NATAL AGAIN.—COOLIE IMMIGRATION.—BISHOP COLENSO.—LAING’S
NEK.—INGOGO.—MAJUBA.—INTERESTING INTERVIEW WITH GENERALS JOUBERT AND
SMIT.—GRAVE-YARD AT MOUNT PROSPECT.—LADY FLORENCE DIXIE.—FIRST SESSION
IN CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.
The first time I took my seat in the Cape house of assembly on April
5th, 1881, I listened to a debate on a motion introduced by the leader
of the Dutch party, which confirmed me in the intention that I had
previously formed of paying Natal a visit at the end of the session.
This debate was the first, I remember, which touched the question of
Dutch feeling _versus_ English, and was in reality the expression of a
sense of gratitude by the Dutch party in the colony to the Gladstone
ministry, for entering into negotiations with their brethren in the
Transvaal after the defeat at Majuba, rather than allowing irritation at
that defeat to prolong the war.
The debate led to the house agreeing to an amendment proposed by one of
the members for Capetown, to the effect: “That this house desires to
express its satisfaction at the cessation of hostilities in the
Transvaal, and its earnest hope that all differences may be
satisfactorily adjusted and a permanent peace established.”
Whilst listening to the various speakers, I became more than ever
anxious to visit the scenes of the war just closed, and study on the
spot the battlefields where in one campaign we had suffered three
complete and disastrous defeats.
Before describing my visit to Natal, I must not forget to state that
during the first session I sat in the Cape house of assembly the time
was chiefly occupied by Basutoland affairs, and in discussing a vote of
censure on the government with respect to the war in that country.
Being the senior member for Kimberley, and as it was not known to which
side its members leaned, my speech on this subject excited considerable
attention. It was generally expected that if the government were in the
majority it would depend upon the votes of these members, and this
conjecture proved correct, the result of the division being thirty-seven
votes for the government and thirty-four against. The Sprigg ministry
found, however, in a few days, that they could not carry on the
government of the country, and resigned on May 9th. No business of any
importance was transacted during this session after the resignation of
the ministry, Mr. J. B. Robinson, my colleague, and I merely looking
after the local interests of Griqualand West.
But to resume. Ten years had flown over since I had left Natal, and many
striking events had occurred during that period. Langalibalele’s
outbreak, his noble and successful defence by Bishop Colenso, Sir
Benjamin Pine’s recall, Sir Garnet Wolseley’s five months’ politic
interval, in which he “drowned the independence of the colony in sherry
and champagne,” the Zulu war, and the dethronement of Cetywayo.
I was anxious as well to see what progress the colony had made in this
interval, and once again have the pleasure of meeting the many old
friends whom I possessed there. Consequently, when my parliamentary
duties were over, I left Capetown in the S.S. _Dunkeld_ on the 18th of
June, and landed in Natal on the 23d. We arrived off the bluff in the
middle of the night, and early dawn found me feasting my eyes once more
on the glorious view of this land-locked bay, which recalled to memory
many a pleasant scene of the past.
Gliding gently over the dreaded bar, and landing at daybreak, I made my
way to the Royal Hotel, and after breakfast sallied forth to see what
changes a decade had wrought. At every step I was agreeably surprised at
the improvements which I saw. Streets, which ten years before were
knee-deep in sand, I now found hardened, the town council having spent
£40,000 merely in re-forming a few miles of the Musgrave Road leading to
the Berea; trams hourly running, where in my time horses could barely
walk. New buildings and fresh stores, a magnificent theatre, and a new
town hall showing the progress of the place. All, however, were not
satisfied. One old colonist I met frankly said, “Don’t be deceived,
Doctor, there is no reality in what you see, all imperial money, another
Zulu war would suit us just now.” I could not help thinking whether the
signs I saw were the evidence of real progress or mere ephemeral
prosperity, and I asked myself the question, “Has sugar, has coffee, has
the Overberg trade done all this?” I knew that two recent and eminent
visitors had taken a harsh view of Natal and Natalians, having formed
but hurried opinions of the situation.
Froude and Archibald Forbes no doubt thought themselves competent to
judge, but the one was just as far wrong, and acted as unfairly to the
body of Natal colonists, when he said: “Many of these are no better than
the mean whites in the Southern States of the Union,” as the other when
he wrote that the leading attributes of Natal colonists are
“untruthfulness, insobriety and swagger.” With due deference to Mr.
Froude, I distinctly say from years of observation, there is no section
in Natal low enough to be compared with the mean white of the Southern
States, whom even the darkies themselves despise.
The mistake which both Froude and Forbes made was one which a well-known
writer has described as the great error of the nineteenth century, viz,
hasty generalization.
Resting a night I took train to Verulam, Victoria County, my old seat of
practice. This line of rail was all new to me, having been laid since I
left, though it ran through sugar and coffee plantations which I knew
well. On arriving at Verulam I procured a horse and rode off to visit
the various estates in the neighborhood: Redcliffe, the Grange, Ottawa,
Hammonds, Waterloo, Trenance, Southburn, Sunderland, and others whose
names have escaped my recollection, and their hospitable owners I saw
again. Many of the estates, however, I found had been taken up by
Mauritians, and the vacuum pan sugar boilers, as well as the field
overseers, had mostly come from that island, in fact old residents told
me that in the trains running to and from D’Urban there was now almost
continually a complete babel of French, English, Hindustani and Kafir. I
must say that I was disappointed with the general appearance of the
coast. Coffee enterprise seemed dying out fast, no planting going on,
the trees suffering from an insect, the “borer,” and from the leaf
disease (_Hemiteia Vastratrix_), which has played such havoc in Ceylon.
The extent of land under sugar had increased, but drought, low prices,
and the competition of beet-root were making the planters look serious.
Another phase of affairs which struck me as assuming unmanageable
proportions was the keen competition of the cheap-living Asiatic, who in
the cultivation of small holdings could almost beat the European out of
the field. When I saw these men, these crofters, themselves working
their patches of ground, I was at once let into the secret of their
success.
White men in Natal, as a rule, think manual labor in the fields
derogatory. The only exception to this of which I ever knew was a
settlement of Germans near D’Urban. From the feeling generally abroad I
can easily understand the unpalatableness of Froude’s remarks when he
wrote: “Here and there a farmer makes a fortune, but generally the
whites will not work because they expect the blacks to work for them.
The blacks will not work because they prefer to be idle, and so no one
works at all.” After all there is a considerable stratum of truth
running through this statement.
To return to the coolie question, Indians seem very loath to leave
Natal. I find in the last Natal Blue Book that out of 33,343, comprising
men of all castes landed from India since immigration began in 1860,
only 2,141 have returned, the total number of Indians in the colony in
1884 being 27,276, of whom 17,241 were males and 10,035 females.
Gen. Sir J. J. Bissett, in an address to the electors of Alfred and
Alexandra counties in June, 1884, recognizing the importance of this
point, said: “With regard to coolies, I consider that they are
introduced for a specific purpose, they should at the expiration of
their term of indenture be required to return to India, subject to a
maximum extension of term (say) to fifteen years in all. I consider that
any benefit derived from them by a section of the community is very
greatly counterbalanced by the injury their presence causes the colony,
both directly and indirectly. I am also opposed to coolies holding land
in this colony.”
In my opinion Sir J. J. Bissett’s views display a lamentable ignorance
of the first principles of political economy, and are suitable to a
timid mercantile community only, afraid of the further cheapening of
articles of consumption. A great proportion of the Indians, both in the
West Indies and in Natal, as soon as they have served their time and are
free from their indentures, become in every sense thorough colonists;
they buy property, invest their savings, “marry and are given in
marriage,” and show no desire, as statistics prove, to return to
India—differing entirely from the Chinese, whose sole object is to
return home as soon as possible with every sixpence they can drain out
of the country in which they have been living. To my mind the turning
away of thrifty bread winners from a country sparsely populated by an
infinitesimal working class of whites is the height of absurdity. There
is not even the excuse on the ground of morality which the Americans
have against the Chinese in California. Moreover, how would Sir J. J.
Bissett treat the question of the increase in their population? Would
the children born in Natal be allowed to remain there or not? Would he
have the Indians under British rule treated in the same manner as the
Dutch have since treated them in the Transvaal State, where, certainly
without the “liberty, equality and fraternity” popularly supposed to
pertain to republican ideas, they passed a law through the Volksraad,
which was promulgated on June 10th, 1885, disqualifying “Coolies, Arabs,
Malays and other Asiatics” from obtaining the right of citizenship, or
from possessing landed property, and compelling them further, under
penalty, not only to register themselves, and pay £25 for so doing, but
also giving the government power to place them in locations;[66] or
would he have them treated as they are in the other Dutch republic (the
Free State), where it is contrary to law to let fixed property to Arabs,
and where they cannot even procure a license to trade.
No! Thank God such outrages cannot be committed under the British flag!
In Natal less false pride, greater economy and industry are all the
requisites necessary to produce a competition vigorous enough to stem
the tide of Asiatic intrusion. There is one fact, however, which Natal
colonists have seriously to face which is that to every white man there
are at least thirteen Kafirs and one Indian.
The great point to my mind is for the European element to retain the
voting power within fixed limits.
After my visit to Victoria County I returned to D’Urban and took train
to the capital, Pietermaritzburg. The railway again was all new to me.
No pleasant rest at host Padley’s now, no exciting drive round the
Inchanga, no gallop over Camperdown Flats! Simply a six hours’
monotonous railway trip.
The first sight I caught and the first hand I grasped on my arrival was
that of good Bishop Colenso, who met me at the station. Ten years had
passed since last we met, but how delighted was I to see the same
penetrating eye, the same majestic figure, the same elastic step, and to
hear the same cheery voice as in years gone by. I had a long talk with
him and his talented and philanthropic daughter over the events which
had occurred during the years that I had been absent from Natal. Church
matters and matters of state kept us engaged until evening approached,
when the bishop started for Bishopstowe, leaving me to spend the night
with my friends in Pietermaritzburg. Bishop Colenso was indeed one of
those few men “who never swam with the stream, who bravely strove to
stem the current, and regardless alike of popular and aristocratic favor
pleaded with his latest breath for what he thought to be right and
just.”
Little did I think when he shook me by the hand on getting into his
carriage that I should never see him again. It is a benign provision for
us mortals that the future is wrapped in obscurity!
I left Pietermaritzburg the next day, June 30th, at 11 A. M., passed
Howick and the magnificent falls of the Umgeni, and reached the Plough
hotel, Estcourt, where I had a short rest. Leaving there at 2:30 in the
morning I arrived at Ladysmith at noon, where we changed horses. The
feeling against the “ignoble peace,” as it was called, I found
increasing the nearer I approached the seat of the late war. In the
hotel where the mail cart changed horses the landlord had just posted up
the following notice:
Sacred to the memory of
HONOR,
The beloved wife of John Bull,
She died in the Transvaal and
Was buried at Candahar, March 1881.
Her end was peace.
and it was curious to see the soldiers and civilians crowding round the
placard and to listen to their very candid if not complimentary remarks
on the Gladstonian ministry.
Right opposite the hotel where we stopped was to be seen the large
loop-holed laager, I should say, roughly speaking, about 300 yards
square, which had been built by the villagers during the late scare. As
we drove out of the village to Newcastle I saw how “in this weak, piping
time of peace” the pomps of war could be utilized, for our parting
recollection of Ladysmith was the sight of a large crowd of the youth
and fashion of the neighborhood parading round a military band belonging
to the troops stationed there, which was discoursing proud martial
strains, a sorry satire on the situation!
In the afternoon, toiling up the Biggarsberg, we came upon a batch of
Zulus, fine, strapping, jovial fellows, forming a large road party. At
the moment what should appear in sight but two ambulance wagons full of
our wounded men, just sufficiently recovered to be removed to one of the
bare hospitals.
[Illustration:
GRAVE-YARD AT MOUNT PROSPECT.—TOMBSTONES OF SIR POMEROY COLLEY AND
COL. DEANE.
]
This sight was enough of itself to make all the Zulus stop work and
“wau” with curiosity. Seeing some wounded men accompanying the
ambulances one Zulu bursting with fun and grinning from ear to ear,
shouted out, “Sakubona,” (“I see you,” a form of greeting) “Johnny! upi
lo Dutchman?” (“Where is the Dutchman?”) of course a regular peal of
laughter at once followed this sally of native wit. I can assure my
readers, that as an Englishman I sincerely felt for our wounded soldiers
thus tauntingly jeered at, and I was able to estimate the tremendous
shock that our prestige had received among the aborigines. The Zulus
recognized the situation at once, the only thing our poor fellows could
do was to grind their teeth and curse their fate as they wearily trudged
along, victims of vanity[67] and misjudgment, the defeated of Laing’s
Nek, Ingogo and Majuba!
There is no doubt that the retrocession of the Transvaal was a violation
of a series of guarantees which had been previously given. Not only Mr.
Gladstone and Lord Kimberley, but also Sir Garnet Wolseley, Sir Bartle
Frere, Sir Theo. Shepstone and Sir Owen Lanyon had over and over again
declared that the Transvaal would remain English territory, and that
under _no_ circumstances could the annexation be reversed. These
emphatic utterances were made long before the outbreak of hostilities,
and consequently the withdrawal of English rule after the Dutch had
gained four signal victories within nine weeks, could be interpreted
only by both Dutch and natives as an act, not of principle and equity,
but of weakness and defeat. My friend, Mr. C. K. White, one of the
nominees appointed by Sir Garnet Wolseley to the legislative council,
which he gave as a sop to the Transvaal Boers, in a letter at the time
appealed to Mr. Gladstone in the following touching words: “If, sir, you
had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of Pretoria dying of
wounds received for their country, and if you had had the painful duty,
as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home the last mementoes
of the departed; if you had seen the privations and discomforts which
delicate women and children bore without murmuring for upward of three
months; if you had seen strong men crying like children at the cruel and
undeserved desertion of England; if you had seen the long strings of
half desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off their feet as they left
the country, which I saw on my way to Newcastle; and if you yourself had
invested your all on the strength of the word of England, and now saw
yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the acts of the country in
which you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be ‘pronounced,’ and England
would ring with eloquent entreaties and threats which would compel a
hearing.”
Mr. Gladstone, however, changed his previously declared convictions. On
January 21st, 1880, he stated in the House of Commons: “I must look to
the obligations entailed by the annexation, and if in my opinion, and in
the opinion of many on this side of the house, wrong was done by the
annexation itself, that would not warrant us in doing fresh, distinct
and separate wrong by a disregard of the obligations which that
annexation entailed;” or again on June 8th, 1880, when in answer to
Messrs Kruger and Joubert who had written to him, asking him to rescind
the annexation of the Transvaal, he said “our judgment is that the Queen
cannot be advised to relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal.” Yet
little more than a year saw this “pronounced” opinion totally changed,
and all confidence in Mr. Gladstone and his ministry almost annihilated
throughout the length and breadth of South Africa.
Proceeding on my journey I crossed the Ingagane, passed the forts in
course of erection by our soldiers close to the river, the heliograph
twinkling in the sun, and after a long, tiring journey arrived at
Newcastle in the afternoon.
Newcastle lies on a large grassy plain and in the centre of a district
containing no less than 1,350 square miles of workable coal[68] close to
the surface; and in the near future destined to keep up the credit of
its name when the mines have been properly opened up, it will be noted
for this production, and then no doubt a railway to the coast being by
that time _un fait accompli_ will supply the traffic of the eastern
seas.[69] Newcastle was in the zenith of its commercial prosperity
during the late war, and even when I visited it its glory had not quite
departed.
Wishing to proceed and see Majuba without loss of time, I found this
would be an impossibility, at least for some days, had not Mr.
Greenlees, an old resident, kindly given me his assistance and offered
to drive me there himself the next day.
As a pleasurable interlude, especially in a place like Newcastle, a
grand concert was advertised, which took place on the evening of my
arrival, and the band of the 97th put forward as a special inducement. I
went and saw a sight that I shall not soon forget. The “gods” were very
uproarious and demonstrative, and not at all reticent in expressing
their opinion. One singer, well known as a notorious bouncer about the
power of England and the valor of her troops, on coming on was most
cynically received. To me it was a mystery, but this was explained when
he commenced to sing:
“In days of old, when knights were bold,
And barons held their sway;
A warrior bold, with spurs of gold,
Sang merrily his lay,”
for a terrific burst of pent-up anger seemed to thrill the “gods.”
“Loop,” “Verdomde Englishman,” “Go and fight the Boers,” “Why did you
run?” were the cries all round the hall, until the poor fellow slid away
amidst the jeers and laughter of the audience.
Starting early in the morning, we were lucky enough to have as a
companion a young colonial volunteer named Maclean, a relative of a
former governor of Natal, who was one of the brave men who, after the
day’s slaughter, stayed all night with the wounded on the battle field
of Ingogo. Crossing the Incandu, our road lay past Fort Amiel, built
during the Zulu war, and a twelve miles’ journey, ending in a
precipitous rise, landed us on the plateau where the battle of Schuin’s
Hooghte was fought. Then crossing the drift of the Ingogo, we
breakfasted at Virmstone’s roadside inn on the bank of the river.
Just as we were once more inspanning to continue our journey, up rode
Lady Florence Dixie and Sir Beaumont on their way to Newcastle. I was
naturally pleased to have the opportunity of seeing a lady whose
chivalrous defence of Cetywayo afterward had so much to do with his
restoration, and with whose opinions on the late Zulu war and the
treatment of the dethroned king I was so much in harmony. I may here
mention that a few months later I had the pleasure of making Lady
Florence Dixie’s personal acquaintance, when she and Sir Beaumont were
passing through Kimberley.
But we had sixteen miles further to travel to Majuba, so on we went,
leaving Mount Prospect and its cemetery on our right. We reached the
foot of the mountain about 2 P. M. The views of Majuba from the road as
we approached were simply grand, and it was hard to picture war and its
horrors invading such a lovely spot!
I was again fortunate; at the regimental canteen at the bottom I met a
corporal, who had been in all the three engagements, and persuaded him
to guide us to the top, which he did, whiling away the tediousness of
our mountain climb by relating his experience of the dreadful Sunday
(never to be blotted out of South African history), and by recounting
events of which he stated that he was an eye-witness, and which, whether
his account was strictly correct or not, I prefer to leave unrecorded.
Greenlees, Maclean, myself and our guide all went up the same path,
being the _via dolorosa_ the English soldiers under Colley took on the
ill-fated night of Feb. 26th, 1881, and not toiling, laden with
ammunition and accoutrements, as they did, from 9:30 P. M. to near
daybreak, but making the four miles’ circuitous ascent in three
hours.[70] The top is just like a large soup plate, sinking down all
round from the sides and flat at the bottom (about 420 yards long by 300
wide), so that no troops resting in the centre could see an enemy
advancing up the sides of the mountain. Our guide told us the first
intimation he got of the attack of the Dutch was from the consternation
which seized every one, when the Boers, who had gained the summit from
the Transvaal side, suddenly poured into them their first deadly general
volley, although like other eye-witnesses he said there had been
considerable desultory firing since daybreak.
This volley at once created such a panic that a regular stampede
commenced, which the officers tried in vain to stop. It was _sauve qui
peut_.
I had pointed out to me the perpendicular rocks, some as much as forty
feet in height, where many of our men killed themselves jumping headlong
down them in their mad retreat, bleeding, tumbling, dying one on the
other.
There can be no excuse for the disaster of the day. The Boers themselves
were astonished at their own success. Some apologists, I remember at the
time, said our men were fatigued with the ascent, but yet they got to
the top at 3 A. M., long before daybreak, and it was past mid-day when
the Dutch fired the fatal volley which decided the issue of the day.
Surely this gave hours enough for our soldiers to rest. Then who, I may
ask, was responsible for the equipment of the expedition? Where were the
Gatling guns and the rockets, which could have rained death and
destruction on the Boer camp below? Why was no diversion made by us from
our own camp at Mount Prospect? Who superintended the digging of the
intrenchments(?) on Majuba? These and other questions will never now be
answered. Again, about sixty Boers only gained the summit at first,
therefore it could not be said our forces (554 rifles) were
outnumbered.[71]
The very graves themselves bear silent witness to our blind retreat, for
out of ninety-two killed that day only fifty-nine are buried on the top
of the Majuba. The others, shot like game by the Boers in the wild run
for life down the mountain sides, and who killed themselves in their
panic-stricken flight, were buried below at the cemetery of Mount
Prospect.
We remained at the top, enjoying a splendid bird’s-eye view of the
Transvaal, the site of the Boer laager during the war, the battlefield
of Laing’s Nek,[72] our own camp, etc., until the moon rose, when
starting on our downward journey we reached the bottom at nine o’clock,
and in half an hour were partaking of the hospitalities of Mrs.
Greville’s hotel, where we discussed the merits of that eventful day,
and the question of Dutch strategy _versus_ English mismanagement far
into the night.
Next day, before sunrise, I started for Mount Prospect, leaving my
companions sleeping, overcome with the previous day’s exertions. A walk
of three miles brought me to the cemetery, thirty yards long by
twenty-six broad, which was surrounded by a double inclosure, the first
built of sod, the second of stone.
The sunrise was magnificent, the air keenly crisp and clear, and the
scenery, with Majuba filling up the background, I have never seen
surpassed, but a more melancholy sight or one recalling sadder events to
memory could not be seen the wide world over. Here in this little
graveyard, all dead in vain, I saw quietly resting all that “outrageous”
fortune had left of disappointed ambition, ruined hopes, and dreams of a
glorious future! Far in the corner were the plain marble crosses erected
to Sir Pomeroy Colley and Colonel Deane. Sir Pomeroy’s simply chronicled
his death and burial, with the beautiful lines from “In Memoriam:”
“O for thy voice to soothe and bless—
What hope of answer or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.”
while Colonel Deane’s spoke the truth of a valiant soldier “who fell in
action at Laing’s Nek, at the head of a storming party, ten yards in
front of the foremost man.” Alongside these were two little wooden
crosses, pointing out the graves of Doctors Landon and Cornish. On
Surgeon Major Cornish’s grave there was a beautiful wreath, with the
touching words:
“Now the laborer’s task is o’er,
Now the battle’s day is passed;
Lands the voyager at last,
Safe upon that further shore.”
In fact the whole cemetery was like a garden of flowers, the graves
covered with beautiful wreaths of immortelles, tributes from all parts.
I may here mention that I had the pleasure in August, 1886, just five
years after making this visit and five years after the peace was signed,
of being introduced at Barberton-the principal town on the Kaap gold
fields, and elsewhere described—to Commandant General Piet Joubert and
General Smit, who were the Boer commanders at Majuba. I had long been
anxious to hear a _viva voce_ statement of the Boer side of the question
from some of the chief actors, and I eagerly seized the opportunity of
“interviewing” the generals. On waiting on them according to appointment
I was very courteously received. General Joubert I found to be a man who
had seen some sixty summers, of middle height, with a tendency to
corpulency, a greyish beard, sharp, dark eyes and a pleasing expression
of countenance, though it was easy to see from his firm set mouth that
he was a man possessed of great determination of character. There was no
mistaking his nationality as his features were in the main those of the
typical Boer. General Smit was taller, his features more regularly cut
and of sterner cast, and with hair almost grey he looked just the
determined man to lead a forlorn hope. General Joubert at once began the
conversation by telling me that for some time he had considered it
dangerous to allow the English forces the chance of obtaining the key to
the position, which the occupation of Majuba certainly afforded, and
acting on this idea he had determined to occupy the mountain, “but” he
said, “before taking this step I was determined with the other
commandants to make a thorough examination of the locality.” “All came
to the opinion” continued General Joubert, “that the occupation of the
mountain by the English was impossible, but I thought otherwise, and
after this sent up a picket of fifty men each night. This was commenced
on the Thursday night (Feb. 24th) preceding the eventful Sunday on which
Majuba was fought, but by a remarkable act of Providence, the picket
which was told off for duty on Saturday night, being composed of
burghers newly arrived from Pretoria, lost the path up the mountain and
spent the night encamped midway.”
“But,” I asked the general, “hadn’t Colley asked you to disarm?” “I will
tell you,” he replied; “on Friday morning I received a message from
General Colley calling on me to disarm, and saying he would send a
dispatch to the imperial government representing the Boer grievances. I
answered to the effect I could not do this without first getting
permission of the chairman of the Triumvirate at Heidleberg, a process
which would take four days. Now, I thought, all was right till Monday,
and as a proof of my confidence, I even reduced my patrols. What made me
also more certain was that on the next day I got a letter from President
Brand telling me that there was every chance of negotiations for peace
coming to a successful conclusion. I sat up late that night making
copies of Brand’s letter to send to the Triumvirate at Heidleberg and to
General Colley. On going to bed, I can assure you, I couldn’t sleep, my
rest was uneasy and I tossed about till nearly four o’clock in the
morning, when I called my boy to make a fire. Just as the day was
dawning my wife, who had been with me only a few days, got up to make
coffee. Going out of the tent she said, ‘see what lots of men are on the
mountain!’ Suspecting nothing I merely said: ‘It is only our own
people.’ She was not satisfied, however, but got my binocular, and
looked again, when she called out excitedly: ‘Leave your writing! put
down your pen! come here! the _English_ are on the mountain!’ I ran out
at once, there was no need for me to take the glass as I could plainly
distinguish the English troops by their walk. I jumped on my horse,
which like all other horses in the camp, according to general orders,
was saddled at four in the morning, and rode at once to Franz
Joubert[73] who had just come into laager the day before. ‘Now,’ I said,
‘didn’t I tell you the English would get up the mountain? Look, there
they are.’ He wouldn’t believe me but insisted they were our own people.
At this juncture I saw the men returning who should have formed the
picket on Majuba the night before, and heard and saw two shots fired on
them from the hill. I almost lost my temper. ‘Would our own people fire
on us?’ I asked. ‘No! they are English, I say.’ When Franz Joubert
calmly answered, ‘If that is so we shall _have_ to get them down.’
Hurriedly telling him to go on up the mountain, while I would go back
and send some more men, I galloped off to our laager. On my way I met my
son with a message from General Smit advising me to come to Laing’s Nek
at once as that might be attacked. So I left instructions for Veld
Cornets Roos and Minnaar to attack Majuba on one side with about forty
men, and the commandant of Utrecht with something like the same number
would go up the other.”
“But tell me, general,” I said, “were the English fully aware that the
Boers were really coming up the mountain to attack them?”
“Yes! of course they were, they knew it for eight hours, as it was five
o’clock in the morning when they fired the first two shots, and it was
one o’clock when we got to the top.”
“Then it was not, as it is alleged, a sudden attack in force which
gained the day?”
The general smiled at my question. “How could it be when heavy firing
was going on all the morning up to the very last moment.”
“When the top was gained by the Boers, what took place next?”
“There was no resistance, all was over in a minute or two.”
“But tell me, general, how do you account for the fact that 500 English
should run before 60 Boers who had just had an eight-hours’ climb up the
mountain?”
“I don’t wish to give any opinion,” said the general, looking serious
indeed, “but I am certain the hand of God was with us all through.” Then
waxing quite eloquent, he continued: “Men of mine, whom I knew were such
cowards, that in Kafir wars even I have set them to cook the pots,
advanced with determined step, impressed with the work before them,
actuated, I am sure, by an Almighty power.”
Then, continuing the narrative, he told me how General Smit sent him
word about three o’clock that Colley was killed and how he forwarded
instructions that the body should be carefully guarded during the night
with “all honor and respect,” and that the wounded should be laid
together and covered up, the prisoners of war in the meantime being sent
under escort to the Boer camp and transported the next day by wagon to
Heidleberg.
Considering the state of utter demoralization in which our troops had
apparently fallen at the time, the Boers having been victorious in every
engagement of the campaign, all Englishmen may be glad that a sudden
mist stopped the attack upon our camp at Mount Prospect, which General
Smit told me the Boers had decided to make, or a yet more disastrous
defeat would, I feel certain, have been chronicled. I was strongly
impressed with the belief that General Joubert recognized a divine
Providence in everything, as over and over again he said, “the hand of
God was in it all.” I was also informed that when this sudden mist
arose, hiding our camp completely from view, that he quietly said: “Look
at the mist, the Lord won’t allow us to go;” seemingly, like Cromwell,
he was a firm believer in the universality of divine interposition and
so accepted the sudden mist as a command of the Deity! “Thus far shalt
thou go and no further.”
General Joubert’s description of his interview with Gen. Sir Evelyn
Wood, five days after Majuba, was very graphic. I asked the general to
allow me to take notes, to which he consented—when lighting his pipe he
began: “You must know, doctor, that five days after the fight General
Wood sent to ask me if I would meet him half-way between the two camps.
This I agreed to do, and we sent wagons and tents from both sides. There
were myself, General Smit and Mr. Dirkhouse, as clerk on our side, and
General Wood, General Buller and Major Fraser on the English. When I
arrived, after wishing each other ‘good morning,’ General Wood asked me:
‘Have you authority to make peace?’ I answered, ‘Yes, on one condition;’
he said, ‘what is that?’ I replied, ‘the annexation of our country to be
withdrawn.’ ‘Then,’ I added, ‘her Majesty’s troops can leave with honor,
I want no more.’ ‘But if I sign such a peace, will all agree?’ inquired
the general. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘all _must_ in accordance with _our_ law.’
After some moments’ deliberation General Wood asked me whether or not I
would make peace according to the terms offered in a letter sent by Mr.
Kruger to General Colley through President Brand. I answered distinctly,
‘No.’ At last General Wood begged that the armistice might be extended
to twenty days to give Mr. Kruger time to arrange about terms, when,
after discussing the matter for some time, a further cessation of
hostilities for eight days was agreed upon between us, and we left
Buller and Fraser to draw up a document to that effect.
“As we were standing outside the tent while this document was being
prepared, General Wood told me I should have to get away from the Nek,
because it was English territory, but I said: ‘_We_ don’t fight for
ground, _we_ don’t claim any; why should I go? If you _mean_ to make
peace, the closer we get the better.’ General Wood replied, ‘I shall
have to force the place then and drive you away,’ and pointing to his
breast, and counting his medals one after the other, said: ‘Look, there
are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine medals, and if
I pitch you out, another, which will make ten.’ I answered: ‘I must
defend my country at all risks, and stand the consequences,’ He then
looked straight at me and said: ‘Perchance you may kill me, but that is
nothing; England has sixteen generals more.’ I then turned up my coat,
and pointing to _my_ breast, which was perfectly plain, said: ‘General,
there is nothing here, and thank God, I want nothing behind that Nek
there. I have not one single man to be killed for that. (I pointed to a
medal on his breast.) _We_ do not fight for glory, _we_ fight for
liberty, and for liberty every English general, I know, would also yield
his life. We have not many generals, but although I and General Smit
lead our men, each man knows he fights for himself and his country.’
General Wood then continued: ‘But what do you think of Colley going up
the mountain?’ I answered: ‘I don’t know what to think; all I know is
that I received letters from Brand and Colley only the day before, which
tended to throw me off my guard, and while I was in the very act of
writing answers Colley took the opportunity to go up the mountain.’ ‘And
you drove him down?’ ‘I don’t say that, and I am glad no one behind that
Nek says that either, but this I will say, that every man of mine when
he looks at Majuba, when he looks at the top of that mountain there,
thinks of nothing but the wondrous work of the Almighty.’ Wood seemed
touched. ‘I am not an unbeliever; I also say my prayers,’ he ejaculated.
‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to hear you say that, but do you know what we pray
for? We don’t pray to conquer nations and annex countries; what we pray
for is that Almighty God may so open the eyes of the gracious Queen of
England that she and her counsellors may see what is justice and what is
right, then we shall feel sure of our case and know that freedom to our
country must come.’
“We then talked a little about Bronker’s Spruit and other incidents of
the war, when, the document being finished, we went into the tent to
sign it.”
Shortly after General Joubert concluded the above somewhat melo-dramatic
description of his meeting with Sir Evelyn Wood, I took my leave, having
spent a most interesting hour in the society of the generals.
Returning, however, to the description of my trip of 1881; when I got to
the hotel I found all prepared for leaving, and after breakfast we
started for Newcastle, intending to rest at Ingogo, as we had not time
to visit Laing’s Nek (and moreover we could see the position from the
road), where Colley’s first defeat took place on Jan. 28th, with a loss
of 260 killed and wounded, and where Colonel Deane and Major Poole
(Cetywayo’s old friend) were shot down. After a pleasant drive we
crossed the Ingogo drift, the road gradually ascending until the plateau
of Schuin’s Hooghte was reached, where Colley suffered his second defeat
on Feb. 7th. Making a _reconnaissance_ that morning with 273 of the 60th
Rifles and 38 men of the mounted squadron from Mount Prospect, Colley
was virtually lured to his destruction. The Boers retired before his
advance, until having decoyed our troops to Schuin’s Hooghte, a high and
perfectly unsheltered plateau, they opened a galling fire from the other
side of the valley which intervened, a perfectly safe position for them.
This was at 10:15 A. M., and until sundown our soldiers were nothing
more or less than English targets for Dutch bullets. The field guns
which Colley brought with him were useless; he had nothing to fire at
but rocks, the Boers finding most excellent cover. The horses were shot
down at the guns, the mules at the ambulance wagons, nothing living was
safe for a moment from the Boers’ unerring aim. Maclean pointed out to
me the exact stone, near the centre of the plateau, where Colley, Essex
and Wilkinson took cover most of the day, and gave me a most vivid
description of the field when, on a second visit next day, he found the
place literally stormed by armies of cowardly vultures, attracted by the
putrid effluvium from the rotting carcasses of the dead horses and
mules. With my penknife I picked out splashes of lead from the crevices
of the stones, as relics of the Boers’ accurate sighting. Wilkinson,
brave young fellow, was drowned the same night in the Ingogo, when
pluckily returning with comforts for the wounded, that river having
become a sweeping torrent owing to the storm of rain which had been
raging for some hours previous.
These poor fellows, left on the plateau in the rain, were totally
deserted except by one or two, Parson Ritchie, Maclean and Dr. McGan,
Colley having made good his retreat in the night with his troops and
guns to Mount Prospect. There these men lay in a heap, the dying and the
dead together, the pitchy darkness of that long, cold, wet, dreary night
now and again relieved by vivid flashes of lurid lightning. _Only_
142[74] of our soldiers were sacrificed on this occasion. I went to look
at one of the two inclosed grave-yards of these ill-fated men. In the
corner of a little inclosure by the roadside I found tokens of the
conflict and relics of our loss. The helmets of the dead soldiers,
riddled with bullets, were promiscuously piled together, while all
around could be seen traces of the desolation war had produced.
Turning to the Boer losses and casualties. The news of the Boers having
taken the Amajuba mountain reached the Red Cross Association on March
6th, at Bethlehem, O. F. S., when its members at once left for Laing’s
Nek, arriving there on March 16th. Dr. A. C. Daumas, in a report which
he wrote to the secretary of the association, dated Aliwal North, July
29th, 1881, said:
“You may easily fancy what our astonishment was on being informed that
although accepted with thanks, our services were by no means so urgent
and necessary as we had at first supposed.
“In fact, the hospital established by Dr. Merinski, close to the camp,
only contained in all one man sick and three wounded.”
Further on, in the same report, Dr. Daumas stated:
“It would be rather difficult to tell accurately the number of Boers
encamped in this pass (Laing’s Nek), but I do not think I am far from
the truth in estimating their number at 1,000 men.
“This small army subsisted there without the help of any commissariat;
each man was obliged to provide himself with his own food, which
consisted generally in a purely animal diet. He did not receive any
pay, and had beside to get his accommodation at his own expense. His
obedience to his commanders was absolute. The most perfect order
prevailed in this camp, where, strange to say, there never was any
drilling done. Far from being intoxicated with their victories, the
Boers always showed themselves extremely modest, attributing all their
successes to the protection of heaven.... But what remains to be
explained is how an army of several thousand men may have been able to
take the field and keep it during several months without commissariat,
and especially without any medical service, and should not have been
more subject to the class of diseases which are in time of war the
ordinary sad attendants of all armies.
“Should not the reason of these facts lie in this, _i.e._, that owing
to his sobriety and to the strength of his constitution the Boer has
been able to resist the physical causes which produce those diseases;
as also through his political faith, coupled with genuine religious
faith, he has been able to bear up against the moral causes.”
There is no gainsaying the fact that all through the war the Boers had
implicit faith in divine assistance.
Leaving Schuin’s Hooghte we hurried to Newcastle, and next day I left
for Ladysmith, intending to catch the mail cart which runs from the
Rising Sun to Bloemfontein, and so through the Free State to Kimberley.
Passing through Harrismith, the border town of the Free State, we came
to Bethlehem, where I saw the handsome Dutch Church, just finished at a
cost of £16,000, and passing Senekal at 5 A. M., nearly frozen in the
pitch darkness, I arrived in Winburg at twelve, at noon. Dr. Dixon, the
leading practitioner there, soon found me out, and dining at his table
with some Kimberley speculators, on coal not diamonds bent, spent a very
pleasant afternoon. The post-cart left at 6:30 P. M.; at eight next
morning we were in Bloemfontein, and everything going favorably along,
July 12th saw me once more on the diamond fields.
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