriots seem happy enough with
us, he has established himself in our kitchen,
and serves us more or less like the others.

The Walsh River, a very remarkable stream,
for there is water in it,[#] flows past Kroonstad,
and we occupy our leisure moments with the
bucolic occupation of fishing.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] Most of the rivers are dried up in summer-time.

.. vspace:: 2

All the members of the Government have
assembled at Kroonstad; the two Presidents,
the generals, the military attachés, and Colonel
de Villebois-Mareuil are present at their deliberations.

There seems to be a tendency to energetic
measures.  A martial law decreeing the
death-penalty against deserters is passed and
proclaimed.  Unfortunately, it was never enforced.
The confidence of the Burghers has been
somewhat shaken.  The Executive begins to
understand that he who foretold the
consequences of their blunders so unerringly may
perhaps be able to remedy them.

On the 20th, accordingly, Colonel de
Villebois-Mareuil is appointed Vecht-General, and
all the Europeans are placed under his command.
But scarcely had this just and intelligent
resolution been passed, when jealousy, pride, and fear
of seeing a stranger succeed where they themselves
had failed took possession of the Burghers,
and the orders to concentrate were never
carried out.

It is much to be regretted that sentiments so
injurious to the national cause should have
deprived the Government of the inestimable
services that might have been rendered by a
corps of 1,500 or 2,000 resolute Europeans, all
formerly soldiers, under the command of a man
of the science, the valour, and the worth of
General de Villebois-Mareuil.

Nevertheless, about 200 men of all nationalities,
drawn by the confidence such a leader
alone could inspire, came of their own free will
to place themselves under his orders.  With
these he organized the 'European Legion.'  It
included the two divisions of the French corps,
a Dutch corps, and a German corps.

Everything General de Villebois asked for
was promised, but nothing was carried out.
His plan consisted primarily of raids like those
which marked the War of Secession.

On the 20th he addressed this stirring
proclamation to us and to those who were scattered
further afield:

.. vspace:: 1

'*To the Legionaries who have known me as their
comrade:*

'Officers, non-commissioned officers, and
soldiers!  I know you have not forgotten me,
and that we understand each other, hence this
appeal to you.

'We see around us a worthy people, who are
threatened with the loss of their rights, their
property, and their liberty, for the satisfaction
of a handful of capitalists.

'The blood which flows in the veins of this
people is partly French blood.  France,
therefore, owes them some manifestation of sympathy.

'You are men whose martial temperaments,
to say nothing of the great obligations of
nationality, have brought together under the banner
of this people.  May success and victory attend
their flag!  I know you as the ideal type of
a corps made for attack, and ignorant of retreat.'

.. vspace:: 1

Influenced mainly by the unfriendly attitude
of certain generals to whom his promotion had
given umbrage, Villebois determined to strike a
great blow in all haste.

Without waiting to complete the organization
of the Legion, he formed us into a corps of
100 men, which he made up by the addition of
twenty-five Afrikanders, under Field-Cornet
Coleman; and as soon as the cartload of
dynamite he had been awaiting arrived, he set out
on the 24th, at eight o'clock in the evening.

His parting orders to me were to hold myself
in readiness, with the rest of the men (about
100) and the new arrivals, for Saturday next,
March 31, and to collect horses and provisions.
On the 31st, he would come back and explain
the second part of the operation he was then
beginning.

Absolute secrecy was preserved as to the
object of his expedition.  To Breda's question
as to the direction he proposed to take, he
replied: 'To the right.'

Our poor General was very nervous.  On
March 23, the eve of his departure, he
telegraphed to a wounded friend who was
returning to France: 'You, at least, know
your fate, whereas I am uncertain what lies
before me!'  A dark presentiment, perhaps.  In
any case, what melancholy underlies that short
phrase!  I do not say *discouragement*, for there
are some stout hearts who know not the feeling,
and Villebois was of these.

Two days after, one of my men returned in
the evening; his horse had broken down on the
road.  They had made a very rapid march,
taking only four hours' rest at night and four in
the day, in two fractions.  Nevertheless, after
thirty-six hours of marching at this rate, this
man, unmounted, and separated from the rest of
the column, had found a horse in a kraal, and
had been able to return to Kroonstad in two hours.

Where then had the guide led them?  If I
could have communicated with the General, I
would have warned him, but this was out of
the question.  On the 31st, there was no news;
on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of April, still none.  On
the 4th, after a notice from Colonel Maximoff,
our detachment moved to Brandfort.

We are at a loss to account for the delay in
the return of our comrades.  But in a campaign
delays are so common, the unexpected happens
so constantly, that our anxiety is not very
great.

The special train that takes us to Smaldeel
consists of fifty-three coaches, the number found
necessary for the men, waggons, and horses of
our contingent.  We found that the railway
had been cut beyond Smaldeel, and we were
obliged to go on to Brandfort by the road.

Brandfort had been occupied by the Lancers
for several days, but they had fallen back.  The
village is now the centre of Generals Delarey,
Kolby and Smith.

We arrive on April 7 at 8.30.  In the afternoon
a telegram is posted up announcing that
General Christian de Wet, who is operating to
the east of Bloemfontein, has arrived near
Sanna's Post, cutting off the water-supply of
the Bloemfontein garrison, and carrying off
375 men, 7 cannon, 1,000 mules and 400
waggons.  Three days later, on April 4, at
Dewetsdorp, he took 459 more prisoners and
12 waggons.

This was the beginning of that series of
*razzie* and surprises he has been carrying on
incessantly ever since, astonishing the most
audacious by his audacity, and by the rapidity
and suddenness of his movements defeating the
most scientific and elaborate devices for his
capture.  Broadwood, Rundle, Hunter, even
Kitchener have been forced to give up the chase,
and to wait till Fortune, unfaithful for a day,
shall deliver the valiant Burgher into their
hands.

We met the Landdrost of Brandfort again,
now more patriotic than ever; but he seemed
slightly embarrassed when he saw us.

On April 7, the day of our arrival, we made
a reconnaissance towards the south with four
men.  As we left the Boer lines we met a man,
who, hearing us talking French, came to bid us
'Bon jour!'  We entered into conversation, and
he seemed to take a great interest in European
news.  At last he told us he was a Belgian, and
suddenly asked:

'You had a war with the Germans one time,
didn't you?'

The war of 1870 was news to him.  He had
been on the Veldt since 1867.

'Do you know if our Leopold is still on the
throne?'

After assuring him of the health and even
vigour of his Sovereign, we continued our
reconnaissance, not without moralizing a little
over a man who had so completely broken with
Europe and the old civilization.

The English positions were visible from
Brandfort, on Tabel Kop and Tabel Berg, the
other side of the plain that stretches south-east
of the little town.  Towards five o'clock we
received a few volleys, hastily fired, which did
no damage.  But our object was attained: we
had discovered that the enemy's positions
extended a good way to the south.

The 8th was a Sunday.  In the evening I
received this telegram from President Steyn:

.. vspace:: 1

'The Landdrost of Hoopstad sends me the
following: "Field-Cornet Daniels reports that
the troops under Methuen's command at Boshof
have marched upon Hoopstad, and I have
received from Methuen himself the letter I
communicate below.  The native who brought
the letter tells us that an engagement took place
with General de Villebois in the neighbourhood
of Boshof, that ten men were killed on our side,
and fifteen on that of the enemy, among them
a superior officer, but that all our force was
finally made prisoner.  Field-Cornet Daniels
supposes that the enemy will march upon
Christiana and Hoopstad, and thence upon
Kroonstad."

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   "'HEADQUARTERS, SWARTZ KOPJEFONTEIN,
   "'*April* 8, 1900.

.. class:: left

   "'To THE COMMANDANT OF THE FREE STATE LAAGER.

.. class:: left

"'SIR,

'"I have the honour of sending you a
copy of Lord Roberts' proclamation to the Free
State, laying down the conditions under which
you are invited to surrender.

'"Two days ago the Foreign Legion was
taken prisoner by me, and their General,
Villebois, was killed.

'"The English army is advancing on every
side, and I beg you to consider the very liberal
conditions now offered you, which would not
be renewed at a later date.

'"I have the honour to be, sir,

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   '"Your obedient servant,
   '"METHUEN,"

'"Lieutenant-General commanding
the 10th Division."'

.. vspace:: 1

This telegram was a thunderbolt for us.
The anxiety we had felt at the General's delay
had not been such as to have caused us to dream
of such a catastrophe.  Yet we could not doubt
the news.

'Two days ago the Foreign Legion was
taken prisoner by me, and their General,
Villebois, was killed,' said the telegram.

That evening two reconnoitring parties were
sent out; the first, from the Tabel Kop
direction, came in next morning with a wounded
man.  The second, under Wrangel, started for
the neighbourhood of Hoopstad, and could not
return for several days.

On the 9th we made an inventory of the
property belonging to the General, to Breda,
and to the rest of our poor comrades, all of
which was packed for transmission to Pretoria.
The same day I received the following telegram
from Colonel Gourko:

.. vspace:: 1

'Thomson unites with me in the expression
of our profound grief at the cruel loss you have
sustained in the person of Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil,
a valiant soldier and distinguished leader.'

.. vspace:: 1

This homage from the Russian and Dutch
attachés to the memory of our great compatriot
touched us deeply.

On the 10th one of Ganetzki's men was
killed in a reconnaissance.  Comte Ganetzki
had his day of Parisian celebrity in connection
with La belle O----.

On the 11th I had a telegram from Wrangel:

.. vspace:: 1

'I reached here (Hoopstad) at 5.30 this
evening, with five men.  The English are at
Knappiesfontein, an hour and a half's march
from Boshof.  There are no Burghers at Hoopstad.
I shall start for Boshof to-morrow, and
send you a report later on.  I await your
orders.'

.. vspace:: 1

I at once communicate this news to General
P. Botha.  He believes that the environs of
Hoopstad are occupied by the Burghers, and
that the English will march upon Smaldeel
to cut off communication (April 12).  Events
proved him to have been entirely mistaken; but
I might have talked to him for hours without
altering his convictions an iota.

Cannon had been thundering all the evening
in the distance, but we had not been able to
determine in what direction they were.
On April 13, Commandant Delarey, brother
of the General, was appointed honorary
commander of the European Legion--'honorary'
because he could not act save in concert with
the heads of the different corps--Rittmeister
Illich for the Austro-Hungarians, Captain
Lorentz for the Germans, myself for the French.

An official telegram announces that General
de Villebois was buried at Boshof with military
honours.  Lord Methuen was present, and the
prisoners of the Legion were represented.
There was even a funeral oration, to which
Breda replied.

In the engagement of April 5 there had
been 11 killed, the General being one, and 51
wounded, out of 68.  The rest had been made
prisoners.

.. vspace:: 1

*Easter Day*, 1900.--A second telegram from
Wrangel, dated from Hoopstad, reports as
follows:

'1. Braschel (a former officer of the German
artillery) informs us that 10,000 men and 700
cavalry are marching from Boshof on Bultfontein.
He counted thirty-six gun-carriages, cannon, and
waggons.

'2. There are about 700 Burghers at Landslaagte.'

.. vspace:: 1

On the 16th, we take horse at noon with
every man available to join Kolby.  This
excellent General, one of the best men that ever
lived, is not remarkable for the originality of his
combinations.  He witnessed our arrival with
delight, smiling--he is always smiling--received
us very cordially, and asked us what we had
come for!  He had had no instructions about
us; however, it was all the same to him whether
we slept there or elsewhere, so we remained.
We came in for a perfect deluge of rain all
night, and at four the next morning we started
to take up a position with Delarey's, Botha's,
and Kolby's commandos.

We number from 1,000 to 1,200 Burghers,
with two Creusot guns, a Krupp and a Nordenfeldt.

At 4.30 in the evening, orders are given to
retire to the different camps.  We arrive at
10 o'clock.

On the 18th, it rains again in torrents.  In
the evening, about 9 o'clock, Wrangel's
reconnoitring party comes in.  I will transcribe the
account given me by one of his men, Meslier,
that it may lose nothing of its interest by a
paraphrase.

'Starting on Monday, the 9th, in the evening,
we marched secretly and rapidly towards
Hoopstad, following first the Vedula and then the
Wet River across the veldt.  We crossed rivers
without any fords, passing through a country
without roads or paths, and through the dense
bush that grows on the banks of the
water-courses.  Out of ten picked horses two died,
and three men fell out on the road exhausted.
One of them went into hospital at Smaldeel.

'On Wednesday, the 11th, we reached Hoopstad
at five o'clock in the evening, and slept at
the President Hotel, which is kept by a German.

'At six o'clock next morning (April 12) I
started with Braschel and Brostolicky in the
direction of Boshof.  The English, after having
advanced upon Bultfontein, as reported in our
telegram of the 15th, returned for the most part
towards Boshof.  We slept that night at
Landslaagte, where the Johannesburg Politie are
encamped.  They number about 200, and expect
a reinforcement of 300 men.

'We left again on the morning of the 13th,
separating at a given point, Braschel and his
companion going towards the camp of
Commandant Cronje (brother of the General taken
prisoner at Paardeberg), and I towards Boshof.

'Towards noon I passed Driefontein, which
was supposed to be occupied by the English.
The inhabitants of the farm told me that when
Colonel de Villebois arrived an English corps
had been in the neighbourhood for several days,
apparently waiting.  The people at the farm
heard the noise of the battle, which lasted about
four hours, and helped to collect the dead and
wounded afterwards.  Among our men they
noticed one who had a handkerchief bound
round his head and a very large nose.  Another
had a very long beard.

'Towards one o'clock I arrived at Muyfontein,
where there was a little outpost of thirty
Lancers under an officer.  I sheered off to
the east, and arrived near Boshof about half-past
four.

'Boshof was full of troops.  From the
neighbouring kopjes one could distinctly see the
"khakis" moving about in the village.  Skirting
Boshof, I arrived at Kopjefontein on the
south-west.  There I was a good deal disturbed by
strange hissing noises coming from about
800 metres away, and the pursuit of a party
of twenty Lancers, who followed me for about
half an hour.

'I returned to Rothsplaats Farm, where I
spent the night.  I had fastened my horse to a
cart, and had laid down myself under a tree.
About ten o'clock eight marauders approached
from the path.  Not seeing me, some of the
party installed themselves in the farm, while the
rest chased a young pig, which, flying in terror
before them, came quite close to the corner
where I was lying in ambush.  Fortunately he
changed his mind, and made off in another
direction.  Finally, to my great satisfaction,
they caught him, and the whole party returned
to the farm.  They stayed about two hours,
and then departed.

'At four in the morning I continued my
journey, and at eight o'clock I arrived at
Landslaagte, where I joined the Johannesburg
Politie.

'Between Landslaagte and Driefontein I met
Cronje with about 2,000 men, a Krupp and a
Nordenfeldt gun.  His intention was to attack
Kopjefontein.  I reported what I had seen, and
went on towards Hoopstad; but my worn-out
horse fell when we were still some four hours
distant from the town.  I was obliged to sleep
at a farm, and was unable to reach Hoopstad
till the afternoon of Sunday, the 15th.  All our
seven horses had broken down.  We asked for
others, which the Landdrost refused.  Wrangel
accordingly telegraphed to President Steyn, who
replied by an order to give us everything we
required.

'We took some excellent horses and a few
necessary garments, for a three days' journey
through the thorns and bush that border the
Wet River had reduced us to absolute rags.

'These negotiations and a brief rest occupied
Monday and Tuesday.  We started on Wednesday
at one o'clock, and knowing the road to be
safe, we passed through Bultfontein, accomplishing
our return journey in a day and a half.

'At Hoopstad we were told that when the
Villebois contingent had passed through, all had
remarked the gaiety of the General, who had
kept the piano going all the evening, and the
depression of Breda.'

These last words gave a fresh poignancy to
our regrets.  Just as the General had been the
ideal of the brilliant and revered leader, so had
Breda been the ideal of the devoted friend, the
good comrade, the man of sound judgment and
charming amenities.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

From this report we gathered certain facts
hard to explain.  We group them here together
with others which reached us from a different
source.

1. Wrangel and his men, who left Brandfort
on the evening of the 9th, arrived at Driefontein
at noon on the 13th--in four nights and three
and a half days.  The General, under the conduct
of his Afrikander guide, took twelve nights and
eleven days (from the evening of March 24 to
the morning of April 5) to cover an equivalent
distance.  Now, the length and irregularity of
this march were utterly irreconcilable with the
object the General had in view, with the dates
he had himself fixed, and with the length and
severity of the distances he was in the habit of
exacting from his men.

2. Numerous desertions took place among
the Dutch and the Afrikanders, men who spoke
the same language.

3. Finally, and this is a very serious
coincidence, a whole English brigade, which retired
as soon as it had made the *coup* determined on,
was lying in wait for the contingent, the itinerary
of which had been kept so strictly secret that
only the guide could have known it exactly.

This fact was confirmed by the following
statement made to me by an English officer
present at the engagement.  The General,
finding himself surrounded at daybreak, after
having marched all night, took up a position
on a kopje near the farm of Driefontein.
Artillery fire began almost immediately, opened
by Battery No. 4 of the Royal Field Artillery.

Throughout the four hours of the engagement
the General was seen walking up and
down, encouraging first one and then another,
and pointing out the spots at which his followers
were to fire.  His death was followed by the
surrender of the decimated band.

The General wore the costume he always put
on for expeditions and for the field--a brown
hat, fastened up on one side with a badge
bearing the arms of the Transvaal; an old black
tunic, the large metal buttons of which had been
replaced by large black ones; brown corduroy
trousers, and shooting-boots, laced in front and
buckled at the sides; his revolver in a
cross-belt, and at his waist a yellow leather case,
containing a chronometer, a barometer and a
compass.  He always wore brown kid gloves,
and carried a bamboo cane.  I will not yet
express the melancholy thought which, with
me, has become a firm conviction; but when I
learned the fate of my revered chief, 'the La
Fayette of South Africa,' as one of the most
distinguished Generals of the French army called
him, how could I but remember the disappointments
he had suffered during the last six months,
the petty jealousies by which he had been
pursued, and the ill-will which had hampered
all his bold and intelligent initiative?

Pondering these things, I recalled the day
when, before Kimberley, the General had
received from France a little gold medal, which
he showed me with proud emotion.  It bore
this inscription: 'To a great Frenchman, from
the companions of his daughter.'

Yes, a great Frenchman!  For in him
flourished all high thoughts of duty and abnegation,
all the noble virtues that make up a great
leader and a great patriot.  He was a man and
a soldier.

In this connection it will be of interest to
record what my friend and comrade Breda told
me, on his return from Saint Helena, of the
engagement of April 5.  He cannot believe that
there was treachery, yet he cannot explain certain
strange coincidences.

'We started, as you know,' he said, 'on the
evening of March 24.  Our guide began by
losing his way the first night and the first day.
(This confirmed the story told by my man,
who came back in two hours, after marching
out for thirty-six.)

'At last we arrived at Hoopstad, where an
important group of the Dutch contingent refused
to advance.

'The General, determined to advance with
the French alone, ordered the names of the
Dutch who remained faithful to be taken down.
A sudden revulsion of feeling made the majority
of them give in their names, and the detachment
set off in the direction of Boshof.

'At the farm of Driefontein a messenger came
in search of the General.  A most important
communication from a distinguished personage
awaited him at Hoopstad.  A serious scheme
was on foot for the formation of a large legion.

'This project appealed strongly to the General,
who left me at Driefontein with the detachment,
returning himself to Hoopstad to confer with
the envoy.  He returned in three days, and
the march towards the south was resumed.

'The General supposed that there might be
about 200 or 300 men at Boshof, and, on being
assured of this, a Boer commando of about 200
men joined us.  But on the 4th, information
was received that Boshof was much more
strongly occupied, and that it might hold from
800 to 1,000 men.  The General, believing
this story to be an invention of the Burghers
to excuse their defection--of which they
immediately gave notice--disregarded it, and
continued his march.

'We arrived near a farm where, it appears, the
English officers at Boshof were in the habit of
coming to picnic on Sundays.  The General
made for a point a little way from this, and
halted beside a small kopje.  We unsaddled the
horses and sent them to graze, and the tired
men lay down to sleep.

'I remained talking with General de Villebois,
when we suddenly caught sight of a few horsemen.

'"The English!"

'I went off to wake the men quietly, for
we hoped to surprise this little reconnoitring
party.  There were so few of them that we
did not fetch in our horses.

'They came nearer.  All of a sudden, behind
them in the distance a long column of "khakis"
came in sight.  It was no longer a question of
surprising a patrol.  We had to defend ourselves.

'The General at once recognised the gravity
of the situation.  He arranged his men on two
little kopjes, the Dutch on one, the French on
the other, remaining himself with the latter.
Each man had his place assigned him, his rock
to defend.

'And the battle began--a furious, hopeless
encounter.  For three hours we replied as well
as we could to the tremendous fusillade that soon
made gaps among us.

'Almost at the outset the Dutch hoisted the
white flag and surrendered.  Two or three of
them who chanced to be with the French
contingent came and asked General de Villebois to
surrender.  He pointed to the kopje where
their compatriots had already laid down their arms.

'"Here we do not surrender," he said.

'By degrees, however, the first shelters were
abandoned, and the men fell back on some
rocks beyond.  The General noticed this.

'"Return to the first positions!" he ordered.

'Bullets were falling like hail.  There was a
moment's hesitation.

'"Shall I go myself?" cried the Chief, advancing.

'But a brave fellow springs forward.  It is
Franck, who had already distinguished himself
at Abraham's Kraal.  Waving his rifle with
a grand gesture, he cried: "Vive la France!"

'He fell instantly, struck by two bullets.
But the impulse had been given; the positions
were resumed.

'On all sides, however, the "khakis" were
closing in upon us.  They fixed their bayonets
and charged.  Suddenly the General fell back
without a word.  He was dead.'

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

Whatever the strength and vitality of a man
may be, the inert body will fall when the soul
takes flight.  Villebois was the soul of the
legion.  Accordingly, when he was killed,
the survivors surrendered, after four hours
of heroic resistance.

Out of twenty-seven Frenchmen, the General,
Le Gilles and Robiquet were killed, Bardin,
Bernard, Franck and the others were wounded.

The English officers told us that they had
been informed several days before of the arrival
of 100 Frenchmen at Hoopstad, thus confirming
the story of the Driefontein farmers.

.. vspace:: 1

The Comte de Villebois, one of the youngest
colonels in the French army, had been severely
wounded as a sub-lieutenant in the army of the
Loire in 1870.  His conduct had been such as
to merit the Cross of the Legion of Honour at
the age of twenty.

I will transcribe here, as a touching homage
to his memory, the order of the day which
Colonel de Nadaillac addressed to his regiment,
informing them of the glorious death of their
former chief:

'Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil, who had the
honour of commanding the 130th Regiment,
has died a soldier's death in the Transvaal, shot
through the breast by the fragment of a shell.

'Retiring at an early age, at his own request,
he took his sword and the resources of his fine
intelligence to the aid of the little Boer nation.

'His chivalrous soul could not resist the appeal
of those generous sentiments which have so long
been a tradition in our fair France.  He wished
to defend the weak against the strong.

'Let us respectfully salute this victim of the
noblest French virtues, this valiant soldier who
has fallen on the field of honour.

'The former Colonel of the 130th will be held
in loving remembrance by us, and we offer the
just tribute of our patriotic regrets to his
memory.

'May God have mercy on the brave man
who left child, friends, and fortune, to defend
the oppressed.

'The death of Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil
will be recorded in the regimental annals of the
130th.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large

   VII

.. vspace:: 2

On the 18th we heard that De Wet, after his
successes at Taba N'chu and Sanna's Post, was
at Wepener, where he had surrounded 2,000
men of Brabant's Horse.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

Without orders, and without precise tidings
of any kind, we remain five days longer at
Brandfort.

General Delarey seems uncertain what to do.
While he is casting about for a plan of action,
we may take a glance at our enemies, and study
them a little.

In this campaign the English army has
collected together elements the most diverse.
About one half of it consists of regular troops,
the other half of volunteers, colonial troops,
and contingents from every country.  Their
behaviour under fire varies greatly, according
to their origin.

Tommy Atkins the regular, cold, calm,
advances under a hail of projectiles, marching
steadily in time, as if on the parade-ground.
Scornful of danger, his head held high, he
seems to say: 'Make way!  I am an Englishman!'

The colonial, on the other hand, the
cowboy, the volunteer from the Cape, from
Rhodesia, and from Australia, a hunter by
profession, fights in the same fashion as the
Boers.  He has their qualities and their
defects: great precision as a marksman, but a
lack of cohesion and of discipline.  Crouching
behind a rock, taking advantage of every scrap
of cover, like his adversary, he hunts rather
than fights.

But a good many militiamen, volunteers from
various towns, and yeomen are even less brilliant,
and exchange perils, privations, and fatigue for
a sojourn in a Boer prison with great readiness.
Some of the regular regiments, too, brought up
to their fighting strength by hasty recruiting at
the last moment, are not exempt from the shame
of unnecessary capitulations.

But such proceedings are not characteristic of
Tommy.  The Englishman knows very little
of the art of war, but he is brave, very brave.

The officers, with some few exceptions, are
ignorant of everything an officer should know.
The operations (?) of Sir Charles Warren, Lord
Methuen, and Sir Redvers Buller seem to be a
sort of competition of lunatics.

General Buller appears to have some inkling
of it himself; on December 28 he writes as
follows from the camp of Frere:

'I suppose our officers will in time learn the
value of scouting; but in spite of all one can
say, up to this our men seem to blunder into
the midst of the enemy, and suffer accordingly.'

These words from the pen of the General
who, on January 24, was to 'authorize' the
Spion Kop fiasco are delicious!

The profession of arms in England is an
occupation not at all absorbing, but very
fashionable, very 'sporting.'

War itself is a sport, which has its special
costume, its accidents proper to the soldier, but
which is not supposed to engross the man.
The fact that a great many officers brought
with them, in addition to their khaki uniforms
and braided tunics, tennis, football, and polo
costumes, dress-coats and smoking-jackets, is
significant of this state of mind.

The programme they had mentally drawn up
was something of this sort: From 7 to 8 a.m.,
football, breakfast; from 9 to 10, lawn tennis;
from 10 to 11, a battle; then a rest, a tub,
massage, lunch!

The English officer is a gentleman, always
perfectly well bred, often very well educated,
and extremely affable; but he is a gentleman,
and not an officer.

War entered upon by men of this type
demands neither serious preliminary study nor
effective progress in an army; and as regards
military art and science, the English are still at
the stage of the pitched battle.

It is but just to add that they have also
preserved the cool, tenacious courage and the
indomitable energy of their race, qualities which
none can deny them.  I saw some superb
charges by English troops in Africa, but they
always reminded me of Marechal Pelissier's
remark after the heroic charge at Balaclava:
'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!'

I am no Anglophile, as my campaign of over
eight months on the Boer side sufficiently
proves, but it is the duty of a loyal soldier to
recognise the qualities and the courage of his
adversaries.

After this short digression, let us resume our
survey of the English army.

During the first months, up to March, their
artillery ammunition seems to have been very
defective, often exploding imperfectly, or not
at all.  The fire took a long time to regulate,
and was nearly always independent, rarely in
salvoes.  Nevertheless, I several times saw guns
served in a remarkably efficient manner.

The horses are superb, and were constantly
renewed; throughout the campaign they had
from five to six quarterns of oats a day.

Their artillery equipment consists of a variety
of very ordinary patterns.  They have not yet
any field-guns with breaks.  The mounted
artillery (Royal Horse Artillery) is a picked
body of men.  Its officers must have served
four years in the Field Artillery, and must also
be possessed of a certain private income.

Their guns, Armstrongs of 76.2 millimetres,
are called 12-pounders (from the weight of the
projectile).  The Field Artillery uses 89
millimetre guns with 22-pound shells.  The
breech-blocks are screwed in.  The mountain-guns
(1882 pattern) are loaded at the muzzle.

The batteries consist of six pieces, with the
exception of the volunteer batteries, which have
only four.

Their shell-guns, of which even during their
operations on the open plain they had a certain
number of batteries (notably No. 61 Battery at
Spion Kop, and No. 65 Battery at Paardeburg),
are howitzers of the latest pattern; they are
loaded at the breech, and are specially
constructed for fire at a high angle of elevation.

Their naval guns and siege guns, dragged
about by teams of from twenty to thirty oxen,
were able to follow the troops in a satisfactory
manner.

The lyddite shells did not prove very
effective.  They explode with a loud and violent
report.  The green smoke has a stupefying
effect; objects such as stones or fragments of
shell that come in contact with the explosive
take on a sulphur-green tint.

The English used over 300 guns; and if we
add to these thirty-five large naval guns,
mounted upon siege-gun carriages, and those
of the volunteer batteries, we get a total of
about 400.

The cavalry has played but a secondary part;
but the charges of General French's division at
Poplar Grove were vigorously executed, and
cost the lives of two officers and some fifty men.
The relief of Kimberley by this same division
was rather a raid of great rapidity than a
cavalry action properly so-called.

The Boer method of warfare explains the
powerlessness of the cavalry to take any
prominent part in the operations; reconnaissances
were carried out by Kaffir spies and
Afrikander irregulars.  Cavalry pursuit would,
I think, have been perfectly useless, for the
Boers would have immediately taken up
defensive positions in kopjes inaccessible to horses,
and the precision of their fire would soon have
proved extremely harassing to the horsemen.

The infantry, to give it greater mobility, was
relieved of every kind of impedimenta.  The
uniform is extremely practical as a whole.

The foot-soldier wears a khaki tunic with
pockets, made in the summer of canvas, in the
winter of cloth; trousers to match, the lower
part bound up in strips of khaki flannel, on the
same pattern as those of our Chasseurs Alpins.
His helmet is absolutely unsuitable; heavy
and ugly, it does not even protect him from the sun.

A big dark-gray cloak, a blanket, and a
waterproof tent canvas, which theoretically are
supposed to be carried on the back in two
little rolls, are as a fact transported on trolleys
drawn by mules marching on the left of each company.

The man carries only his canteen and his
bandolier.  The latter seemed to me too large
and heavy to be practical, but the canteen, the
lid of which makes a saucepan, seems
convenient.  It is the same for officers and privates.
Each battalion is followed by a little Maxim
gun, firing Lee-Metford cartridges.

The Mounted Infantry is, theoretically, an
arm of the first importance.  In practice it has
its partisans and its detractors.  I leave the task
of authoritative pronouncement to critics more
expert than myself, and shall only say that
Colonel Martyr's and General Hutton's Mounted
Rifles rendered very considerable service to Lord
Roberts.  The Mounted Rifle has an ordinary
cavalry saddle, with a black cloak rolled up on
the holsters before him.  His uniform is the
same as that of the infantry: a tunic, trousers,
and flannel bandages.  He wears the felt hat
of the country.  He carries two bandoliers
and is armed with the Lee-Metford rifle and
with a short bayonet like that of our artillery-men.
The butt-end of his gun rests in a bucket
hanging on the right of his saddle, and the
stock is supported by a leather thong round the
right arm like a lance.

The Mounted Rifle fights on foot, sheltering
his horse behind a piece of rising ground.  His
horse to him is merely a rapid means of transport.

Belts and straps, swords, sheaths and hilts,
guns and waggons, are all painted khaki colour.

After enumerating all the weapons used by
the belligerents, it would be an unpardonable
omission to say nothing of the famous dum-dum bullets.

Have they been much used?  Yes, certainly,
and on both sides.

The story that the Boers only used those
they had captured from the English is quite
inadmissible, for the Mauser rifles, which were
used exclusively in the Transvaal, were largely
provided with them.

I will try to describe the patterns chiefly used:

1. Section in the nickel casing, leaving the
extremity of the leaden bullet exposed; the lead,
getting very hot, emerges partly from the casing,
flattens at the slightest resistance, and expands.

2. Four longitudinal sections in the nickel
casing allow the bullet to flatten at the moment
of contact, and to exude lead through the
apertures.

These two first patterns, the ones most in use,
are made for Lee-Metford and Mauser rifles.

The English also use hollow-nosed bullets,
the extremity of which is cut or rubbed off.

The Boers, for their part, have manufactured
solid projectiles, which show the lead through a
straight section, and have the four longitudinal
slits.

A few expansive Lee-Metford cartridges,
hollow, and filled with fulminate, certainly
existed, but I do not believe that they were ever
in general use.

I need not insist upon the terrible injuries
inflicted by all these projectiles.  I have seen
the whole of the back of a man's hand carried
away by a bullet entering the palm, where it
had only made a hole of the normal dimension.

During this war, in an arid country without
any towns, Tommy has suffered terribly.
Accustomed to the comfort of English barracks
and to abundant meals, he was ill-prepared to
spend his nights on the hard ground in cold and
rain, with stones that bruised his ribs for his
only bed, and half a biscuit for his dinner.

Now that we have inspected the English
army, let us see what it has accomplished since
our arrival.

First of all in Natal.  In January, Ladysmith
was still invested.  The garrison of nearly
10,000 men and the inhabitants were decimated
more by disease than by the occasional shells
the Boers threw into the town every day as a
matter of duty.  Provisions had become scarce.
An officer's ration was two biscuits and 240
grammes of horseflesh a day.

A dozen eggs cost £2 8s.; a dozen tomatoes,
18s.; a tin of preserved meat, £3; a tin of
condensed milk, 10s.; a pot of jam, £1 11s.;
a quarter of a pound of English tobacco, £3;
a case containing a dozen bottles of whisky,
£140, nearly £12 a bottle.

Nevertheless, a newspaper published by the
besieged, the *Lyre*, is still facetious.  It
publishes the following notes:

'*Telegram from London*.--A shell thrown by
*Long Tom* fell in the War Office.  General
Brackenbury received it with resignation....
A good many reputations have been damaged.
The 2nd Army Corps has been discovered in
the War Office portfolios.'

Meanwhile, Buller was still trying to cross
the Tugela and relieve Ladysmith.  Without
any definite plan, perplexed and irresolute, he
runs up and down the bank of the river like a
cat afraid of the water.

At last he 'permits' Warren to attack Spion
Kop.  It is strange indeed to find Warren's
15,000 men (the 5th Division) and Buller's
25,000 setting out without a map, without
information, and without a guide.

On January 16 Lieutenant Flood luckily
discovered a ford, by which two battalions
crossed the river; but then the Engineers were
obliged to await the arrival of Lieutenant
Mazzari's sailors to make a ferry.

At Trichardt's Drift two pontoon bridges
were built, and the whole of Warren's division
crossed.

On the 19th this General essays an
out-flanking movement in the direction of Acton
Homes; but this manoeuvre at the base of
escarpments occupied by the enemy is found to
be too dangerous; the division falls back upon
Trichardt's Drift with its convoys and the 420
bullock-waggons intended for the Ladysmith
garrison.

A frontal attack, facing east, is decided upon
for January 20.  The infantry is engaged 800
yards from the Boer trenches.  It is three
o'clock; an assault is about to be made on the
position.  But a counter-order arrives, the reason
for which has never yet been explained.

On the 21st, 22nd and 23rd the English try
to gain a few hundred yards.  Clery and Warren
confess themselves powerless, and turn the attack
towards the south-east.

On the night of the 23rd General Woodgate
receives orders to seize Spion Kop.  General
Woodgate, commanding the 9th Brigade, took
part in the Abyssinian campaigns of 1868, the
Ashanti campaign of 1873, and the Zulu
campaign of 1879.  Later he was in command of
the English forces in West Africa, during the
rising of 1898.

He took with him eight companies of the
2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, six companies
of the 2nd Battalion Royal Lancashire Regiment,
two companies of the 1st Battalion South
Lancashire Regiment, 194 men of Thorneycroft's
Mounted Infantry, and a half-company Royal
Engineers.  To these were added two battalions
from General Lyttelton's Brigade.

At 3.30 in the morning, after mounting the
hill in silence, Lieutenant Audrey, in command
of the advance-guard, took two of the Boer
trenches with the bayonet.  They were held by
Boers of the Vryheid commando, who were few
in number, and had been completely surprised.

But the Heidelberg and Carolina
commandos, under Schalk Burger, came to the
rescue.  Urged forward by a German
commando and by Ricciardi's Italians, they crossed
an open space under a hail of bullets and
lyddite shells, and established themselves on
one of the three spurs formed by the kopje
at this point.

The struggle was very fierce.  Between nine and
eleven the English charged three times with the
bayonet and were repulsed.  Under the deadly
fire of the Mausers and the Maxim-Nordenfeldts
they were obliged to fall back gradually, before
any serviceable reinforcements had reached them.

Woodgate, mortally wounded, was replaced
by Colonel Thorneycroft; the latter received
neither orders nor instructions, though it would
have been easy to have established optical
telegraph communication, as the heliograph was
working between Mount Alice and Bester
Farm (Redvers Buller and White).[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] A heliograph *was* working on the height, but 'the
signallers and their apparatus were destroyed by the heavy
fire' (*vide* Sir Charles Warren's report).--TRANSLATOR.

.. vspace:: 2

His position had become most critical; a
council of war was hastily called, on the
decision of which the height was evacuated under
cover of night.

On January 25 Sir Redvers Buller, who had
hastened to Warren's camp, was informed of
this catastrophe, which upset all his
combinations.  A general retreat was determined on,
and the troops recrossed the Tugela.

After this bloody check, General Buller's
report of the movement is delicious:

'The fact that we were able to withdraw our
ox-waggons and mule transports over a river
85 yards broad and with a rapid current,
without any interference from the enemy, is, I
think, a proof that they have learnt to respect
the fighting powers of our soldiers.'

The 'lesson' he had given the Boers had cost
him 307 killed, thirty-one of whom were officers;
175 wounded, of whom forty-nine were officers;
and 347 prisoners and missing, among them
seven officers.

The Boers had 168 men killed.  And, as
Ricciardi has pointed out, but for the
incomprehensible opposition of General Joubert, this
retreat across the Tugela would have been, not
a proof that the enemy had learnt to respect the
fighting powers of the English, but a terrific
rout.  For General Louis Botha, surrounded by
a dozen guns, was watching the English passing
over their pontoons from the heights he had
defended the night before.  They were well
within range, and the gunners were at their
posts.  It wanted but an order, the pontoons
would have been destroyed, and Warren's
division, hemmed in by the river, would have
been massacred to a man.  Why was this order
not given?

In March, even before the death of the
Generalissimo, a terrible word had been
whispered--treason!  At any rate, his inaction was
highly culpable, for if the struggle seems
hopeless now, there was a time when he might have
turned it into victory, and made it another
Majuba Hill campaign.

We know that Joubert's ignorance was almost
incredible, that he could not even use a map,
and that he stubbornly refused to learn.  His
attitude at the time of Warren's retreat and in
certain other circumstances no doubt gave colour
to the rumours of poisoning which followed the
General's sudden death in March.  It is
conceivable that some Burgher, carried away by
patriotic zeal, did not hesitate to commit a
crime that the supreme command might pass
into more faithful or bolder hands....

Later on, when I was a prisoner in the
English camp, I said one day in jest to a young
sub-lieutenant:

'You lost one of your best generals in March.'

'Who do you mean?'

'Joubert.'

Seeing his air of surprise and annoyance,
a superior officer who was present said, with
a smile:

'You are right!'

.. vspace:: 1

On February 1 the positions of the
belligerents had undergone no very notable
modification since the beginning of the war.  We will
recapitulate them for the last time, for English
reinforcements were arriving from every side.
Lord Roberts had assumed the supreme
command, the besieged towns were shortly to be
delivered, and the war was to enter upon an
active phase.

In the north, in Rhodesia, General Carrington
was at Marondellas, and Colonel Plumer at
Safili Camp, near Buluwayo.

At Mafeking, Colonel Baden-Powell is made
a Lieutenant-General.  'The Wolf who never
sleeps,' as his men call him, is still besieged by
Snyman.

Colonel Kekewich at Kimberley is surrounded
by the troops of Du Toit, Kolby, Delarey, and
Ferreira.

General Cronje, to the south of Kimberley, is
well informed as to Lord Roberts' preparations,
but he pays no heed to them, and meets all
Villebois' far-seeing counsels with the stock
phrase: 'I was a general when you were still
a child.'

Schoeman is near Colesberg, facing General French.

Olivier, to the north of Burghersdorp,
confronts Gatacre.

Botha and Schalk Burgher, on the north
bank of the Tugela, hold in check Buller and
Warren on the south bank, near Colenso.

Finally, Joubert, Prinsloo, and Lucas Meyer
are round Ladysmith, where General White is
still imprisoned.

On February 5 Buller, after deploying his
troops as if for a frontal attack in the direction
of Potgieter, at last crossed the Tugela at the
foot of Dorn Kop.  If perseverance deserves a
reward, he has certainly earned one.

But the period of sieges draws to a close.
The war is entering on another phase.  Lord
Roberts has completed his concentration, his
orders are given, the invasion begins.





.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large

   VIII

.. vspace:: 2

On February 10 the Field Marshal concentrated
three divisions on the Modder River: Kelly-Kenny
(6th), Tucker (7th), and Colvile (9th).
Then he secretly assembled the cavalry, grouped
into three brigades (those of Broadwood, Porter,
and Gordon), under General French.  The
latter, supported by seven mounted batteries
and six field batteries, started in the night
of the 11th-12th, reached Rooidam, continued
by way of Potgieter's Farm, brushed aside
General Ferreira, and entered Kimberley on
Thursday, February 15, at half-past five in
the evening.

The surprise was complete, as we know!

Meanwhile, Lord Roberts had not been idle.
On the 15th, Maxwell's Brigade occupied
Jacobsdal, and Lord Kitchener was pressing
Cronje, who was retiring upon Paardeburg.

French, his raid accomplished, joined Kitchener
by way of Koodoesrand, and on the 17th the
whole of Roberts' force surrounded the Boer
General.

After a ten days' defence, more heroic than
reasonable--for he might have broken through
with De Wet's help--Cronje, crushed by the
terrible fire of 90 cannon,[#] bore out Colonel de
Villebois' prediction, being forced to surrender
unconditionally on February 27, at 7.30 a.m.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] Lord Roberts had 6 field batteries, 1 howitzer battery,
7 horse batteries, and 5 naval guns--90 pieces in all, to
be exact.

.. vspace:: 2

Lord Roberts telegraphed as follows to the
War Office:

.. vspace:: 1

'PAARDEBURG, 7.45 a.m.

'General Cronje is now a prisoner in my
camp.  The strength of his force will be
communicated later.  I hope Her Majesty's
Government will consider this event satisfactory,
occurring as it does on the anniversary of
Majuba.'

.. vspace:: 1

It was afterwards announced by the War
Office that the General had surrendered two
Krupp guns, one belonging to the Orange Free
State, and two Maxims, one of these also
belonging to the Orange Free State, 4,000 men, of
whom 1,150 were Free Staters, and 47 officers,
18 of them Free Staters.  Among the officers
was the artillery commandant Albrecht, formerly
an Austrian officer.

In Natal, on the 28th, Lord Dundonald
entered Ladysmith, the siege of which had
been raised at six in the evening, preceding a
convoy of provisions which arrived on the
morning of March 2.

Lord Roberts did not linger long on the banks
of the Modder River.  After giving his troops
a short rest while he went with Kitchener to
visit Kimberley, where he was the guest of Cecil
Rhodes, he continued his march upon Bloemfontein.
On the 7th he was at Poplar Grove,
on the 10th at Abraham's Kraal--he called the
battle fought here Driefontein--and on the 13th
he entered the capital of the Orange Free State.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   'BLOEMFONTEIN,
   '*March* 13, 8 p.m.

'By God's help, and thanks to the bravery of
Her Majesty's soldiers, the troops under my
command have taken possession of Bloemfontein.
The British flag is now flying over the President's
house, which was last night abandoned by
Mr. Steyn, the late President of the Orange
Free State.

'Mr. Fraser, a member of the former
executive, the mayor, the secretary of the late
Government, the Landdrost and other
functionaries, came to meet me two miles out of the
town, and handed me the keys of the
Government offices.

'The enemy has retired from the neighbourhood,
and all seems calm.  The inhabitants
of Bloemfontein gave our troops a hearty
reception.

.. class:: left

'ROBERTS.'

.. vspace:: 1

Lord Roberts's first operation was
accomplished; he established a solid base at
Bloemfontein, accumulating a great quantity of
provisions there, a very wise measure to take
before throwing his troops into a hostile country,
impoverished by five months of warfare, the
resources of which had already been heavily laid
under contribution by the Boers.  At the same
time his troops radiated round the former
capital to drive off the little commandos that
were still hovering about in the neighbourhood.

The 9th Division, under General Colvile, was
broken up to keep communications open, and
its chief returned to England.

Such was the situation when, on Monday,
April 23, we received orders to saddle at seven
in the morning.  We started at 8.30, with two
days' rations.

The direction is the same as before, towards
the south.  But after the counter-order of last
Monday, we feel no great confidence as to the
object of this new manoeuvre.  We have
christened these starts 'the Monday morning
exercises.'

This time, it seems, that while De Wet is
busy at Wepener with Brabant's Horse, which
he is still surrounding, a strong column is to
attempt to cut him off from the north, by
establishing a line between Bloemfontein and
the frontier of Basutoland.  We are to
oppose this movement and enable De Wet to pass.

We arrive in the plain watered by the
Onspruit about five in the evening.  We
bivouac there with Lorentz's Germans, with
whom we are still grouped.  The nights begin
to be cold.  During the evening 1,000 men
and two 75 millimetre Creusot guns arrive.

In Botha's camp, close by, there are still from
300 to 400 men, a Krupp gun, an Armstrong,
and a Nordenfeldt.

On the morning of the 24th a reinforcement
of from 200 to 300 men arrives.  Our total
strength is from 1,500 to 1,800 men.

We remain in bivouac, but on the 25th our
provisions are exhausted, and they re-victual us
by driving a flock of sheep across the plain.
Each group of five or six men takes one.  Part
of the flesh is grilled over a fire of cow-dung--the
only fuel available in the Veldt--and the
rest, cut into quarters, is slung on the saddles
for next day.

For the last two days the luminous balloon
of the English has been visible all the evening
till midnight.

In the afternoon we get orders to start for the
Waterworks, to the east of Bloemfontein, which
the English have recaptured from General
Lemmer.  We are to take provisions for several
days; but the English, it seems, are close behind
us.  They have come down into the plain, and
the road from here to Brandfort is very insecure.

At three o'clock in the afternoon Wrangel,
two former officers in the German army, Couves,
De Loth, and I, set out to fetch a trolley loaded
with necessaries for the two corps.

We arrive at Brandfort towards midnight.
Captain D----, whom we meet here, gives us
the news from France.  The Théâtre Français
was burnt down on March 9, and Mdlle. Henriot
was one of the victims of the catastrophe.  We
also hear of the explosion at Johannesburg.  A
telegram says that the fort blew up on the 24th.
But we learn later that it was Begbie's factory
and not the fort that exploded.  Another
telegram, relating to the fight at Boshof, says
that Prince Bagration is not dead, but wounded
only.  A lieutenant of marines named Gilles
was killed.  This is all we have in the way of
details, for the official list of the losses of
April 5 has not yet appeared.

As regards the explosion, the following
information may be of interest.

The citadel of Johannesburg was not
constructed with a view to defending the town, but,
on the contrary, with the idea of bombarding it.
This curious arrangement calls for some explanation.

On January 1, 1896, Dr. Jameson, coming
from the east, was checked at Krugersdorp with
his contingent, which prevented the execution
of his *coup de main*.  But at the news of his
arrival a number of Uitlanders, for the most
part English, had armed.  Forming themselves
into commandos, and reinforced by a battery of
Maxims smuggled in among machines for use in
the mines, they bivouacked on the heights of
Yeoville, commanding Johannesburg, to await
and join the men of the Chartered Company.

After this escapade the Transvaal Government,
in order to work upon the loyal
sentiments of its good city of Johannesburg,
presented it with a fort, which, situated in a
prominent position in the town, would have
been capable in a very few minutes of correcting
any ill-timed manifestations of sympathy to
which its inhabitants might be inclined to give
way in the future.

The Begbie factory was used for the
manufacture of projectiles.  With comparatively
primitive methods and absolutely inexperienced
workmen, the making and charging of shells of
all the patterns in use in our own artillery had
been carried on here.  Every evening from
700 to 800 were despatched in every direction.

For a long time past, directly after war
was declared, the English who had been
expelled had publicly predicted an explosion at
this factory.  On February 2 a telegram from
Durban announced that this explosion had
taken place.  The manager, Mr. Grünberg, had
even vainly called the attention of the police to
a house close to the powder magazine.

To be brief, a terrible explosion took place
on the 24th, killing some hundred persons, and
destroying a quarter of the town.

This was in the main what the inquiry that
took place afterwards brought to light:

A little mine containing black powder had
been dug in the suspected house, close to
the dynamite reserve of the powder magazine.
The authors of the explosion had afterwards
connected the mine with the electric light of
their rooms; then they had departed quietly to
a place of safety, having still half a day to
spare.  In the evening, at five o'clock, when
the electric light works turned on the current
to distribute light in the town, the explosion
was produced automatically.  The guilty persons
were never discovered.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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We spent our evening discussing all this
news, and then went to bed in our encampment.
On the morning of the 26th we loaded a trolley,
to which we had harnessed eight strong mules,
with cartridges, biscuit, and a few other
necessary provisions.  We started at two o'clock in
the afternoon, and arrived late in the evening at
a farm where an ambulance was installed.

We bivouacked several hundreds of metres
off, as we were urgently recommended to do by
the doctor, who was accompanied by his wife.
He took advantage of the Geneva Convention
to protect his domestic peace, no doubt with an
eye to Wrangel, who is a very pretty fellow!

I do not know if the legislator foresaw such a
case as this!

Our dinner was furnished by the roosters of
the farmyard, which three of our number had
initiated in the laws of hospitality.  Certain
protestations are raised by the victims, during
which I call and scold my poor Nelly, who is
lying perfectly innocent at my feet.  But the
ambulance men will think it was she who was
pursuing the poultry....  One should always
try to save appearances.

We take a very light sleep, and towards
three o'clock a Kaffir comes to tell us that he
has just met a numerous band of English.  We
harness up rapidly, and make off still more
rapidly at a hand-gallop, while in the dawning
light we make out the scouts of the enemy on
the neighbouring kopjes.

All day we marched across the plain without
a guide, and at six in the evening we reached
Botha's camp.  Our comrades, who had gone
off on a little reconnaissance, which proved to be
fruitless, came in at about 8.30.

A rumour that we had been taken prisoners
together with the trolley had preceded us; it
had been brought in by the Irish Americans,
and confirmed by a heliographic message from
the commissary at Brandfort.

On the 28th all the Europeans were told to
hold themselves in readiness to start as an
advanced guard.  I meet with a very cordial
reception from the officers of the staff, for I
find among them the Adjutant,[#] Marais, who
was with us at Poplar Grove.  The order to
start was given at two in the afternoon.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] The title of Adjutant to a Boer General often
corresponds to that of head of the staff, and not to the
subordinate rank implied by the grade in France.

.. vspace:: 2

We have just heard that Von Loosberg, an
ex-lieutenant of the German army, whom we
knew at Abraham's Kraal, and who had since
taken service in the artillery, had received seven
Maxim bullets at Dewetsdorp, two in the head
and five in the body.  He recovered!

At five o'clock we reach a little stream.
Here we are to encamp for three days.  From
1,200 to 1,500 are gathered here with Botha,
Delarey and Kolby.  The tents are set up a
little apart.  We are very comfortable.

At about 8.30 we had finished dinner, and
were about to seek a well-earned repose; several
of the party were already rolled up in their
blankets.  Suddenly there was a noise of the
tramp of horses and strange murmurs.  We
went in search of information.  All the camp
was astir, and the Boers were making off
quietly.

'The English!  Be off!'

We struck our tents hastily, saddled our
horses, and harnessed the mules, without getting
any more precise information, and then we joined
in the general retreat.  The questions we ask
call forth answers precisely like those given by
young recruits at their first manoeuvres.

'The enemy!'

'Where?'

'Over there!'

A sweeping gesture embraces the whole
horizon; the indication is all the more vague in
that it is ten o'clock, and that the night is very
dark.

'Are there many of them?'

'I don't know.'

'Which way are they going?'

'I don't know.'

I almost think that if one asked rather sharply,
'Did you see them?' the man would answer, 'No.'

Nevertheless, the convoy takes an easterly
direction, and the men are so disposed as to
cover the retreat.  We are on a rocky kopje
swept by an icy wind.  Thinking we were to
bivouac again further on, we had packed up
our cloaks and rugs on the trolley.  Our
benumbed fingers can no longer grasp our
rifles; we shiver, swear, and sneeze in chorus.
It was a horrible experience!

After a night that seemed interminable, dawn
and sunlight put an end to our torture.  During
the morning certain information is brought in.
The camp has been broken up, 1,500 men have
been mobilized, and have spent the night on the
*qui vive*.  A patrol of thirteen Lancers passed
close by.

The 29th is a Sunday.  The Boers sing
hymns.  We pitch our tents again about two
hours' distance from our camp of the night before.

On the 30th, at eight o'clock, orders are
given to transport our laager to the foot of the
high kopjes we see four or five miles off in the
direction of Taba N'chu.

Towards 9.30 the Maxim suddenly opens
fire, without our having seen or heard anything
to account for it.  We gallop off to the kopjes
straight in front of us, making for one of the
highest, which is called Taba N'berg.  But a
field-cornet comes after us at a gallop, and
sends us more to the left to join General Kolby.
It is all the same to us, as we know nothing of
what is on hand.  We take up a position on a
little rocky peak.

The kopjes form a large semicircle, slightly
oval, the curve of which lies to the north-east
and the opening to the south-east.  A group of
trees in the midst of the arid yellow basin is
Taba N'chu.  To the west of our position
twenty miles off is Bloemfontein.  All the
bottom of the vast hollow is full of men in khaki.

It is ten o'clock.  We have one cannon on
our left, and on our right, between us and the
big kopje, another cannon and a Maxim gun.
Later in the day two or three Grobler guns
appeared on the scene.  One English battery
took up a position about 4,000 metres from us,
then another, distributing common shell and
shrapnel all along our line.  A brisk fusillade
was also brought to bear upon us at a long
range (about 2,500 yards).

Judging the distance to be too great for
effective rifle-fire, we did not respond to this,
but did our best with our guns.  At eleven
o'clock, however, our Maxim was silenced.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Volunteers and the
Royal Irish charged our right wing four times,
and finally succeeded in establishing themselves
on the flank of the incline, which was relatively
slight on their side.

Von Braschel was killed, and Brostolowsky,
both former officers in the German army; also
Baudin, a former sergeant of marines, who had
served his fifteen years, and had come to the
Transvaal while waiting for the liquidation of
his retiring pension.

About 4.30 we were ourselves vigorously
charged by the infantry, but a brisk fire,
unerringly delivered, dispersed those who did not
fall.

The fighting ceased with the day.  In the
evening, owing to the unexpected nature of the
engagement, we had neither provisions nor
coverings.  A box of sardines between ten of
us was our dinner, and the intense cold debarred
us from the sleep that would have consoled us
for our missing meal.

We remained in position, and at daybreak on
May 1 the battle began again.

With the Germans, we were sent to occupy
the big kopje against which the English attack
had been most violent the night before.  Its
dominant position made it of great strategic
value; but the Boers who had held it were
guilty of the disastrous negligence, only too
habitual with them, of retiring from it in order
to sleep comfortably, instead of strengthening
their position upon it.

The English, on the other hand, had spent
the night digging trenches, and were firmly
established on the ground they had gained in
the two days.  From the very beginning,
therefore, our position was less favourable.

The ascent of Taba N'berg by a rocky, steep,
and almost precipitous incline took about thirty-five
minutes.  So rugged was the hillside that it
was impossible to use litters to bring down the
wounded.  We were forced to drag them down
by the feet, or to make them slide down sitting.
Our shelters were therefore often stained with
long trails of blood.

Our horses were left at the bottom of the
hill, without anyone on guard as usual.  On
reaching the top, we were greeted by steady
infantry fire and by a few shrapnel shells, which
we received without responding till ten o'clock.
Then, leaning a little upon our right, we began
to fire.  We numbered about a hundred--fifty
foreigners, and as many Boers; for the majority
of those who had been with us the night
before--perhaps 500 Europeans, and a rather smaller
number of Burghers--had returned to the laager,
and had not come back.

It is true that the day had been a hard one
for them, and that they had had to bear the
brunt of the battle under a heavy artillery fire.

Up to this moment nothing serious had been
attempted.  But about eleven o'clock the whole
of the Royal Canadian contingent arrived in
open formation.  They were greeted on their
passage by our two 75 millimetre guns, which
had taken up a position on our left at the foot
of the kopje.

I heard afterwards that the guns, though they
had been remarkably well laid, had not been
very effective, the shells with fuses having fallen
without exploding.  In consequence of this,
only two or three men, who had been struck
full by the shells as if they had been bullets, had
been killed.  Several others were knocked over
by the shock, but picked themselves up
unharmed.  I got this information later from a
superior officer of an English regiment who
had been present in the engagement.

About one o'clock, without any order and
without any reason, the Boers, who were
occupying another little kopje on our left, forsook
their position.  The English artillerymen at
once rushed forward, and now began to fire
upon us at a distance of 3,500 metres.  Then,
all at once, there was a cry of, 'To the horses!'  At
our feet, behind us in the plain, a regiment
of Lancers, who had come round the big kopje
where we were stranded as on an island, sweep
forward in loose order, to seize our horses
which are sheltered below.

There is a rush to protect them.  A few
Boers, coming from I know not whence, took
ambush in a little spruit, and drove off the
Lancers by a withering fire; but while this feint
was being carried out, the English made another
rush forward, more serious than the first.  A
fierce fusillade was kept up on both sides.

We are now only hanging on to the kopje
by the left corner.

Suddenly, not having been able to seize our
horses, the enemy open a terrible artillery fire
upon them obliquely.  The Boers retreat before
it, and the position becomes untenable; we have
only just time to reach our horses.  As we come
down the kopje, one of my comrades, who is a
great declaimer of verse, recites 'Rolla'; but
his memory fails him at a certain verse, and he
asks me to help him out.  I reply that I don't
know 'Rolla,' but my answer is cut short by a
shell which, passing between us, bursts and
carries off the head of a Burgher clean from the
nape of the neck.

And through the crash of shells and the
whistle of bullets I hear a few metres off the
voice of my friend De C---- speaking to
someone I cannot see:

'It was at Tabarin, you know.'

At last we reach the horses; Buhors arrives,
bringing the water-bottles he has filled at a little
spring a hundred metres off under a hail of
projectiles.  An ambulance is on the spot,
riddled with bullets, and the doctor, admirably
calm, tends the wounded, while the natives
hastily harness the mules.  We see two or three
more men fall; a horse drops disembowelled by
a shell; then we are in the saddle.

Four or five men, who were firing at us from
a distance of about 200 metres on top of the
kopje we had just abandoned, and the battery
which was working away unceasingly 3,000
yards off, had got us in an angle of fire.  The
ground was ploughed up by a hail of projectiles,
and the shower of bullets raised thousands of
little clouds.

A hard gallop of 2,000 metres under these
convergent fires carried us pretty well out of
danger.

A German, with a long fair beard, whom I
knew well, galloped past me.  He had no coat,
no hat, no arms; his horse had neither saddle
nor bridle; he was guiding it by a halter.  Pale,
with staring eyes, his face contracted, he dashed
past me.  There was a large blood-stain on his
shirt.  He had been shot right through the body!

It was half-past two o'clock.

These two days cost us twenty killed, among
them six Europeans, and about fifty wounded, of
whom twenty were Europeans.

Scarcely had we got beyond range, when we
met Botha, who posted us on a little slope.
There were about sixty of us.  Then Botha
went off.  When he had disappeared, a Burgher
went slowly up to his horse, mounted it, and
left the field.  Another followed him, just as
slowly, then a third.  Soon there were only
about fifteen Europeans left.

We could see nothing on the horizon, neither
convoy nor retreating troops.  We in our turn
departed, saluted by a few shells.

Here and there a few wounded, and one or
two men who had lost their horses, were going
away.  No one knew what had become of the army.





.. vspace:: 4

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   IX

.. vspace:: 2

At last we meet General Olivier's troops,
marching to the north-west.  They appear to
know nothing of the battle.  Scarcely have we
gone 100 metres with them before we are
stopped by a battery, which opens fire upon us.
The English form a semicircle round us.  The
situation is serious.  We make off across the
Veldt, towards the east, till far on in the night.
We sleep on the ground, keeping a sharp look-out.

On the next day, Tuesday, at dawn, we set
out again, describing a wide circle, first to the
east, then to the north, and finally to the west.
It proved lucky for us that we had done so, for
we were behind the English columns marching
on Brandfort and Winburg.

Finally, always making our way across the
Veldt, we arrived at Brandfort on the 4th about
eight o'clock in the morning.

Oh, how thankful we were to be in our
camp and in our tents again!  What a tub we
had! what a breakfast! and what a sleep we
look forward to when night comes!

While waiting for the preparation of a serious
meal, we set to work to grill a few chops.  They
have scarcely been on the embers more than two
minutes, when we hear Pom! pom! pom!

There is no time for breakfast.  To horse!
We swallow our raw cutlets, and gallop off.

Four men stay behind to strike the camp,
and we take up a position to the south-east of
Brandfort, on the kopjes that command the
plain.

In the distance, about eight kilometres off,
we see the English convoys already making for
Brandfort.  They are pretty confident.

To the right, a battery, of which we can
distinguish the escort, silences the cannon nearest
us by killing the gunners.  Then a second
battery advances at a trot on the left in the
plain, and crosses the fire of the first.

The Boers watch this manoeuvre with great
interest, discussing it and giving their opinions
on it.  Then, as the battery halts and takes up
a position, slowly but surely, they all make for
their horses.

Scarcely are the first shells fired before they
are in their saddles, decamping at full speed.

Our two 75-millimetre guns come up, and
throw a few shells from a distance, with no result.

It is always the same.  They watch the
enemy's operations without interfering, and
when they want to act, it is too late.

It is two o'clock.  Our waggons went off
long ago, but the road is encumbered with a
long string of vehicles.

The roads to Smaldeel and Winburg are cut
off.  There is an indescribable throng on the
Veldt; each person is going in his own
direction.  The confusion is complete.

C---- and I go off to try and find our
baggage, for since the 1st we have had no news
of the trolley, which is with Michel and a few
comrades.  The rest of the carts may very well
have been captured, like so many others, either
near Winburg or near Smaldeel.

My friend, always full of foresight, had taken
the precaution of putting a pot of peach jam in
his pocket when we started in the morning.
On this we dined without a scrap of biscuit.

Late in the evening we arrived at a farm,
from whence we were shown the English
outposts on a kopje opposite.  During the night
the owners of the farm went off in a cart.
Kaffirs kept watch to warn us should any attempt
be made on our refuge.  We slipped away at
daybreak, and arrived at Smaldeel towards noon
on the 5th.

The retreat continued.  Each day was marked
by a skirmish, though no serious engagement
took place except at Zand River on the 9th.
There the fighting was pretty hot.  The Boers
of our right wing were driven back, while the
Germans, who were in front, held the bed of the
river, which makes an angle at this point.  The
English column advanced, greatly outnumbering
the Germans, who were very nearly taken.  They
ordered the Boers to stand firm to allow them
to disengage themselves, but the panic-stricken
Burghers would not stop.  Then, without
receiving any orders, the Germans, moved by a
feeling of deep and legitimate anger, once more
summoned the fugitives to fight, and on their
refusal, poured a volley into them at a distance
of about 200 metres.  Several fell; the rest,
cowed by this prompt action, returned to their
positions, held the English column in check for
a few moments, and gave the Germans time to
disengage themselves.

On the 12th French had arrived first at
Kroonstad by one of his usual outflanking
movements.  The surprise had been complete.
Fortunately our carts had left the day before.

Since the 8th Heilbron had become the seat
of government of the Free State.

The Irish Brigade,[#] nearly all of whom were
drunk after the sacking of the stores, had been
made prisoners for the most part.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] A certain number of Irish, commanded by Colonel
Blake, had taken service with the Boers under the name
of the Irish Brigade.

.. vspace:: 2

The railway-station, which served as a
commissariat store, had been burnt to the ground
with all the provisions, which there had been
no time to save.

Everyone was worn out.  Lorentz had been
shot in two places at Zand River; Wrangel too
was wounded.  Everywhere where resistance had
been necessary the Boers had not stood against
a dozen shells.

The retreat continued to Vereeniging; we
arrived there on the 14th.  The most
contradictory rumours were freely circulated.  On
the 12th, Mafeking was said to have been taken
by the Boers; on the 13th the news was
confirmed; on the 14th it was denied.

The town, it appeared, had very nearly been
taken by a hundred foreigners; but getting
no support from the Boers, they had failed in
their attempt, and seventy-two of them had been
killed.

On the morning of the 17th we were said to
have captured eighteen guns at Mafeking.  The
following telegram, signed by General Snyman,
had even been published:

'This morning I had the good fortune to
take prisoner Baden-Powell and his 900 men.'

In the evening it was reported that we had
suffered a check, and had lost ten guns.

The last report was, unhappily, the only true
one.

Baden-Powell, whom Lord Roberts had
asked in April to hold on till May 18, had
been relieved on the 17th, after a siege of
118 days.

The last few days, it seems, had been very
hard ones, for on April 22 the ration had been
reduced to 120 grammes of meat and 240
grammes of bread a day.

The little garrison had been greatly tried,
losing more than half of its numbers during this
siege, the longest in modern times after those of
Khartoum (341 days) and Sebastopol (327
days), though a trifling affair as compared with
the ten years of Troy, or the twenty-nine years
of Azoth recorded by Herodotus.

We found our waggons awaiting us at
Vereeniging on the 15th; we were thoroughly
disgusted, as may be supposed.  We had been
retreating and retreating continuously, without
a struggle, without an effort, offering no resistance.

However, we found that a *Long Tom* had
been brought up, mounted on a truck.  It was
protected by a steel shield and a rampart of
sandbags.  A second truck, also casemated with
logs and sandbags, served as a magazine for
powder and shell.  But the kind of armoured
train thus formed remained idle in the railway-station.

I inquired whether we were to attempt an
attack and push forward.  The answer was
that we could not venture to cross the Vaal
with the gun, because it was feared that the
Free State Boers, who were displeased at the
war, might blow up the railway bridge while
the 'armoured train' was in the Orange
territory, and thus deliver it into the hands of
the English.  Such was the spirit of confidence
that reigned!

In spite of all this, we wished to try once
more to organize an effective foreign legion.
De Malzan, a former officer in the German
army, was appointed Adjutant of the Uitlanders'
Corps under Blignault, by the Government of
Pretoria; his commission was signed by Reitz
and Souza.  He went, his jaw still bandaged
for a wound received at Platrand, to confer
with General Botha.  He was very badly
received.

'I do not recognise anyone's right to make
appointments.  Blignault is not a General, and
you are nothing at all.  The Europeans can all
go back to their own countries.  I don't want
them.  My Burghers are quite enough for
me'--a remark he might have spared the
European legion, which, out of about 280, had in
the last two months lost fifteen killed, nineteen
prisoners and eighty-seven wounded on the
battlefields of Boshof, Taba N'chu, Brandfort
and Zand River.

Anxious to clear up the question definitively, I
left my camp on the other side of the Vaal, and
made for Pretoria on the evening of the 18th in
a coal-truck.

On the 19th I found Lorentz there.  He
had been made a Colonel.  We held a council
of war--Lorentz, still lame from his two
wounds; Wrangel, with his arm in a sling;
Rittmeister Illich, the Austro-Hungarian, and
myself.  It was decided that we should lay
before the President a scheme of organization,
from which I will quote a passage, as it shows
the state of mind in which we all were:

'We earnestly hope that on the lines we have
laid down, and with the active support of the
Government--which no one has yet obtained--a
good result may be achieved.

'This plan, taking into account the rapidity
with which events are following one upon
another, depends for its success on the swiftness
with which it is carried out.  But we much fear
that a fresh rebuff from the Government, after
so many others, would irrevocably discourage
its well-wishers.'

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

We obtained an interview with De Korte,
who had influence.  He approved the plan, but
feared to see it fail, like so many others.  Our
representations became more and more pressing.

On the 24th I went to Johannesburg to see
Dr. Krause, who is also influential.  He was
very amiable, but irresolute, and did not know
what to say.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

The English continued to advance.  A
despatch-rider came to tell me that my convoy had
arrived.  It joined me, indeed, at Johannesburg
on the 26th, without any 'boys,' all of them
having deserted; the waggons battered and
broken by fording the rivers, the beasts dead
or exhausted by a journey without rest or food,
the men worn out by continual vigilance, and
by their double duties as 'boys' and combatants,
disgusted at the retreat and the disorder.

Many of them laid down their arms, and
found work at the cartridge-factory and in the
mines at from twenty-five to thirty shillings a
day.  One, more desperate than the rest, left
his arms with us, and went off to the English
lines to surrender.  Only a very few remained,
waiting for the President's decision as a last
resource.

The Landdrost allots a piece of waste ground
to the twenty mules, twenty-one oxen, thirty-two
horses and two 'boys,' which constitute the
debris of our convoy.  The men find lodging
where they can.

On Sunday, the 27th, one of my men arrived
from Pretoria with a letter from Lorentz, dated
Saturday morning.  The scheme had been signed
and approved.  Afterwards he handed me a
proclamation by Lorentz, dated the evening of the
same day.  At two o'clock everything was
retracted and refused.  Furious and despairing,
Colonel Lorentz adjured all the foreigners to
lay down their arms:

.. vspace:: 1

'As the honourable Government of the
Z.A.R. cannot accede to our modest but just
demands, we, the foreigners of various nationalities,
being without means of livelihood, are no
longer in a position to sacrifice our lives for the
maintenance of the Federated Republics.

'I, the under-signed, hitherto commandant of
the international corps, hereby invite all persons
who voluntarily joined me to lay down their
arms on Tuesday, May 29, 1900, at ten o'clock
in the morning, at the Old Union Club at
Pretoria, or at any other place where they may
happen to be.

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   '(Signed) C. LORENTZ.
   'HAUPTMANN v. L.'

.. vspace:: 1

I hesitated to show the proclamation to my
companions, they were already so depressed.

On the morning of Monday, the 28th, a
policeman, furnished with an order from the
Landdrost, requisitioned our beasts at the
grazing-ground without even giving us notice.
I believe he sold them.  I had almost certain
proof of this later on.  We never found them
again.

In the night three of our waggons out of
the five were pillaged in spite of the man
on guard.  Such behaviour to Europeans who
were being cut up into mincemeat for them! ... It
was too much!  The cup was full.  I
handed Lorentz's proclamation to the men.  It
did not raise a regret; they were all sick of the
business.

Those in authority had refused them a few
shillings, scarcely the pay of a Kaffir, of which
they were sorely in need, for they were utterly
destitute, and had not the means to escape from
the English and return to their countries.

And now the authorities were taking advantage
of our exhaustion to steal our horses--under
a pretext of legality--to give, or, rather, to sell
them to Boers who were going back quietly to
their farms.  For if a few thousand still stood
their ground, the majority had lost heart, and
had returned to their homes, only leaving them
when their wives, more patriotic than
themselves, drove them back to the front.

It was generally the old men, those who
had taken part in the 'Great Treks,' who set
the example of resistance.  These men have
inherited the virtues of their ignorant and rustic
ancestors.  If they can read at all, the Bible is
their only book; and even if they cannot read
it, they know its grand pages, and try to live up
to its precepts.

Many Burghers of the younger generation,
on the other hand, have inhabited towns; they
have become greedy of gain, very English in
their habits and customs, and have lost the
principal virtues of their race, substituting for
them the faults, often much aggravated, of those
who have given them the shady civilization of
South African cities.

In the army of Natal, round about Amajuba,
there were seven guns and about 200 men.  Of
these just *six were Burghers*, the rest were
Afrikanders and foreigners.  And while former
officers and non-commissioned officers of the
European artillery were begging for cannon, two
of these seven guns were idle for want of men
to serve them.

They prefer to leave them thus rather than
to give them over to foreigners.  I was told
this by a Burgher, an artilleryman of twenty,
who was going to his post.  I travelled with
him from Pretoria to Elandsfontein on the
morning of May 24.  He himself did not
conceal his indignation at this method of proceeding.

At Pretoria the Government had given up
all pretence of action.  A general panic seemed
to reign.  Rumour reported that influential
persons were mainly occupied in dividing the
public money among themselves.

It is a fact that none of the tradespeople,
whether they were hotel-keepers who had
lodged and fed troops on presentation of
requisition warrants, or dealers in clothes and
provisions, had been paid.  They all now declined
to lodge persons or provide goods for the State.

A woman, Mrs. S. D., who had had a
contract for saddles, was obliged, after many
fruitless appeals, to enter the Government offices
horsewhip in hand, like Louis XIV. when he
intimidated his Parliament.

Thanks to this vigorous proceeding, she
received a credit-note, on which a certain
number of bars of gold were given her, for the
national bank-notes had fallen to about
two-thirds of their nominal value.  But this was
an exceptional case, and most of the
trades-people were less fortunate.

What became of the gold that for eight
months was taken out of seven mines working
for the State?  No one knows!

It is true that, from the highest functionary
to the humblest Burgher, all were intent on the
most shameless pillage.  I saw army contractors,
on whom no sort of check existed, charged with
the provision of every kind of necessary, food,
clothing, horses, oxen, etc., and making fine
fortunes in no time; while the honest and
worthy Boer received from the State horses and
harness which he afterwards sold to it again
with the utmost coolness.

I know, too, that very large sums were
devoted to a press propaganda in favour of the
South African Republics.  And how many
skilful middlemen, by means of round sums
judiciously distributed, secured orders for the
most expensive and useless commodities!

In all countries and in all ages it is notorious
that out of ten army contractors nine are thieves
and one is a rogue, especially in war-time.
Their depredations date back to the institution
of armies, and the Boer contractors had only to
follow on a path already clearly marked out for
them by their European confrères.  But few of
these have displayed such a degree of proficiency
in their calling.

I might quote the case of a famous Parisian
firm of balloonists, to which nearly 10,000 francs
were paid in ready money for waterproof silk,
cord, and various utensils for the construction
of a balloon.  An aeronaut was also engaged at
a salary of 2,000 francs a month, all expenses
paid, and when he arrived at Machadodorp, where
the President was at the time, he was greeted
with:

'A balloon?  What for?'

After awaiting a solution for three weeks, the
aeronaut returned to France, noting on his
return journey a number of stray packages on
the quay at Lourenço Marques.  They
contained the silk and the rest of the apparatus.

It was by a scientific application of these
Boer principles that Mrs. S. D. came by the
very pretty sum we have seen her collecting
with her horsewhip!

She had engaged to deliver 500 saddles a
week at £10 each; but a good many of the
Burghers to whom the saddles were distributed
sold them back to the worthy lady's agents for
£4 or £5, and she then sold them again to the
State, after changing the more conspicuous of
them a little.  So that these wretched saddles
were always reappearing on the scene, as in a
review at the Châtelet; but each of their
migrations brought in a solid sum to Mrs. D----.

It is not difficult to see why there was no
money for the combatants.





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   X

.. vspace:: 2

After forty-eight hours of fighting from
Elandsfontein to Florida, on May 29 and 30,
we were cut off from the road to Pretoria by
General French and his cavalry.

Without horses it was impossible for us to
follow the retreat, and we found ourselves shut
up in Johannesburg.  We succeeded in enrolling
ourselves among the police of the mines, which
gave us a temporary shelter, and perhaps saved
us a sojourn at St. Helena; for we were
determined not to take the oath of neutrality, but to
begin fighting again as soon as possible.

On May 31 the English entered Johannesburg.
The English flag was hoisted with great
pomp at noon in the great square, in the presence
of Lord Roberts.  Dr. Krause had been
empowered to surrender the town.

Johannesburg is a very English town.  Its
behaviour at the time of Jameson's raid
sufficiently proved this, and many of the more
irreconcilable Burghers who had been brought
into hospital there wounded ran away before
they were cured rather than remain in the hostile
town.

The Union Jack was accordingly greeted with
loud shouts of 'Hip! hip! hip! hurrah!'

Nevertheless, we often met Burghers in the
crowd who, like ourselves, were only biding their
time to return to the front.  I saw one old man
weeping silently.  I am not sentimental, but I
have rarely felt a more poignant emotion than
this mute and dignified despair excited in me.
I hurried away.  I think I should have wept
myself.

The entry of the troops began at about 10.30,
and lasted four hours.  About 12,000 men
marched through the town, and in the environs,
as far off as Elandsfontein, some 50,000 passed,
it was said.

But what a procession it was!  There was no
order; the men barely marched in ranks.  No
uniforms, officers and soldiers huddled together,
dirty, and many of them in rags.  They had
eaten nothing since the day before, when the
ration had been two biscuits.

On they came, or rather dragged themselves,
with drooping heads, one with his rifle on his
shoulder, another with his slung across his back,
one with the butt-end uppermost, some without
bayonets, others with bayonets fixed.  Some
officers had our Mauser rifles, others
Lee-Enfields, others sporting rifles.  Nearly all,
both officers and soldiers, walked with the help
of sticks.

From Bloemfontein to Johannesburg they
had covered 250 miles, fighting every day, and
sometimes marching 45 kilometres without a
halt across country.

A few days earlier, at Kroonstad, their
convoys had not come up.  Lord Roberts, anxious
to continue his forward movement by forced
marches, asked the commissariat-officer:

'Can you serve the ration?'

'No, sir.'

'Half ration, then?'

'No, sir.'

'Quarter ration?'

'Yes, perhaps.'

On receiving this problematic reply, the
Marshal explained the situation to his men.
They immediately replied with acclamations:
'For Lord Roberts we would march without
any ration at all!'

The Black Watch, out of a thousand men,
their strength on landing, mustered about sixty
behind their pipers.  The others lie in the
trenches of Magersfontein and at the foot of
Dorn Kop.

Save for a few battalions that have arrived
recently, the regiments are skeleton corps.

As we watched these haggard, exhausted
troops dragging themselves along, involuntarily
we called to mind him who once marched our
fathers through all the capitals of Europe.  In
spite of fatigue, privation, and hard fighting, it
was in a very different guise that the Grand
Army entered Vienna and Berlin behind the
Emperor and his glittering staff.

The artillery was in better form.  Some fifteen
batteries were drawn by magnificent horses, and
I saw men on cobs that looked well worth from
two to three hundred louis.

There were also some siege-guns, and some
15 centimetre naval guns--one from the
*Monarch*--drawn by thirty-two oxen.  It was
behind this powerful artillery, devastating the
whole region with it on principle, whether
occupied or not, that the English army had
advanced from Bloemfontein.

If we had had a body of cavalry, I believe
that rapid and energetic action would have
resulted in a considerable loss of *matériel* to the
English army; for, relying on the absolute lack
of offensive measures on our side, they often
left their batteries defenceless.

Next came a strong train--telegraph apparatus,
balloonists, engineering implements for digging
wells, pumps, etc.

The troops merely passed through the town,
leaving in it a garrison under the command
of Colonel Mackenzie (Seaforth Highlanders),
who was appointed Governor of Johannesburg.

The next day a proclamation by Frederick
Sleigh, Baron Roberts of Kandahar and
Waterford, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C.,
Field-Marshal, commanding Her Majesty's
Forces in South Africa:

.. vspace:: 1

'Assures the non-combatant population of his
protection.

'All Burghers who have committed no act of
violence contrary to the laws of civilization
against any of Her Majesty's subjects are
authorized to return to their homes, after giving
up their arms and pledging themselves to take
no further part in hostilities.  Passports will be
given them.

'Her Majesty's Government will respect the
private property of the inhabitants of the South
African Republic, as far as is compatible with
the exigencies of war.

'All individual attempts upon property will
be severely punished.

.. class:: center

   'GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

'Given under my hand and seal at Johannesburg,
May 31, 1900.'

.. vspace:: 1

At the same time, regulations fixing the prices
of provisions for the troops were issued: 30s. for
a sack of 168 lb. of oats; champagne-tisane,
160s. a case; tobacco, from 3s. to 7s. a
pound, etc.

Let us take advantage of our ephemeral
functions as policemen to explore the town a
little.  Johannesburg was not the first mining
centre in the Transvaal.  The first workers
established themselves at Barberton in 1886.
A few years later the Brothers Strubens,
whilom prospectors, discovered an auriferous
vein in the Witwatersrand near the farm of
Landlaagte.  Johannesburg then consisted of
a few scattered huts.  It now numbers over
100,000 inhabitants (I mean, of course, before
the war).

It is a town given over to business.  The
centre is occupied by the post-office, a huge
building, in front of which is a vast
marketplace.  Here in normal times trains of carts
bring in all the necessaries of life--fruit,
vegetables, mealies, etc.  The principal streets,
Commissioner Street, Market Street, Pritchard
Street and President Street, are wide, clean, and
bordered by handsome shops.  The whole town
is lighted by electricity.

The blocks of houses, three and four stories
high, are called 'buildings'; often several of
them belong to the same owner or to the same
society, and bear their names: Ægis Building,
Commissioner Street; S.A. Mutual Building;
Standard Building; Heritier Building.

The houses are not numbered, but this does
not inconvenience the postmen, for they do not
exist.  Each inhabitant pays a small sum for his
own box at the post-office, and goes to fetch his
correspondence when he likes.

Johannesburg has a very well organized fire-brigade,
with engines, ladders and fire-escapes of
the latest pattern.  The captain, who is, I believe,
an Englishman, served for a time in Paris,
London, and New York, and wears the honorary
medal of our Paris brigade.  The men wear
the same uniform as English firemen.

The hosiers, tailors, French milliners,
dressmakers, saddlers, and music-sellers of the town
are on a par with the best European specialists.
Life is very expensive, and all luxuries command
tremendous prices.  Cabs, dirty and ill-harnessed,
drawn by two miserable horses and very badly
driven, cost 7s. an hour.  Little light cabriolets
drawn by negroes are therefore generally used
for locomotion.  These are much cheaper and
fairly rapid, for the negroes--Kaffirs or
Zulus--are in excellent training, and can go
extraordinary distances at the double.

The currency was for a long time English,
but in 1892 the Transvaal struck her first coins
(pounds and shillings) with the effigy of President
Kruger.

The Free State has no coinage of her own,
and uses English or Transvaalian money.

Bronze money, of which the President only
allowed a few specimens to be struck, is not
current; the monetary unit is the 'ticket,' a
small silver coin worth 3d.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] Some English officers, it seems, saw for the first time
at Elandsfontein a Kruger's penny, and bought it for £2.
The current price of a Kruger's penny is from two to
three shillings.

.. vspace:: 2

The Johannesburg journals, the *Standard and
Diggers' News* and the *Wolkstrem*, the official
organ, therefore cost 3d.

At Johannesburg much more than at Pretoria,
because the town is more English, the houses
in the centre of the town are mainly offices, for
all the inhabitants who are comfortably off live
in the suburbs, either on the height beyond the
fort, or at the end of Main Street, in the great
park of Belgravia.

Most of these suburban dwellings are very
expensive, and are comfortably and luxuriously
arranged.  A garden more or less large is
considered an absolute necessity.

The majority of the population speculate and
gamble, and it is not rare in times of peace to
recognise in some barman or miner a gentleman
who had dazzled the town by the magnificence
of his carriages and horses a few months back.
No surprise is felt by anyone, for the next
'boom' will perhaps make him a wealthy man
of fashion once more.

I could quote the case of a young man I
knew well who was twice a millionaire, and
who, after having been ruined for the second
time, was gradually building up a third fortune.
He is very little more than thirty.

Johannesburg, however, is merely a city of
passage.  Men stay here just long enough to
make money, and directly this is done, they
return to their own countries.  The end and
aim of everything here is to make money, and
to make it quickly.

Based on this principle, and composed of a
number of adventurers, the cosmopolitan society
one finds here hardly offers a guarantee of
irreproachable morality.

Antecedents are of little account, indeed.  A
merchant who has been convicted of fraud in
France, here enjoys the consideration due to
the £500,000 he has gained with the money
he stole in his fraudulent bankruptcy.

I have even heard that some years ago the
extradition of a rogue was the signal for
disorderly scenes and an expostulatory address,
because he had not been convicted of theft
since his arrival at Johannesburg.  He had
made a considerable sum of money there, and
was accompanied to the station by a number of
friends.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

No sketch of Johannesburg would be
complete without a few words about the gold-mines.

I am no authority on the subject, but I will
describe what was told me and what I saw; and
as the engineer who was good enough to give
me some information knew me to be ignorant,
my precis will be a little 'Manual on Mining'
for the use of novices.

In the first place, there is an essential
difference between the manner in which gold is found
in Witwatersrand and in other districts, such as
Klondyke, Senegal, or the Soudan.  In the
latter, the gold is in grains, either embedded
between the frozen stones, or rolling in the beds
of rivers.  The auriferous mud is taken up and
washed, and the gold is retained.  Nothing
could be simpler.

In the Rand, however, the working of the
mines is purely scientific.  The mineral is found
in blocks of quartz and silicious clay containing
pyrites of auriferous copper and gold.

After calculating the direction of the reef,
one must dig down to a greater or less depth to
find it.  Dynamite is then used to detach the
gold-bearing quartz, which is brought to the
surface.  It has the appearance of very hard white
stone, slightly veined with blue.  It is carried
off to the batteries in Decauville trucks, and
there a crushing-mill, which looks like a gigantic
coffee-mill, and sledge-hammers combined into
groups of five, reduce it to a very fine powder.
A current of air spreads this powder over
copper-plates covered with mercury.

A large proportion of the gold, about 60 per
cent., amalgamates with the mercury, and once
a fortnight the amalgam is scraped off.  After
fusion the mercury in the amalgam volatilizes,
leaving a deposit of almost pure gold.

The residuum of the first process is afterwards
poured into huge vats of from 10 to 12 metres
in diameter, in which cyanide of potassium has
been placed.  A solution of cyanide of gold is
thus obtained, and this is put into cases lined
with strips of zinc, on which the gold is
precipitated.  The 40 per cent. lost in the first
process is thus recovered.

The gold thus collected is melted down into
ingots, the transport and verification of which
are the objects of interminable regulations.

So much for the scientific part.  The rest is
simpler.

The heavy labour is mainly done by Kaffirs
or Zulus under the supervision of white miners
who earn about twenty-five pounds a month,
and live in the boarding-house connected with
the mine.

The natives live in a compound where no
alcohol is allowed.  Their rations are given
them, and they live on very little.  Their
ambition is to earn enough money to return to
their native place, buy two wives, and do no
more work; the wives work for them thenceforth.
It takes them about two years to realize
this dream.  When the time is up, it is
impossible to keep them in the mines.

The first year of working (1888) yielded
about £1,000,000.  In 1895 about £8,000,000
was extracted.  Finally, from January 1 to
August 31, 1899, the harvest was nearly
£13,000,000.  The net profits of exploitation
are considerably diminished by the enormous
expenses resulting from the dearness of
European labour, and the heavy taxes imposed by the
Transvaal Government on mining rights and on
the importation of explosives.

At the time of my sojourn all the works were
closed.  In the town, as every hospital and
ambulance was full to overflowing, the hotels
were requisitioned for the sick.  In front of
the Victoria Hotel there were often strings
of ten and twelve waggons bringing in the
wounded.

Often at dusk a dray would pass, into which
long, heavy cases of deal were furtively slipped....
The *avowed* losses were terrible enough.
What were they in reality?

About the middle of December the War
Office confessed to 7,350 men.  At the
beginning of February this number was doubled,
and Buller's three attempts on the Tugela cost
1,046 killed, 3,785 wounded, and over 1,500 missing.

In March the numbers had swelled to 14,000.
It was the unhealthy season, and sickness--enteric
fever especially--made wider gaps in
the English ranks than bullets.  On May 10
over 18,000 men were missing, 5,000 of whom
were dead.

On the Boer side the statistics are much more
difficult to check, especially when one is
confronted with such discrepancies as these:
Rumours and reports stated the Boer losses
at the Battle of Colenso, on December 15, to
have been 8 killed and 14 wounded.  But I
find a report drawn up by the Red Cross Society
in which the numbers are given as 77 killed and
210 wounded.

What is one to believe?  In all ages
belligerents have tried to conceal their losses, and
this kind of juggling is, of course, much easier
among incoherent groups like the commandos
than in regular battalions.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

One day--it was June 10, I think--all the
police of the mines were requisitioned to
transport the wounded from the station to the
hospitals.  There were a great many, and they
had been forbidden to say whence they came;
the police were also forbidden to speak to them
on any pretext whatever.  Had something very
serious happened?  We never knew exactly
what it was.

Pretoria had been occupied on June 5.  The
news that reached us came at long intervals,
after manipulation by the censor, and was often
of the most fantastic order.

The police regulations were most stringent.
Everyone was ordered to be indoors, at first
by seven o'clock, later by 8.30.  The streets
and squares were guarded by troops.  Jewellers'
and wine-merchants' shops and bars were closed
by order.  No one was allowed to draw money
without a permit from the military authorities,
and a limit--of £20 a week, I think--was
enforced as to the amount, unless a special
permission had been granted.

Finally, residents in the town were required
to get a pass and to take an oath of allegiance.
Those who, like ourselves, had resolved not
to do this, were obliged to hide like outlaws, to
avoid being marched off to the fort, and thence
to Ceylon.  We give a reproduction of this
police regulation[#] which was posted on the
walls of the town.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left small

[#] See pp. 216, 217.

.. vspace:: 2

A few days back a German had gone into
Government Place at noon and hauled down
the English flag.  The sentry looked on aghast
at first, and then began to question him.

'It has no business here,' replied the German,
going on with his work.  He was arrested at
last, and condemned to nine months' hard labour.

The life of inaction had become unbearable
to me.  At the end of June, still on the
lookout for a means of returning to the front, I at
last 'found' the papers of an English
police-officer.  And now for liberty!

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center large white-space-pre-line

   V. R.
   POLICE NOTICE,

\1.  All Civilians are required to remain in their houses between
the hours of 7 p.m. and 6.30 a.m. unless provided with a pass signed by
the Military Commissioner of Police.

\2.  No Natives are allowed in the town except such as are
permanently employed within its limits.

\3.  All Liquor Stores, Bars, and Kaffir Eating Houses are closed
until further orders.  No liquor will be sold except on the written order of
an Officer of Her Majesty's Forces.
\
4.  All Jewellers' Shops are closed.

\5.  No Civilian is allowed to ride or drive, or ride a bicycle
within the town unless provided with a pass signed by the Military
Commissioner of Police.

\6.  Any person disobeying these regulations is liable to arrest, and
will be dealt with under Martial Law.

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   By Order,
   FRANCIS DAVIES, MAJOR GRENADIER GUARDS,
   *Military Commissioner of Police.*
   JOHANNESBURG, 1ST JUNE, 1900.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large

   POLITIE KENNISGEVING.

\1.  Alle Inwoners worden hierbij bevolen om in hun huizen te
blyven van 7 uur 's avonds tot 6.30 uur 's morgens indien niet voorzien
van een Paspoort, geteekend door de Militaire Commissaris van Politie.

\2.  Geen Kleurlingen mogen in de Stad zyn indien zy geen vast
werk hebben daarin.

\3.  Alle Bottel Stores, Bars en Kleurling Kosthuizen moeten
gesloten worden tot nadere kennisgeving.  Geen Drank mag verkocht
worden indien niet voorzien van een Permit van den Officier van Harer
Majesteit's Troepen.

\4.  Alle Jewelier Winkels moeten gesloten worden.

\5.  Geen Inwoner mag ryden te Paard, Rytuig of Bicycle in de
Stad, zonder voorzien te zyn van een permit, geteekend door de Militaire
Commissaris van Politie.

\6.  Eenig persoon die deze Regulaties niet opvolgt, zal gestraft
worden onder de Krygswet.

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   By Order,
   FRANCIS DAVIES, MAJOR GRENADIER GUARDS.
   *Militaire Commissaris van Politie.*
   JOHANNESBURG, 1 JUNI, 1900.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large

   XI

.. vspace:: 2

With a brief but resolute gesture, I took off
my hat in farewell to the City of Gold.  With
a few necessaries rolled up in a cloak, I succeeded
in passing through the English lines at
Boksburg, after journeying for three days, sometimes
in friendly carts, sometimes on foot, to escape
attention.

Near the level crossing of the railway at
Boksburg a party of Lancers was encamped.
Putting on the tranquil and indifferent air of
a man whose conscience is at ease, I passed
through them without molestation.  Further
along the road there were two small outposts,
which I was able to avoid by passing over a
dried-up pond.

When night came on, I slept at Benoni.
Commandant Derksen, of the Boksburg
commando, was in the neighbourhood.  I hoped to
fall in with him in the north-east.  The nights
began to be terribly cold.

At 4 a.m. on July 4 I was once more on my
way.  I walked till nine in the evening.  My
feet were sore and bleeding.

I arrived at last at a farm, where I was coldly
received at first; for they took me for a spy.
But when I showed the papers that constituted
me a Burgher, I was petted as if I had been a
son of the house.  They gave me eggs, milk
and biscuit, and offered me shelter for the night.
As I had no rug, and the cold was terrible, I
accepted the offer with joy.

My hostess had three sons with Derksen, and
a fourth with De Wet.  The fourth was Baby,
as she called him, showing me the photograph
of this little Benjamin, who may have been
about forty, and had a beard down to his waist.

They were worthy folks, Boers of the old
school, hospitable and patriotic.  They made
me up a bed in a kind of old travelling carriage
in the coach-house, and after half an hour of
fierce conflict with a swarm of mice, I fell
asleep.

Twice I was roused by further attacks from
the rodents, and a third time by a man with a
long beard, who said:

'*Obsal!*'

I was a little surprised at first, but finally I
grasped the situation.  A patrol commanded by
one of the Bothas (a cousin of the Generalissimo),
had come to the farm at three in the morning.
My hostess explained my case, and they had
sent to ask me if I would join them.

I agreed eagerly, and rapid preparations were
at once made for my equipment.  They found
me a lean hack, gave me a rug by way of saddle,
and two pieces of cord for stirrups, and armed
me with a Lee-Metford rifle, taken from the
English a little while before!  Don Quixote!

We consumed the usual coffee and biscuit, and
started, taking a zigzag route northwards towards
Irene.  Derksen was rather more to the east.

Towards nine in the evening we lay down to
rest on the Veldt.  I think I never suffered as I
did from the cold that night.  It was freezing
hard, and I had nothing to cover me but the
rug, which, soaked through with the horse's
sweat, was as stiff as a board in ten minutes.
It was impossible to sleep for a moment, and
the pain became so intolerable that I was obliged
to walk about to warm myself a little; and then
the wounds on my feet, which were quite raw,
made me suffer cruelly.

A few days later an officer of the first brigade
of Mounted Infantry was found frozen to death
on bivouac, in spite of his blankets.

We started at daybreak on the 6th, making
for a Kaffir kraal.  At about 7.30 we heard
three cannon-shots fired, but could not tell
exactly from what direction.  Then there was
silence again.

Towards eight o'clock a group of about fifteen
horsemen in felt hats and long dark overcoats
came towards us, then, suddenly wheeling, went
off at a gallop.  We were fourteen, all told.

When it reached the top of the kopje, the
party disappeared, and when, in our turn, we
rose above the crest, we were received with a
fusillade.  There were about forty men, some
400 metres from us.  We turned back hastily,
to put our horses in shelter on the other side,
and then replied.

A Burgher was wounded in the head.  We
had the cover of the rocks to protect us, and, in
spite of our inferior numbers, the two sides were
about equal.  Then another Burgher and my
neighbour were wounded almost simultaneously,
the latter in the thigh, probably by a ricochet.
His wound was serious.  I took his Mauser
and his cartridges from him.

I am not very sure how long this little game
had been going on, perhaps ten minutes.
Suddenly we heard shots behind us.  One of our
horses fell; Botha got a bullet right through him.
We were surrounded by about 300 men of the
Imperial Light Horse.  There was nothing to
be done.  A Burgher named Marais held up a
white handkerchief.  There were only ten of us
left.  I was handed over to some English officers,
who received me with the greatest possible
courtesy.  As the action had now extended all
along the line, I was taken to the rear.

In the evening I was confided to the
Connaught Rangers, who had been kept in reserve.
Hearing of my nationality and my former rank
in the French army, they said: 'We are allies
now!  We are making common cause in China!'  I
made many inquiries about the events in the
Far East, of which we knew nothing, having
held no communication with Europe since April.

Hoping to be able to take part in the Chinese
Expedition by joining the Foreign Legion, I
made up my mind to give my parole to General
H----, who was in command of the column.

Meanwhile I heard the most interesting details
from the English officers of the campaign in
which we had lately been fighting against each
other.  There were among them survivors of
Colenso and Spion Kop, and men of the
Ladysmith garrison.

The Connaught Rangers were commanded by
Colonel Brooke, who was seriously wounded at
Colenso, near the railway bridge.  He was acting
as General in command of the Irish Brigade.
He invited me to dine with him, and at night,
though most of the officers were sleeping in the
open air, he offered me half of the little shanty
which formed his bedroom, and himself fetched
a bundle of straw for my bed.  Then I had
innumerable offers of rugs, cloaks, and capes,
till at last I believe I was better wrapped up
than anyone in the camp.

During the evening a telegram came telling
Colonel Brooke that he had been promoted and
was a general.  I willingly joined in the toasts
that were drunk in his honour, for it is a fine
and noble feature of a military career that one
feels no bitterness to an adversary.  When the
battle is over, foes can shake hands heartily,
though they are ready to slash each other to
pieces again a few hours later.

On July 7 we rose at six.  A captain brought
me some hot water in an indiarubber basin,
sponges, and soap.  Then breakfast was served.
We had porridge, red herrings, butter, jam,
biscuits, coffee and tea.

But the Irish Brigade had received orders to
saddle up, and I was handed over to the staff of
the first brigade of Mounted Infantry.  I was
very politely received by General Hutton's
staff-officer, a lieutenant.  The superior officer
who took me to him, Major M. D----, of the
2nd Royal Irish Fusiliers, asked him if he spoke
French.  I was delighted to hear him answer in
the affirmative.  I went to lunch with him in
his tent.  Conversation languished.  For a long
time he did not open his lips, if I may so
express it, for he was eating the grilled mutton
his orderly had given us with evident appetite.
Suddenly he addressed me:

'Navet du pon.'

I bowed amiably, thinking we were to have a
dish of turnips of some kind.  'Du pon'
puzzled me a little; but perhaps there were
'Navets Dupont' just as there are 'Bouchées
Lucullus' and 'Purée Soubise.'  I was astonished
at my host's culinary knowledge.  At last, later
on, when I had heard the phrase a great many
times without ever seeing any turnips, I found
out that he wished to say, 'N'avez-vous du
pain.'  This was the highest flight of which he
was capable in French.

Nevertheless, my sojourn with Colonel
Hutton's staff was extremely interesting.  I
heard that we had killed the day before
Captain Currie and Lieutenant Kirk of the
Imperial Light Horse, and I was present at an
engagement that lasted three days.  On the
third day, indeed, shells burst so near me that
I ran a fair chance of being killed by my friends.

I will give a brief journal of events hour by
hour, so to speak.

On the 7th fighting began early towards
the east.  We could hear it, though we could
see nothing.  From noon to three o'clock the
cannonade was very lively towards
Olifantsfontein.  This was the engagement at Witklip,
I believe.  The English lost some fifty men,
among them ten killed.

On the morning of July 8 twenty mounted
men went out with picks and spades to bury
the dead.  They were preceded by a large
white flag.  At 10.30 cannon-shots were heard
east-south-east, then suddenly, at 11.5, three
detachments of the Mounted Rifles went off.

Officers and despatch-riders were galloping up
and down everywhere.  I think the English had
been completely surprised by a return of the
Boers.

There was rapid harnessing and saddling.
All round the bivouac horsemen were bringing
in oxen, mules, and horses from grazing.

The Mounted Rifles galloped off to take up
a position on the crest a mile away about which
there had been fighting the day before.

At 11.15 another large detachment of
Mounted Rifles passed, returning the salute of
the sentry on duty at headquarters.

In all they may have been from three to four
squadrons.  It was difficult to form any idea of
actual numbers, for they were not marching in
strict order, and taking into account the
reduction in the strength of certain corps, a column
of two or three hundred men may well have
represented a whole regiment.

A captain of the Irish Brigade told me that
his company consisted of seventy-eight men,
completed by yeomanry, and he called his
adjutant to verify the figures he had given me.

At 11.20 a battery of the Royal Field
Artillery went off in the same direction at a
trot.  A fraction of about fifty returned at a
walk.

About 100 metres from my point of observation--an
old waggon--the Irish Brigade and the
Borderers stood at ease.  At 11.30 a battalion
was moved forward.  Five minutes later a
second battery, a great naval 10-centimetre gun,
drawn by twenty oxen, joined the fighting line
with the rest of the Irish.

Everything had been done very rapidly.
One could see that the men had been trained
to sudden alarms by six months of warfare.
Thirty-five minutes before the men were busy
in camp, and the beasts were grazing.  Now
more than half the men were engaged, and all
were ready awaiting orders to advance.

The skirmishers came back at a gallop, and a
man arrived to hasten the advance of the naval
gun, the oxen of which were almost trotting
already.

At 11.55 two other naval guns, also drawn
by twenty oxen each, went forward to join the
others.  A large ambulance-waggon followed.

In the camp a dog was howling dismally.
The cannonade slackened a little.

At noon an ammunition-waggon, drawn by
ten mules, went off to supply the line of
combatants.

It is lamentable that the Burghers, clinging
obstinately to their defensive tactics, know
nothing of rear or flank movements.

There are no sentries either right or left.
All the troops have gone off in the direction of
the cannon--that is to say, towards the
east--and in that immense camp, containing some
hundreds of waggons, there are only a platoon
of Mounted Rifles and a half-battalion of
infantry.  A handful of men could carry the
camp and sack it.

In addition to the material result, what a
moral effect would be produced on the troops
engaged a mile and a half off, if they knew that
an enemy, however feeble, was in possession of
the road of retreat, and engaged in plundering
the stores and ammunition!

It is true that the Boers did not know the
state of the camp, but if they had they would
have done nothing.  This circumstance,
confirming many other instances, would have
convinced me more firmly than ever, if that were
possible, that the great secret of warfare is to
*dare*!  This, I think, was the sole science of
Murat, Lassalle and many another famous
*sabreur*.  And the Emperor himself, was not
he, too, a type of audacity in the conception of
his most brilliant campaigns, in the conduct of
his most glorious victories?

About 12.30 the firing ceased.  It
recommenced again about 3 and 4.30.  At three
o'clock another great ammunition waggon was
despatched.  No losses were announced that
evening.

The staff was at work till one o'clock in the
morning, and a long telegram in cipher was
sent off to Pretoria.  In the evening rather late
I heard the movements of troops, which
recommenced the next morning at dawn.

July 9.--From 7 a.m. to 7.30 a battery and
several detachments of the Mounted Rifles, ten
or fifteen, moved off to the east-south-east,
strongly flanked on the right (south) by other
Mounted Rifles and by a battery.

In the early morning there were two
centimetres of ice on the artillery buckets, and
towards noon we were glad to be in our
shirtsleeves.  This great variation, more than 37
degrees in twenty hours, is very trying.  We were
now in mid-winter, and the sun set at five o'clock.
At eight the firing, which was very brisk,
seemed nearer than the day before.  The Boer
shells, carrying too far, burst between the camp
and the line of the English artillery, which we
could see perfectly.  The infantry was posted
towards the east-south-east.

The staff-officer told me that the English
were engaged with General Botha's 5,000 men.
I offered no opinion, but I was sure he was
wrong, and information I received later justified
this belief.  I was rather inclined to think that
it was the worthy Derksen, who had collected
some 500 or 600 men, and who, by rapid and
unexpected movements, was trying to make the
enemy believe in the presence of a very
considerable force.  My staff-officer further told me
that General Hutton was in command of 6,000
men, three batteries, and four naval guns.  This,
to judge by what I saw, may very probably have
been correct.  At any rate, a formidable convoy
was on the spot.  The guns were still booming.

An old sergeant with four stripes was
introduced to me.  He was the senior member of
Battery 66, which had been kept in reserve.
He had been serving under Lieutenant Roberts,
who was killed at Colenso.

During the day four ambulance-waggons were
sent out to the lines.  It was at first intended
that I should be taken to Pretoria, but as the
route of the convoy had been changed, I was
conveyed to Springs.  I was one of fifteen
prisoners, not counting the wounded.

At 4.30 the firing was much closer, but we
had to start; the convoy was ready.  It
consisted of fifty bullock-waggons, eight or ten
of them filled with wounded men.  We, the
prisoners, were at the head of the convoy,
strongly guarded by infantry and mounted men.
A few mounted irregulars preceded us as scouts.
These men, recruited chiefly among the
Afrikanders, sometimes even among the Boers, know
the country very well.

Our guide was a native of Boksburg, and
knew all the men with Derksen, the leader of
the Boksburg commando.  I made no attempt
to conceal the disgust I felt for this renegade.
But nothing distracted him from his duties, for
he had a holy horror of falling into the hands of
the Boers.

During the night fires in the bush reddened
the horizon on every side.  They came to ask
us several times if these were signals.  I really
had no idea, but I was inclined to think not.

On account of the meagre fuel afforded by
the short dry grass of the veldt, the fires we
saw in these regions had none of the grandeur
of the bush-fires in the Soudan, where the high
grass is from 6 to 10 feet high.  In those
whirlwinds of fire the flames seem to lick the sky,
and the tallest trees are twisted and calcined
like straws.  Numerous as the fires were, they
did not warm the atmosphere, and the cold
was terrible.

At last we arrived, supperless, at Springs,
at 1.30 in the morning, so frozen that we
were obliged to look and see if our feet and
hands were still in place.  We slept huddled
in the guard-room at the railway-station.

Early on the morning of the 10th, Major
Pelletier, of the Royal Canadian Regiment,
came to fetch me to breakfast at mess.  But
Captain Ogilvie, the commandant of the station,
would not let me leave his jurisdiction till I had
been to his quarters to make my toilet.

After this process I went off with the Major.
He was a charming fellow, a French Canadian,
as his name indicates, and a native of a little
village in Normandy.  I spent the day with
him.  He told me the most interesting things
about Canadian life, spoke enthusiastically of
the fine sport there, and invited me to come
and pay him a visit later on.  At the same time
he confided to me that both he and his men were
suffering terribly from the heat.  I then, being
almost frozen, make up my mind never to accept
his kind invitation.

I met a young doctor, too, whose name I
forget, also a French Canadian.  All the French
Canadians, who form the majority of the
contingent, speak excellent French, interlarded with
old-fashioned expressions and marked by a strong
Norman accent.  Many of them do not know a
word of English.

At six o'clock I start for Johannesburg, in
the carriage reserved for officers.  My pockets
are full of French Canadian papers, which,
though some two months old, are full of news
fresh to me.

On my arrival, I presented myself to Major
Davies, the commandant of the military police.
He speaks French very correctly, was very
agreeable, and gave me leave to go about the
town on parole.  I had only to leave my
address with him, and to report myself at
his office every morning at eleven o'clock.

On the 13th a plot was discovered to seize
the town.  About 500 arrests took place during
the evening.  As I had taken the oath of
neutrality, I was not among the conspirators, and
while hostilities last I can say no more on this
subject.

On the 14th I received a permit to return to
France, and I started by the two o'clock train
that very day.

All along the line the railway-stations had been
converted into entrenched camps.  We continually
passed trains loaded with horses, guns, and
men--some twenty in all, perhaps.  We arrived
at Kroonstad at eleven in the morning on the
15th.  Nothing remained of the sheds and the
goods-station which we had burnt on May 12,
with all the stores.

Involuntarily I took out my pocket-book,
and read the names of the men who then
composed the French corps.  We were not forty
altogether.  Three had been killed, five had
disappeared, the others were dispersed.

I tried to go out of the station to revisit all
those places in the town where we spent a
fortnight, gay, full of hope, almost complete in
numbers.  But the station was surrounded by
sentries, and no one was allowed to pass.

From a distance the prospect was dismal
enough.  The streets were deserted, and, as if
to emphasize the fact that everywhere there is
suffering, the Red Cross flag floated sadly over
the town.  In the foreground, close to us, on
the line, and in the sidings, were deserted
railway-carriages, half burnt, overturned, and
broken.

All round the town were field hospitals and
vast camps.  There were about 11,000 men in
all, I was told.  A feverish activity reigned at
the station, a continuous bustle and movement.
Convoys of provisions and arms followed each
other in rapid succession.  We counted sixteen
during the day on the 16th.

Horses and mules were entrained in some,
others brought back the worn-out horses.
Many of these poor beasts had died on the
road; most of them could hardly stand.  They
were dragged along a few steps, and a
non-commissioned officer put a bullet through their
heads inside the station.  Thirty or forty thus
executed lay heaped one on another in a pool of
blood, which ran in a little stream towards the
line.

On the platform stood cases of ammunition
and arms.  Several placed together contained
Lee-Enfield cavalry carbines, and were marked
'Very Urgent.'

On the 16th we were still at Kroonstad, and
a trainful of prisoners passed going to East
London.  It became one of the daily exercises
of the garrison to walk to the station and see
the travellers.

Two questions were to be heard perpetually:

'Do you think it is nearly over?' 'Have
you any Kruger pennies?'

And Tommy is quite happy when they tell
him that, as to being nearly over, it's not quite
that; but that as to going on much longer, it
won't go on much longer--at least, it depends
on what you mean by much longer; or when
someone gives him one or two Kruger pennies.

At last we left Kroonstad at ten o'clock in
the evening, passing through Brandfort, that
village to which, feted and acclaimed, we had
come with *Long Tom* in January.  All along
the route the railway had been destroyed, and
we travelled on rails laid on unballasted sleepers
by the Royal Engineers.

Trenches had been dug to enable the train to
pass over the shallow, dried-up streams without
any very artistic labour, and sometimes the little
half-destroyed bridges had been repaired with
logs and made to do duty again.

It seemed wonderful that it could all hold.
But it appeared--I heard this at the camp at
Springs--that one of the chief engineers of
the railway service was a civilian, a French
Canadian, who had already distinguished himself
in America by the construction of very daring
railways.

He must have been extraordinary indeed to
have astonished the Americans!

It is certain that the English successfully
re-established railway communication with very
restricted means in a very rapid manner--not
that this prevents it from being constantly
re-cut, however.

On July 17, at 8.30 in the morning, we were
at Bloemfontein.  Poor old capital of the
Orange Free State!  It is now the chief town
of the Orange River Colony.  Here again
there was an immense camp, a large proportion
of the Kelly-Kenny division.

We only stayed half an hour, and, after
changing trains at Springfontein, we passed
Norval's Pont at 6.35 in the evening.  We
were in Cape Colony!  Here we were no
longer on an improvised railway, and we got
on faster.  On the 18th, about 7.30 a.m., we
were in the environs of Cape Town.

In accordance with English custom, many of
the merchants have offices in the town, and live
in little houses which give a gay and smiling
aspect to the suburbs.  We therefore took up
a number of passengers who looked like men of
business.  In a few minutes we were in the
town.  We left the train at 8.30.

My permission to return to France was
confirmed by the General commanding the garrison.
I was almost a free man!

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Vague rumours reached us from the front,
always carefully doctored by the censor.  Prinsloo
was taken prisoner with several thousand men;
but on the line to Lourenço Marques Botha was
still defending himself vigorously.  After the
taking of Pretoria the Government, incarnating
itself, so to speak, in the person of President
Kruger, installed itself in a special train.  There
Oom Paul slept, received, ate, and lived.  There
the official printing-press was also set up, and
the money that was circulated was minted there.
As in the hurried departure from Pretoria it
had not been possible to carry off a complete set
of weights, the sovereigns issued were simple
gold discs, quite plain, without image or inscription.

It was on this line, too, that the last great
battles were fought, at Middelburg, Belfast,
and Machadodorp, after which, renouncing all
attempts at defence, the Boers began that guerilla
campaign which De Wet had already successfully
essayed.

In a few days our steamer sailed.  It was not
without a pang that we quitted the land we had
hoped to see free, for which we had fought for
seven months, and which had proved the grave
of a venerated leader and of beloved friends.





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   CONCLUSION.

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An inexperienced writer, more expert with arms
than with the pen, I do not know if I have
described all these events in a manner sufficiently
clear and coherent to convey a distinct
impression.  I shall therefore try to sum up on a few
broad lines the ideas I have been able to form
after the experiences I have recorded.

First of all, two great questions seem to
present themselves: Why, in spite of all their
qualities, have the Boers been beaten?  Why
are the English, with over 250,000 men, held
in check by a handful of peasants?

These two questions are closely connected,
for, though this seems a paradox, the chief cause
of the defeat of the Boers is also the cause of
their long resistance.  I will explain.

I think we must attribute the defeat of the
federated troops mainly to their absolute lack of
military organization, for in spite of the legend
of the volunteers of 1792, no undisciplined
force, however brave, will ever prove a match
for a regular army.

Resistance may be more or less prolonged,
phases more or less heroic, but the issue is
foredoomed.

This lack of organization, of discipline--that
is the great thing--explains the absence of
cohesion, of combined action, of rational leadership.

I have already sufficiently pointed out the
evils of suffrage as applied to the election of
commanders.  In addition to this, what
enthusiasm or confidence can these feel, when they
know that half the men of their commando will
leave them on the road if they feel so inclined?
And even if they do not actually do so, the
leader's confidence is put to a rude test!

Yet these same Boers who have fought like
lions on occasion, and on occasion have fled
without firing a shot, are capable of education
in the art of war.

The Johannesburg Politie is a striking proof
of this.  With the elementary discipline that
obtains among them, this corps held their own
for a whole day against Lord Roberts's 40,000
men on two occasions, at Abraham's Kraal on
March 10, and near Machadodorp on August 27,
almost unsupported.  And each time at the
price of a third of their number!

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To this chief and primordial cause we must
add another, not altogether inexcusable, but
very harmful under the circumstances.  I mean
the dread and hatred of the foreigner.

Not inexcusable, I say, for, for nearly a
century, the foreigner has been to the Boer the
invader, the robber, and the enemy!

The Boers therefore, as a whole, could never
believe that for love of a noble cause, or a
passion for adventure, men of every nation
should have come to espouse their cause against
the United Kingdom quite disinterestedly.

In the unfortunate state of mind that prevailed
among them, the eulogies of a well-intentioned
but maladroit press had the most disastrous
effect.

What sort of respect, indeed, could these
primitive people feel for Europeans when
Lombroso and Kuyser had written in all good
faith: 'As 63 per cent. of Boer blood is Dutch,
12 per cent. French, 12 per cent. Scotch, and
3 per cent. German, this mixture of the best
nations of Europe ought to constitute a centre
of liberty and civilization, a race superior to any
in Europe!'

Why, when one belongs to 'a race superior
to any in Europe,' should one follow the advice
of officers of the European armies, and,
consequently, of the inferior races?

And, indeed, when we consider the remarkable
campaign now being carried on by De Wet
and Botha, we may well ask whether Europeans
could obtain better results.  Under present
conditions, I think, it would be hard to do
better.

But if General de Villebois' advice had been
taken from the first, it is very probable that the
guerilla war would never have been inaugurated.
The campaign would have been over long ago;
for whereas the Boers were content to hold the
English in check, the Europeans wanted to beat them.

Not satisfied with successful engagements that
gave no solid advantage, they wanted to push
forward, with the enthusiasm that surprises a
demoralized enemy, creates a panic, and results
in total rout.

Haunted by the names that gleam in the
folds of our banners--Jemmapes, Valmy,
Marengo and Austerlitz--we dreamed of great
victories.  And if the Boers had wished it, this
dream might have been realized!

We now come to the reason why the English,
with over 250,000 men, are held in check by a
handful of peasants.

I have said that this question is closely bound
up with the cause of the Boer defeat--the
absence of discipline.  For how is it possible to
surround, to conquer, and to crush adversaries
who will never be drawn into a battle, and who
make off directly a blow is struck at them?

Are they closely pressed by the enemy?
Each man goes off as he chooses in a different
direction, and the commando of 500 men which
attacked a little convoy yesterday has melted
away before the column of 2,000 sent in pursuit
of it.

Far away in the bush, to the east, a horseman
disappears on the horizon, another on the
west--and that is all.

If one of these men should have been too
closely engaged in the English lines, the first
farm he comes to offers him an asylum.  His
rifle is thrust under a plank in the flooring, his
horse turned out to graze, the white flag floats
over the house, and Her Majesty has no more
inoffensive subject than my Burgher--for the
next twenty-four hours.

If need be, when the English authority is too
near, an old gun--I once saw a flintlock--will
be handed to him in sign of submission, and the
oath of neutrality taken.

This explains the enormous number of arms
that have been given up, while the Burghers
have retained their good Mausers and
Martini-Henrys, and still use them.

But as soon as the English, pleased at a fresh
submission, have gone off, the rifle--the good
one this time--is brought out, the horse stealthily
mounted, and the Burgher is abroad once more.

The dispersions are merely momentary, and
very often a rallying-point among the hills has
been fixed on in advance.  Eight days later
the commando, concentrating again, appears on
the scene with some unexpected stroke.  This
kind of thing may go on for a long time.

'Egaillez-vous, les gas!' was the cry of the
Vendéen chiefs; and it is this manoeuvre, and
the rally which follows it, that regular troops
cannot execute.

This kind of warfare is obviously very painful
and fatiguing for the invader.  But it is a
purely defensive method, and cannot have any
decisive success, unless the invading army
should give up the struggle.

For which side does Fortune reserve her final
favours?  It is certain that the English are
weary, very weary, and that they have been so
for some time.

Ten months ago, at the beginning of January,
a soldier of the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment
wrote with mournful resignation:

'We shall all be thankful when this war is
over, and this horrible butchery at an end!'

Another, less disciplined and more easily
discouraged, a yeoman, wrote after Colenso:

'If I come through alive, the army will have
seen the last of me!  I have had enough of it,
and I bitterly regret having rejoined my
regiment.'

I do not say that these sentiments are general,
but they indicate the weariness of the
combatants.  And this lassitude seemed to me to
be creeping over all, from the general to the
private, among those I met between Springs
and Cape Town.

The army itself will not be consulted, of
course, but I wish to note this state of mind,
which seems to me serious.

On the other hand, British prestige is too
deeply engaged for the English to retreat
without losing caste.

What will happen?  It would be foolhardy
to prophesy.  'If in doubt, refrain,' says the
sage.  I will take his advice, offering for the
consideration of those who have followed me
so far this melancholy sentence from the
Westminster Gazette of last March:

'Each Boer will have cost us £2,000 to
subdue, and no one can yet say what each will
cost us to govern.'

October, 1900.

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   BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

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.. figure:: images/img-map-t.jpg
   :align: center
   :width: 100%
   :alt: Map of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (small version)

   Map of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (small version)

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.. figure:: images/img-map.jpg
   :align: center
   :width: 300%
   :alt: Map of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (large version)

   Map of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (large version)

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   The Transvaal from Within

.. vspace:: 2

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   BY J. P. FITZPATRICK

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   Demy 8vo., cloth, 10s. net.  Popular Edition, cloth, 2s. 6d. net.
   People's Edition, paper, 6d. net

Mr. Chamberlain, replying to a Westmoreland correspondent, who
complained of the want of a printed defence
of the Government's policy in the
Transvaal, wrote, 'I refer you to Mr. FitzPatrick's book.'

Lord Rosebery at Bath: 'A book which seems to me to bear on every page
and in every sentence the mark of truth,
which gives you wholesale and in detail
an extraordinary, and I think I may say an appalling, record of the way in
which the Government of the Transvaal was carried on and the subjection to
which it reduced our fellow-countrymen there.'

The Times: 'Mr. FitzPatrick's book supplies a want which has been widely
felt.  For the first time, the information
which everyone has been asking for, and
which nobody has been able to obtain, with regard to the common facts of
contemporary Transvaal history,
is collected in a volume convenient for reference
and easy to read.  Nothing that has been written upon the Transvaal brings the
conditions of life there so clearly before English readers.  Mr. FitzPatrick lays
his arguments boldly and simply before his readers, but it is in the facts of the
book--facts never before brought together in so convenient a form--that the
most powerful of all arguments will be found.  Few readers will lay down the
volume without feeling that they know more than they have ever known before
of the real issues on trial in South Africa.'

.. vspace:: 3

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   Why Kruger Made War

.. class:: center large

   Or, Behind the Boer Scenes

.. class:: center medium

   BY JOHN A. BUTTERY

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   LATE OF THE 'STANDARD AND DIGGERS' NEWS,' JOHANNESBURG

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   1 vol., crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.  Second Impression

The Times.--'Amid the never-ceasing flood of South African literature,
Mr. Buttery's is a book which deserves to be read.  He writes with inside
knowledge of the Transvaal, its recent history,
and its public men.  His chapters are
pointed, easy to read, and full of interesting
local matter.  His description of the
position of the Cape Dutch and of the Bond is worth reading.  The book contains
within small compass more useful and interesting information than is sometimes
to be found in far more pretentious volumes.'

Literature.--'It has the incisiveness that one expects from the work of the
man on the spot, and it illuminates the British case with anecdotes and
circumstantial details.

The Daily Telegraph.--'The author throws a good deal of light on the
proceedings of the Hollander clique.
The book contains much that is of interest at
the present time.

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   The Rise and Fall of Krugerism

.. class:: center medium

   BY JOHN SCOBLE AND H. R. ABERCROMBIE

.. class:: center small

   Demy 8vo., cloth extra, 10s. net.  Popular Edition, 2s. 6d. net

The Daily Chronicle.--'The authors throw new light on much that we knew
before, and they write with the experience of old inhabitants.'

The Daily Express.--'A most timely book, and one well deserving the
serious consideration of all public men.'

The Scotsman.--'Those in search of enlightenment respecting the rise and
fall of Krugerism in South Africa
will find this volume a mine of information on
the subject.'

The Manchester Courier.--'The most striking feature of the work is its
almost encyclopedic completeness, for there is hardly one of the many phases of
political interest connected with South Africa which is not threshed out in these
pages.  There is a tone of healthy Imperialism about this book which is
refreshing and attractive.  It will be welcomed
as a logical and painstaking presentation
of the South African question.'

The Newcastle Daily Chronicle.--'We leave the book convinced that a
perusal of it will open the eyes of the British people all over the world to the
evils and dangers of Krugerism in such a way as perhaps no other one book
could do.'

The Yorkshire Post.--'A valuable as well as an interesting work.'

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   The South African Conspiracy

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   Or, The Aims of Afrikanderdom

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   BY FRED. W. BELL, F.S.S.

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   Demy 8vo., cloth extra, 5s. net

The Times.--'The matter is one of great importance, and the volume serves
a useful purpose in bringing the known facts and the arguments to be deduced
from them within the reach of all.'

The Morning Post.--'If there are left in this country any reasonable persons
who yet believe in the righteousness of Krugerism and the whole-hearted loyalty
of the Afrikander Bond to the Mother Country, we commend to their kind
attention "The South African Conspiracy,"
which forms a valuable companion to
"The Transvaal from Within" and "The Rise and Fall of Krugerism."  It is
well that the voice of yet another who has lived long in South Africa, who has
travelled far and wide in Cape Colony and the Transvaal, and who is familiar
with the temper and aspirations of every section of the population, should have
added its testimony to the mass of evidence which serves to show us how, but for
the employment of military force, the British Empire would have soon been in a
fair way of classing South Africa with the United States, and other portions of
the earth, that were once a part of that Empire, and now are not.'

The Scotsman.--'Mr. Bell's book will be found eminently worthy of perusal
and consideration.  It clears up many points and facts that have been purposely
obscured.'

The Daily Express.--'A valuable contribution to South African history.'

The Yorkshire Post.--'We hope that Mr. Bell's book will be widely read;
it should be of real service in the face of the coming settlement.'

The Daily Mail.--'The true inwardness of the origin, growth, and
achievements of the Afrikander Bond have
never been so succinctly and tersely set
forth as in this book,
which is excellent in its moderation, reserve, and judicious
impartiality.'

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   LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD ST., W.C.

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.. pgfooter::
