A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.—FELSTEAD’S.—DR. L. S. JAMESON.—TRIP TO THE
TRANSVAAL.—MONS. GRANDIER.—UMBELINI AND
CETYWAYO.—CHRISTIANA.—POTCHEFSTROOM.—PRETORIA.—THE ERSTE
FABRIEKEN.—BATTLE-FIELD OF BRONKHORST SPRUIT.—BURGERS, SHEPSTONE AND
LANYON.—MAPOCH AND MAMPOER.—START FOR NATAL.
Having now dwelt at some length on the three professions, Divinity, Law
and Physic, as represented on the Diamond Fields, I will resume my
personal narrative.
I have good personal reason for recollecting the outbreak of so-called
small-pox, which (as the reader will remember) I have described in a
previous chapter. The medical practitioners of the Diamond Fields were
at the time for months in a state of the utmost excitement over the
_quæstio vexata_ of small-pox or no small-pox, and although the weight
of evidence and the opinions of those whose qualifications and
experience almost served to carry conviction was certainly in favor of
the latter theory, yet on the opposite side were ranged, besides those
to whom the public attributed (I trust and believe wrongly) interested
motives, some men of undoubted ability in their profession and above the
suspicion of maintaining the scare for the sake of their personal
advantage. The authorities were naturally more or less in doubt also,
for “who shall decide when doctors disagree?” and many were the
commissions of doctors dispatched by Government to visit “Felstead’s,” a
farm some eight miles from Kimberley, where a temporary hospital was
erected, all natives coming from the Transvaal examined, and those found
suffering from the disease isolated. On the morning of December 1, 1883,
Dr. L. S. Jameson, one of the most able physicians in the Diamond
Fields, in accordance with the request of government, drove out to the
place in order to make an official report.
Our inspection over, we re-entered the vehicle and set out on our way
home to breakfast, when my horses became unmanageable and dashed amidst
a herd of cattle, with the result that the cart was overturned and Dr.
L. S. Jameson thrown out with immense force some fifteen yards, happily
without sustaining any hurt, while I was less fortunate, for though I
fell out close beside the vehicle, I received such serious injuries
(involving extravasation of blood upon the brain) that I remained for
four or five days perfectly unconscious, and on coming to my senses
found myself in the Carnavon Hospital, suffering from paralysis of the
right side. Here let me briefly thank Mr. Denis Doyle, the able and
energetic Sanitary Inspector of the Kimberley municipality, for the
great and invaluable services which he rendered to me, so I am told, on
the morning of my accident, by providing relays of natives to carry me
to the hospital. I would also warmly thank those members of my own
profession, especially Dr. L. S. Jameson, who took on himself the sole
responsibility of my case, for their unremitting attention: the good
sister Henrietta and kind sisters and nurses of the hospital, and the
public of the Four Camps, who exhibited an earnest solicitude as to my
condition, that deeply touched me and that I shall never forget.
Immediately on my recovering sufficient strength to move about, I
determined to take a tour through the Transvaal, a country that I had
long been desirous of visiting, and I booked a seat for Pretoria in the
coach leaving Kimberley on December 31, 1883. My friends, however, not
thinking me strong enough to travel, caused me much vexation, by
ingeniously contriving that I should miss the coach, and in consequence
my journey was postponed for another week. However, I took good care
that their over-solicitude, as I thought it, should not make me miss the
coach a second time, and I left on January 7th.
Just as I was sitting in the coach, preparing to start, a bundle of
letters was placed in my hand, including one from my wife, who was then
visiting our children in Germany. Curiously enough this letter was
written on the very day after my accident, and contained the following
request, “Let me know if anything, however trivial, has happened to you
to-day. I have a strange feeling that something, I know not what, has
occurred, which makes me intensely anxious.” I do not intend to draw any
deduction from what, after all. may have been a mere coincidence, but
the facts, nevertheless, are as I have stated.
How many times before T returned to Kimberley, if my pride would have
allowed me, should I not have freely admitted the folly of my journey!
To a man who had sustained a shock to his nervous system such as I had,
the bumping for nearly a fortnight in a four-horse coach along primitive
South African roads, was naturally not the best course of curative
treatment.
Leaving Kimberley early in the morning a long stage brought us to a
roadside inn, which was, and is, I believe, kept by M. Grandier,
formerly a trooper in Weatherly’s Horse during the Zulu war.
Taking out the horses we rested here some time, and I persuaded Mr.
Grandier, whom I had met in Kimberley, to tell me the story of his
narrow escape at Zlobani Mountain during the war with Cetywayo. The
facts of his escape, as he related them to me, are indeed stranger than
fiction. “I was a trooper,” said Mr. Grandier, “in Weatherly’s Horse,
and I shall never forget the morning of the 28th of March, 1879, and the
attack of the Zulus at Zlobani. Ah! Mon Dieu, Colonel Weatherly was a
fine man; we worshipped him, and would have followed him to the jaws of
death. It took us most difficult work to get to the top of the mountain;
we were at it all night, but we accomplished it. We stopped at the top
an hour or two, when Colonel Buller perceived the black hordes in
thousands just like monkeys, climbing up on all sides to hem us in. The
Colonel told us to get down as quickly as we could, and did not we ride!
I shall never forget the last sight of my beloved old Colonel; the
picture is still in my mind. It seems but yesterday I saw him in the
distance surrounded by howling Kafirs, all hope lost, covering his son,
a bright, fair-haired lad of fifteen, from the cruel assegais of his
brutal foes. I jumped down the sides of rocks as big as this house, my
little horse always landing on its legs, and at last, after many escapes
from the Zulus, got safely to the bottom. Five or six of our fellows at
once got hold of my stirrups, seized my horse’s tail, nearly dragging
him to the ground, and so weighted the poor brute that he was done up in
a mile or two, and I had to leave him. What did I do? I ran like the
devil and managed to hide myself in some tall grass, when, as night was
coming on, I thought I was safe. Four Zulus, however, spied me out; it
was no use my resisting, so they seized and stripped me of everything. I
never could tell why they did not kill me; the only thing they did was
to drive me on in front of them, telling me to ‘hambake.’ Every moment I
thought my last. After walking some miles, we stopped at the kraal of
Umbelini, an ex-Swazi chief, half-way up the valley, who was one of
Cetywayo’s adherents. How I wondered what would happen next! Naked as I
was, they tied me to a post, when the women tore round me as if mad,
spat in my face, and pulled out my beard, while the men formed a circle,
and yelled and danced about me like very fiends! This lasted far into
the morning, when, half dead from fatigue and terror though I was, a
Zulu, who could speak a little Dutch, raised my hopes of life by telling
me that I was meant as a present to Cetywayo. Resting a little they
started me off with an escort, to a place which I afterwards found to be
Ulundi, Cetywayo’s head kraal. I can assure you I was as naked as when I
was born, and the broiling sun in the day and the cold at night almost
drove me mad. At Cetywayo’s I was treated just as badly as at
Umbelini’s. The women again acted as perfect devils from the pit below.
Cetywayo was disappointed with me, did not believe I was unable from
weakness to handle the two guns that he showed me and which had been
taken at Isandhlwana. He told me to get back to Umbelini’s kraal (for
the worst I presumed) as he found me of no use. Starting back with two
Kafirs as a guard, at the close of the day I felt completely exhausted,
when they allowed me to rest close by a mealie field on the banks of a
stream. Fortunately for me my guards were nearly as much wearied as
myself, and only too glad to take a rest. One sat down to snuff, while
the other went to fetch water. A sudden idea struck me, and, making a
regular leap for life, I jumped and seized an assegai lying on the
ground, and in less than no time stabbed the Zulu who was engaged in
snuffing, right through the heart. Then snatching one of the rifles that
they had with them, I waited for the Zulu returning with the water, who,
as soon as he caught sight of me, bolted into the long grass, leaving me
free once more. The excitement gave me fresh strength to begin another
fight for life, and, to make a long story short, in two or three days,
after a desperate struggle, I got back to the camp at Kambula, much to
the surprise of my comrades, who for eighteen days had given me up as
lost. For weeks I suffered much from the exposure, but recovered
sufficiently to get to Ulundi in time for the finish. I shall never,
however, forget or get over _my_ introduction to Cetywayo.”
The story and our lunch being finished, on we went to Christiana, my
only companion in the coach being a Mr. Fowler, who was engaged by some
English capitalists to report on certain properties in the Transvaal
said to be auriferous. Obviously plain and straightforward, his manner
commanded confidence, and his report of the places which he was
specially engaged to examine, as I afterwards heard, was not of the
glowing color that distinguished others which were made to home
capitalists, by perhaps personally interested experts, as I then
believed.
Some few miles from Christiana, our next resting-place, we crossed the
Vaal River, which is here a broad flowing stream some 200 yards in
width, and continuing along its bank for some miles we arrived there at
about seven o’clock.
[Illustration:
BRONKHORST SPRUIT.
]
The coach was soon surrounded by the villagers, its arrival being looked
upon as _the_ event of the week.
Among the throng that came to meet the coach, I saw several gentlemen
(?) whom I recognized as former residents of Kimberley, who had sought
another sphere on account of the strictness of Ordinance 48, 1882
(Diamond Trade Act), and who were pursuing their peculiar line of
business in a place where they were safe from the annoyance of
inquisitive detectives asking unpleasant questions, and had chosen
Christiana for their abode as being the nearest village in the Transvaal
to the border of Griqualand West.[98] As soon as the coach stopped, we
were pounced upon by a Health Officer, who forced us into a little
triangular shed, reeking with burning brimstone, in order to fumigate
us, the absurd idea having spread to the Transvaal that a couple of
minutes’ exposure to sulphur fumes would kill the germs of small-pox,
and so lessen the chance of our bringing this dreaded infection with us.
The official in question was not over exacting. He assured me in strict
confidence, that the small-pox scare in Kimberley was nothing but a
“doctor’s rush,” and to prove to us his belief in what he said, he was
contented with a merely formal inhalation on our part of the unpleasant
smoke, thus satisfying his conscience that he had done his duty. Two
hotels, one or two stores, the Landtrost’s office and a few straggling
houses, comprised everything that was to be seen.
Leaving this place, for six hours[99] until we arrive at Bloemhof, the
road ran alongside the Vaal River. All the inhabitants of this small
village, which was of about the same type as Christiana, were fast
asleep when we drove up, so we merely remained there long enough to
change horses.
This place leaped into notoriety some fourteen years ago, in consequence
of being selected as the scene of the famous Bloemhof arbitration,
otherwise known as the Keate award, a definition of boundaries which
satisfied nobody. A handful of burnt brick houses, here one and there
one with a plastered front, glaring out like spectres in the hazy
moonlight and revealing a Gehenna of desolation and dust, is all that
remains, so far as this Sleepy Hollow is concerned, “photographically
limned on the tablets of my mind, when a yesterday has faded from its
page,” as Gilbert (W.S., not the esteemed Kimberley attorney) observes
in a well-known Bab ballad.
Stopping two or three times for the same purpose, first at Clarkson’s
store, in front of which there is an immense lake some miles in
circumference, and again at Maquassie’s Spruit, sixteen hours more
jolting brought us to Klerksdorp, one of the most charming little
villages that I have seen in this country. The pretty houses nestling
among the fruit trees, and the roadside inn so clean and so comfortable,
recalled pleasant memories of many an old English village.
Immediately before our arrival here we played the principal parts in a
reproduction of the laughable farce “Fumigation.” as performed with such
immense success in Kimberley, Christiana, etc. Here, however, the
performance was decidedly unsuccessful, both the players, stage managers
and prompters being far too sleepy to care whether anybody’s choking in
the sulphurous exhalations of the “property” brazier was realistically
rendered or a hollow mockery. Six hours more and we drove at a gallop
into Potchefstroom, and drew up at the Royal Hotel. Learning the time
the coach would start for Pretoria, and that I should have but three
hours to look around, I started off at once to see the town, first
attracted by the stately trees, towering at least sixty feet high, which
lined the principal streets, giving an air of staidness and solidity to
the little town, and at the same time inspiring an idea of well-to-do,
if slightly humdrum, respectability and quietude, such as may be
observed in many a New England village. The substantial brick built
houses, too, surrounded by beautiful shrubs and graceful willows, the
clear water from the Mori River running in sluits through every street,
formed a striking contrast to the iron houses, the debris heaps and the
dusty parched-up place that I had but two days left behind. Passing
Reid’s store, which stands at one side of a market square, at least
twenty acres in extent, with a plain and unimposing church. in the
centre. I made my way to the Court-House at the opposite corner of the
square, which, on the breaking out of the war, was one of the places
held by our troops.
Though nearly two years had elapsed since the cessation of hostilities,
the place showed the signs of the past struggle, by its general air of
desertion, and the poverty-stricken appearance of a whilom-beleagured
town. On making my way in, I could see by the marks all round how the
place had been riddled by bullets, and could imagine the hot fire to
which it had been exposed. The hole in the door was pointed out to me,
through which the bullet sped which killed Capt. Falls, on the very
first day of the attack by the Boers.
[Illustration:
COURT-HOUSE AT POTCHEFSTROOM, DEC., 1880, AFTER THE SIEGE.
]
After Capt. Falls’ death Colonel Clark, now Her Majesty’s representative
in Basutoland, took command, and with the thirty-five men he had with
him defended the building for three days, until the Boers fired the
roof, and he was forced to surrender on December 20th.
The Boers, elated to a degree, outraged every rule of war, sentenced the
men who had capitulated to hard labor and forced them to work in the
trenches which they (the Boers) were digging in front of the fort, where
some of our troops had taken shelter, and which they were defending.
There, exposed to shot and shell, several lost their lives, killed by
the bullets of their comrades in the fort, who knew them not. I next
visited the fort itself, which had been the scene of so many painful
events. In a space but twenty-five yards square were crammed during the
siege nearly 300 souls, of whom about 100 only could bear arms, and here
men, women and children remained cooped up from the date above mentioned
until they surrendered on March 20th, evacuating the fort on the 23d. In
the rear of the fort a stone enclosure was pointed out to me containing
the graves of those who died during the four months’ siege. There is no
doubt Cronjé, the Dutch commander, ought to have been severely brought
to task, as he was guilty of a decided breach of the rules of war, in
that he never informed the garrison, which when it surrendered had only
a few rotten mealies left, of the armistice which had been agreed upon
after Majuba, on the 6th of March, news of which he received in
Potchefstroom on the 12th, and was published in the _Staats Courant_ on
the 16th. During the siege our losses were: one officer killed and four
wounded, twenty-five rank and file killed, and forty-one wounded. The
survivors after the surrender were marched to the Free State border and
liberated.
There is no doubt that Potchefstroom, which at one time, when the
Transvaal was divided into two Republics, was one of the seats of
government, lost much by the war. When I was there all the men of
business with whom I conversed, told me that property had immensely
depreciated in value, and while walking round the town I myself saw
proofs of this in the many houses that were tenantless: but although Mr.
Robert Acult of the firm of Reid and Co., the largest merchants of the
place, told me that business was decidedly reviving, yet the
non-reappearance of any banking institutions since the war told me its
own tale. One thing, however, I noticed, that to all appearance a
friendly feeling seemed to exist among all classes.
“Time and tide wait for no man,” so the frantic blasts from the driver’s
bugle announced the readiness of the coach for departure. Taking our
seats, off we started for Pretoria at eleven o’clock—
“Smack went the whip, round went the wheels,
Never were folks so glad;”
for now at last we began to see “the beginning of the end.” The journey
from Potchefstroom to Pretoria is excessively wearisome, and the country
very level and tame. We saw nothing worthy of recording, unfortunately
passing the celebrated caves of Wonderfontein[100] in the night—nothing
to break the monotony of our journey, save the periodical changing of
our horses, nothing to occupy our attention but the oft-repeated
arguments, whether or not there was any improvement in the team, or the
discussion whether time had been gained or lost. In fact we all felt an
incessant longing for our journey’s end.
On arriving at Pretoria we drove at once to the Post-Office to deliver
the mails, then going round to the principal hotel, Up with the lark, I
made the round of the main part of Pretoria before breakfast. Just in
front of the hostelry where I was stopping, the Market Square extended
like a large grass plot, very little business evidently being transacted
there, as grass was growing nearly all over. At one end there was a
large Cathedral in course of erection,[101] which I was told would cost
£20,000, and will be a decided ornament to the town when finished. The
streets were all at right angles, lined in many places with large gum
trees, while the houses, neat and cosy, had pretty, well-kept gardens in
front, between which the rose hedges were blooming in prodigal
profusion. I saw no public buildings in the place worthy the name. The
government offices and banks, built merely of brick, had no pretensions
to architecture whatever. Every thing seemed in a state of utter
stagnation, very different, I was told, to the state of affairs under
British rule, when building was going ahead and trade and speculation
were brisk.
Gold was the theme of conversation at every meal, and seemed to have
attracted to the place the few strangers whom I met at the hotel, mere
speculators either in prospective gold concessions, or engaged in
examining and certifying to the richness of gold fields about which,
before they even had made an inspection, the “straight tip” had been
given them as to the kind of report expected.
Here, visiting the capital town of the Transvaal, it was impossible not
to look back and think over the causes which led to the late war. Any
impartial observer of men and things could come to no other conclusion
but that, if Sir Theophilus Shepstone had remained in the Transvaal, and
had been allowed to finish that which he had so well commenced, the
Transvaal would have been a British possession to-day. Sir Theophilus
Shepstone, if not known personally, yet at least by name was familiar to
every farmer in the State. There is no doubt that President Burgers was
driven, at the time of Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s arrival, almost to
despair. With a dissatisfied people, no money in the Treasury, the
Sekukuni expedition a failure, Sir Theophilus Shepstone appeared on the
scene just at the right moment. As proof of this, read Mr. Burgers’
speech in the Volksraad in March, 1877:
“You have lost the country by your own stupidity. It is not this
Englishman, or that Englishman, it is you—you! who have sold the country
for a soupie.[102] It is now too late, you have become a danger, and a
nuisance, and, like Turkey, your prostrate carcase is infecting the air.
England now says, as she said to Turkey, ‘Remove it at once, remove it,
or we shall do it at your cost.’”
President Burgers again, in the very last speech he ever delivered to
the members of the Volksraad, out-Heroded Herod in his disappointed (?)
frankness—in fact the Transvaal’s most bitter foe could not have spoken
more openly.
This is the peroration of his speech on that eventful occasion:
“Gentlemen, I may say in conclusion that when you want presidents, when
you want doctors, when you want clergymen, when you want surgeons, when
you want any educated men whatever, you have to get them from abroad;
but whenever I bring forward measures for railways, for education, and
for other necessary advancements, you refuse to pass them or pay for
them. I say emphatically your independence is not _to be_ lost, but _is_
lost.”[103]
Yet if Mr. Burgers had then or at any moment held up his little finger,
Sir T. Shepstone _must_ have gone back. Instead of that Mr. Burgers,
knowing he would never be reelected President, saw in the arrival of the
English an opportune solution of the difficulties of the Executive, and
this, to my mind, was the secret of his advising the Boers not to
resist, but simply to “Protest! protest, and never cease protesting!”
No wonder, in after years, the Transvaal Boers were furious and looked
with disgust upon Mr. Burgers and his action and words, when they
learned that in 1878 Sir Bartle Frere gave orders that Mr. Burgers was
to be paid an allowance of £500 per annum, with arrears from April 12th,
1877, the day on which Sir T. Shepstone issued his Proclamation, taking
over the country. This, when it became known in 1879, was looked upon by
the Boers as a bribe to Mr. Burgers, and at any rate my readers must
agree with me, that this allowance should have been paid out of Imperial
funds, as the country was taken over for Imperial purposes.
Aristotle in his “Politics” states that revolutions are produced _by_
trifles, but not _out of_ trifles. The revolution in the Transvaal was
precipitated by a trifle, but that trifle was led up to by a series of
blunders to my mind quite unpardonable. The trifle to which I allude was
the harsh treatment (as it was at the time considered by the Dutch) in
the Potchefstroom district of a man named Bezuidenhout, who was summoned
for certain taxes amounting to £27 5 0. Refusing to pay, his wagon was
seized, and on the day appointed for its sale in the local market,
Bezuidenhout drove it away in face of the authorities to his farm, and
Commandant Haaf was sent to arrest him, but found him too well supported
by his friends and had to retire. On account of this, the great mass
meeting at Paarde Kraal was held on December 8th, 1880, which lasted
until the 13th, when the Boers formed the solemn resolution of fighting
for their independence.
But to return to Sir Theophilus Shepstone, in an address which he issued
shortly after his arrival, addressed “To the Burgers of the Transvaal,”
in April, 1877, he thus appealed to them:
“Some of you were among the old pioneers, many of whom I knew as
acquaintances, and not a few as friends. Others of you are children of
those who belonged to that adventurous band, but who have passed away.
“Practically, I am an Africander, as you are proud to call yourselves. I
can speak in your language, and have spoken to hundreds of you on the
subject of my mission. I therefore know the feelings of those who are
against it as well as those who are for it.
* * * * *
“Has not the war with Sekukuni, whom you all consider to be but an
insignificant enemy, and which is not yet settled as was supposed, dealt
a fatal blow to the prestige of the Republic, to its financial
condition, to its government, and to the credit of the country, and has
it not caused disaster and ruin to many families which your government
found itself powerless to remedy? You all know as well as I do, that it
has.
* * * * *
“You are surrounded inside and outside your boundaries by at least one
and a half million of natives, none of whom have been made firm friends
by your past intercourse with them, and of these one of the weakest has
dealt you a deadly blow. It follows, therefore, that you can neither sow
nor reap except by the tacit permission of the native population, and
they have lost the respect for you which they had for the pioneers.”
This plain unvarnished language had its effect. He was cordially
received, and Her Majesty, in her prorogation speech, addressed to
Parliament on the 14th of August, was able to say, “The Proclamation of
my Sovereignty in the Transvaal has been received throughout the
province with enthusiasm. It has also been accepted with marked
satisfaction by the native chiefs and tribes; and the war, which
threatened in its progress to compromise the safety of my subjects in
South Africa, is happily brought to a close.”[104]
But concerning Sir Owen Lanyon, who followed Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
the Boers knew nothing, and regarded him with suspicion. Then again his
training was against him—he was too autocratic, too self-willed, his
military style of discipline too severe, and these qualities, which were
rapidly rendering him unpopular even as Administrator in Griqualand
West, he still retained, and manifested in his new and larger sphere.
Sir Owen Lanyon was sworn in as Administrator of the Transvaal on March
4th, 1879, and during the very next month he begged Sir Bartle Frere,
then in Natal, to come to Pretoria, and assist him in arranging affairs
which were beginning to look serious. In fact from his arrival to his
departure on April 8th, 1881, he was over-handicapped. Sir Owen Lanyon,
to judge from his conduct in the Transvaal, seemed to think it necessary
to remove all those who had supported Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and put
his own men in their place.
The Hollanders, an important element, were exasperated by the removal of
their countryman, Dr. Kissik, from the post of District Surgeon, to make
room for an old Diamond Field favorite; the barristers were insulted by
the appointment of an Attorney General ignorant of the Dutch language,
and a man upon whom they looked down as merely a newspaper reporter, and
an attorney’s clerk; and lastly, the entire country was aroused when, in
face of direct promises to the contrary, Mr. De Wet, Recorder of
Griqualand West, was raised to the post of Chief Justice over the head
of Mr. Kotzé, who had the confidence and admiration of all parties.
While all these apparent trifles were accumulating, there was silently
growing up a spirit of flunkeyism, which seems innate in English people.
The Transvaal is essentially republican, and such a spirit was utterly
unsuited to the ideas of the inhabitants. One correspondent in the
Transvaal wrote to me at the time—“sycophancy and subserviency are in
the ascendant, good independent men are shunted to make way for those
who know how to truckle to the powers that be.”[105]
Sir Bartle Frere at once acceded to Sir Owen Lanyon’s request. Arriving
in Pretoria from Natal on the 10th of April, 1879, after several
conferences with the Boers, he almost reconciled them to annexation by
telling them that they should have as free a constitution as their
brethren in the Cape. Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, came out, superseded
Sir Bartle Frere in the High Commissionership for South East Africa, and
arriving just too late for Ulundi, and the overthrow of Cetywayo, came
to the Transvaal, and was sworn in as Governor on September 29, 1879.
Sir Garnet spoke just as strongly as Mr. Gladstone (whom I will quote
anon) had written, concerning the impossibility of our retiring from the
Transvaal, and both at Wakkerstroom, Standerton and Pretoria assured his
hearers that the Transvaal would remain British “as long as the sun
shone.”
To add insult to injury a constitution of merely government and nominee
members was formed, which was laughed and jeered at by nearly the entire
country, both Dutch and English.[106]
At this time the _Volkstem_, the organ of the Boers in Pretoria, urged
the farmers not to give any excuse to Sir Garnet Wolseley to attack
them, but simply to protest, passively resist, and follow out President
Burgers’ advice in March, 1877, when he told them “Have patience, your
plan is to protest, keep on protesting, and ‘alles zal recht kommen.’”
The Dutch followed this advice for a time, as they did not forget the
success which attended these tactics in Holland 300 years before, when
under Counts Egmont and Horn, in 1566, they managed by a series of
protests, to Madrid, to rid themselves of the Spaniards and Spanish
rule.
Sir Garnet Wolseley then went home, and Sir Pomeroy Colley in March,
1880, succeeded him as High Commissioner for South Eastern Africa.
Events rapidly culminated. On December 13th, the Triumvirate of Kruger,
Joubert, and Pretorius being formed (Lanyon in Pretoria still being
nominal administrator of the country), three commanders were organized,
one of which went and met the 94th Regiment at Bronkhorst Spruit,
another to Potchefstroom, where it besieged the Court-House and Fort,
while the third made Heidelberg its headquarters.
So the war commenced.
The three months’ siege or investment of Pretoria by the Boers was a
very tame affair indeed, the state of alarm the place was in being
nothing but the direct consequence of the Boer success at Bronkhorst
Spruit, which I shall presently describe. As soon as conductor Egerton
brought into Pretoria the account of the disaster at this place, a grand
meeting of the townspeople took place, and Sir W. Owen Lanyon at once
placed Pretoria under martial law, all Dutch sympathizers being allowed
but half an hour’s grace to clear out, bag and baggage; the Convent, the
gaol close by with its yard, and the military camp were fortified, and
to these places all the inhabitants of the town, about 3,000, were
compelled to remove, and leave their homes to the mercy of any intruder.
Dr. Dyer, the District Surgeon of Pretoria under the Lanyon
administration, in former years a practitioner at the Diamond Fields,
and who when I saw him in Pretoria held the same appointment under the
Boer government, very kindly spent the whole of Sunday morning in
driving me around and pointing out the principal places of interest, at
the same time giving me most interesting personal reminiscences of the
siege, during which he was principal Civil Medical Officer. We drove
first to the old military camp, and saw the long parallel rows of
barrack buildings, built during the British occupation, but which then
were all empty and forsaken. “It is impossible,” the Doctor said, “to
picture what we went through, or to realize the contrast between the
thronged busy place this was during the siege and the silence of
to-day.”
Indeed it would be difficult to find a valid excuse for the action of
the authorities at all in dragging the inhabitants away from their
houses and homes, and penning them up like sheep together, were it not
that a species of panic had come over all.
[Illustration:
EXECUTION OF MAMPOER, NOV. 22, 1883.
]
Such was the terror and excitement existing that, although Pretoria had
a garrison of 2,000 effective men, reckoning regulars and volunteers,
yet a force of at the most 600 Boers kept them and the inhabitants shut
up for months, like rats in a cage. This garrison made one or two
sorties. On the 16th of January they had a fight at Elandsfontein, of
which the less said the better, and another on February 12th, at Red
House Kraal, situated the other side of the Six-mile Spruit, on the road
to Natal. This was a Majuba in miniature; our troops, showing the white
feather, made a regular skedaddle. Nixon, who has written a most
interesting work on the Transvaal, and who was in Pretoria at the time,
says he saw our men running away down the hills into Pretoria, as hard
as their legs could carry them. Eighty Boers made 200 red coats take to
their heels, and the remainder of a column, 900 strong, were, to the
disgrace of our arms, ordered to retire. The Boers formed a supreme
contempt of the “Rori Baajtes.” These disastrous occasions, though such
exceptional instances in the long and glorious annals of British arms,
suffice in no way to tarnish their brilliant lustre in the eyes of those
better acquainted with European history than these uneducated Dutch
farmers. But to return to my sight seeing. After leaving the late
military camp, we went to the gaol. This is very well kept, and in
first-rate order. I walked round and saw the additions which had been
made to the yard during the siege, all now merely mementoes of the past.
Among the prisoners in the gaol, my attention was drawn to one tall,
princely looking native pacing his cell and clanking his chains with an
air of haughty disdain. This was no other than Niabel, alias Mapoch, who
with another chief, Mampoer, had been sentenced to death by the
Transvaal government, but reprieved.
The story of Sekukuni’s murder, Mampoer’s execution and Mapoch’s
imprisonment, reads like a novel. Sequati, a Bapedi chief on the
northeastern border of the Transvaal, had two sons, Mampoer, a son by
the royal mother, and Sekukuni, a son by a wife of inferior rank. They
fought for the succession, when Sekukuni being victorious usurped the
throne and Mampoer fled to Mapoch, a small chief in the Transvaal. As
time went on Sekukuni would not pay taxes to the Boers.
Johannes, a petty chief, with whom in former years he had been on bad
terms, but who, having made up the dispute, now resided near him, was
the first to rebel against the Boers. Mampoer assisting them. Johannes
was killed and his tribe utterly broken up. The Boers, following up
their success, tried to subdue Sekukuni, but failed, their Amaswazi
allies having left them, being utterly disgusted with their (the Boers’)
cowardice.
President Burgers then went to the front himself, but all in vain.
Deserted by the burghers, who raised the now proverbial cry of “huis
toe,”[107] and broken-hearted, without adherents, without money, he had
to return to Pretoria and leave Sekukuni virtually master of the
situation. This ultimately led to Burgers’ downfall and the assertion of
British authority, and here he learned from painful experience that “the
Boers were not those of the great Trek, and he himself was not Ketief,
Maritz, Pretorius the elder, or even Paul Kruger.”
After the British annexation of the Transvaal, Sekukuni did not come to
any settlement, so when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived in September, 1879,
after the dethronement of Cetywayo, he at once sent a special envoy,
dictating terms to Sekukuni, which the latter refused. This at once led
to an attack upon his stronghold, which Sir Garnet Wolseley stormed and
captured, supported by sixteen companies of infantry. 400 mounted men,
two or three guns and 10,000 Swazi levies under Mampoer, and Sekukuni
was taken prisoner. He remained prisoner as long as the English retained
possession of the country, but the Boers specially stipulated for his
release in the now celebrated convention of Pretoria (Article 23).[108]
When Sir Garnet Wolseley gave Mampoer back the country which Sekukuni
had usurped, knowing well that Sequati his father had in former years
proclaimed him chief, Mampoer took over one of Sekukuni’s young girls
for himself; but on Sekukuni’s release and return in terms of the
convention, he demanded her back, and this led to another fight, wherein
Sekukuni was killed. The Boers now accused Mampoer of murder and called
upon him to surrender himself, but instead of this he took refuge with
Mapoch, with whom the Boers had also a quarrel, as he would not
acknowledge them or pay taxes. War was now declared against Mapoch
(Niabel), who defended himself bravely for many months; but at last,
worn out by hunger and want, he and 8,000 of his men, who were
afterwards “apprenticed” into slavery, surrendered, and Mampoer and
Mapoch both found themselves prisoners of war.[109]
They were tried and sentenced to death, and although Mr. Hudson, the
British Resident, pressed upon the Boer Executive the desire of the
English government that capital punishment should not be carried out, no
notice was paid in the case of Mampoer, the sentence of Mapoch alone
being commuted.
Mampoer with his dying breath said, “I have fought Sekukuni for the
Dutch, I have fought him for the English, and now I am hanged for doing
my duty.”
Poor fellow! his execution was a sad, brutal exhibition. Pretoria was
full, even on my visit, of the accounts of the scene, how the rope round
his neck broke, how he was hoisted again into position, and how the day
of his execution was looked upon by the Boers as a gala day, and an
opportunity of exhibiting their independence of the “verdomde
Englishmen.” Even photographic art was called in to perpetuate this
official murder, the accompanying view of the execution being openly
sold in the streets of Pretoria.
When I saw Niabel, he knew I was an Englishman and a stranger, and by
his manner evidently wished to show me plainly the contempt in which he
held his captors. Leaving the gaol, Dr. Dyer drove me all round the
outskirts of the town and then put me down at my hotel. Next day Mr. S.
Marks, the managing director of the Eerste Fabrieken, a large distillery
about nine miles from Pretoria on the Pienaars River, and who had been
the originator of the French Diamond Mining Co. at Kimberley, kindly
drove me out to see the factory. Immediately on crossing the Pienaars
River, after an hour and a half’s pleasant drive, the distillery,
malt-kilns and stores appeared in sight. The building, 210 feet long, 90
feet broad, and four stories high, was fitted up with the most powerful
machinery made on the latest principles, and contained as well large
store-rooms for spirits and grain. Every class of work I found done on
the premises.
The establishment indeed made quite a village in itself. A fine block of
buildings opposite the distillery contained the offices, store-rooms for
material, carpenters’, blacksmiths’ and coopers’ shops, farm laborers’
houses and stables. More than this, the company had large tracts of land
under cultivation, with oxen, cows, horses, and mules in numbers,
farming being a branch of the business. After looking over the
distillery I spent an agreeable half hour tasting the various liquors
and liqueurs. These numbered at least forty, and were manufactured from
four kinds of grain—mealies, rye, barley, and Kafir corn, and then
flavored.
Mr. Stokes, the manager, was exceedingly kind, and invited Mr. Marks and
myself to dinner in the evening, when I had the pleasure of becoming
acquainted with his charming and accomplished wife. I could have fancied
myself at the West end of London, in the midst of civilization, not in
the centre of the Transvaal. The appointments of the table, the English
trained waitresses, and the cooking were perfection. After coffee and a
delicious cigar, we retired for the night, but I felt it would take a
long time to efface from my mind this unexpected little glimpse of
refinement and culture. On my return to Pretoria next day, I asked Mr.
Fox, formerly a large Imperial contractor during the Zulu war, who had
invited me to dine with him, to advise me where I could get horses and a
conveyance to take me as far as the battlefield of Bronkhorst Spruit,
when he very kindly offered to drive me there himself if I would start
early next day, as that happened to be the only day he could spare from
his many business engagements. I jumped at the chance, and, making all
arrangements to start in the morning, I went to bed early in order to
get a good night’s rest before this little drive of eighty-four miles.
Mr. Fox, however, had some difficulty in arranging his horses, and we
did not get away until ten o’clock. Driving out of Pretoria we had an
extensive view of the lovely town. It was the middle of summer, and the
trees and fields looked so pretty and so green, and the rose hedges in
full bloom so lovely, I was perfectly enraptured, and fancied myself in
old England again. Nothing of particular interest presented itself as we
went along. The country for miles undulated in grassy plains, here and
there diversified by ranges of hills. We passed the Eerste Fabrieken on
our left, Mr. Steuben’s beautiful place “The Willows” on our right, when
pushing along the horses, only outspanning for an hour in the veldt
about half-way, arrived on the scene, so memorable at least in South
African history, at five o’clock in the afternoon. Crossing Bronkhorst
Spruit, the ground gradually rises, and on the right-hand side of the
road, dotted here and there with mimosa and thorn trees, a very gradual
eminence is formed, which was the point of vantage taken by the Boers in
intercepting our troops en route from Leydenburg, and about to
concentrate in Pretoria.
I had thoroughly posted myself in the occurrences of that eventful day,
which I will shortly relate. The 94th Regiment, together with camp
followers, numbering 267 souls in all, forming a cavalcade a mile and a
quarter in length, was slowly dragging its way to Pretoria, when on
approaching Bronkhorst Spruit at about half-past two o’clock in the
afternoon of the 20th of December, 1880, certain mounted Dutch scouts
were seen galloping along the top of a ridge near by. These men brought
a message, requesting Colonel Anstruther, who was in command, not to
advance any further pending an answer from Sir Owen Lanyon to an
ultimatum which had been sent him. This he refused, when, without
further ado, the Boers, about 500 strong, opened at once a murderous
fire upon our men, who were totally unprepared for so sudden an attack.
Down the bullets rained like hail, and our men, who lay on the ground
without a particle of shelter, were picked off with deadly precision,
until Col. Anstruther himself, mortally wounded, and most of his
officers hors de combat, seeing the day was lost, surrendered to the
Boers, after a fight lasting just twenty minutes.
After inspecting the ground and the relative positions the Dutch and
English occupied during this short but disastrous fight, we visited the
two principal places where our fallen soldiers lie buried. The larger of
these we found enclosed by a high stone wall about eighteen yards long
by twelve yards broad, and shaded by two beautiful mimosa trees. Here
lay the last remains of fifty-eight N. C. officers and men of the 94th
Regiment, and one N. C. officer, and one private Army Service Com.
killed, as the tombstone erected to their memory states, in action on
December 20, 1880. In another and smaller graveyard, some 100 yards
nearer Pretoria, the officers who fell are buried. The wall surrounding
these graves had just lately been repaired by order of the English
government, and, as if purposely planted to keep the sun’s scorching
rays from burning up the green grass waving over them, another large
wild mimosa tree threw out the protection of its flowering branches.
I have good reason to remember my visit. Wishing to see the graves and
read the inscriptions on Col. Anstruther’s tomb and those of the various
officers buried alongside him, I clambered to the top of the wall about
four feet in height, when in my weak state I reeled over, fell inside,
and, fenced in as it were, it was some half hour before my companion,
who himself had lost the use of one leg, was able to get me out. Here
lie buried together five out of the nine officers who were in charge of
the 94th Regiment, which as I said before was proceeding from Lydenburg
to Pretoria. I had leisure enough you may imagine to copy their names.
Neat little crosses at the head of each grave showed the burial-places
of Lieut. Col. P. K. Anstruther, Capt. T. McSweeney, Capt. N. McLeod
Nairne, Lieut. H. A. C. Harrison and E. T. Shaen Carter, transport
staff. The four officers who escaped with their lives were Capt.
Elliott, for whose subsequent and bloody murder in crossing the Vaal
River two Boers were tried in Pretoria but acquitted; Lieut. Hume, Dr.
Ward, and conductor Egerton, who, it will be remembered, had the good
fortune to reach Pretoria in safety, with the regimental colors wrapped
round his waist, being allowed by the Boers after the fight to proceed
there in order to obtain medical assistance. Surgeon Major Comerford and
Dr. Harvey Crow, the latter now in practice in Pretoria, whom I had the
pleasure of meeting, went out immediately on Mr. Egerton’s bringing in
the disastrous news, and attended to the wounded.
Such was the precision of the Boer fire, as Dr. Crow told me, that the
bullet wounds averaged five per man; truly “every bullet” in this case
had “its billet.”
The Boers had evidently taken especial care to choose the ground and
measure the distance before our wagon-train appeared in sight.
I was told on good authority that many of our soldiers’ rifles were
found after the fight actually sighted at 800 yards, whereas 300 would
have been nearer the mark, and that this accounted for the few disasters
among the Boers, who only acknowledged, at all events, to one man having
been killed outright, to one dying of his wounds, and to five who were
wounded but recovered.
It was just the same at Majuba, the sighting of the rifles of our men
picked up by the enemy being woefully incorrect; it is therefore not
difficult to account for the smallness of the Boer losses there also.
Col. Anstruther, who was in command, lingered six days, until death put
an end to his sufferings, dying in his tent, as Dr. Crow told me, in
presence of Drs. Comerford, Ward, and himself. Even in his official
dispatch, written on his deathbed, Col. Anstruther never accused the
Boers of having acted unfairly in the fight, although a rumor to that
effect was freely circulated.
Dr. Crow wrote at the time a most touching account of his burial. He
said, “Words fail to describe a scene so sad and so unique. The remains
were placed on a stretcher and carried by four sergeants, three out of
the four being wounded; while the majority of those who followed were
wounded too, some on crutches, others wearing splints, others with
bandaged heads, and some unable to walk, were carried on the backs of
their more fortunate comrades. At the grave not a dry eye could be seen,
and one and all seemed to think that a friend, a good man, and a
soldier, in the widest and best sense of the term, was gone for ever
from their midst.”
Mr. Nellmapius, the Portuguese Vice Consul, whose acquaintance I had
formed on the diamond fields, and Mr. John Gray of Transpoort, who years
before I had known as a sugar planter in Natal, with a few others, did
all they could for the wounded, who for four months were kept and
attended to under canvas.
The Boers, it is said, showed a good deal of kindness and attention to
our wounded immediately after the fight; but a friend of mine who was
there at the time, and with whom I discussed the question of the Boers
and their motives, assured me they did not treat our wounded kindly from
any feelings of sympathy, but from a fear of after consequences, should
the tide of war flow against them, and it was that reason which made
them leave us alone after the fight to sink or swim as best we might,
without let or interference.
Turning our horses’ heads homewards, we just managed to drive a few
miles on the road to Pretoria when darkness overtook us, and we
outspanned near some Dutch wagons which were going up to Sekokoni’s
country. I received great kindness from the Boer in charge, who, seeing
I was far from well, insisted on my taking a sleep in his wagon until
the moon rose, which it did about four o’clock in the morning, enabling
us to continue our journey.
Whatever may be reported concerning the incivility and churlishness of
the Boers, I only speak from my own experience when I say that during
the whole of my trip I received nothing but kindness at their hands. I,
however, treated them with proper courtesy, not as an inferior race,
which so many English upstarts do, did not order when I should ask, nor
forget that the farmer was to a certain extent my host. These Dutch
farmers have become uncivil in their own defence. A good deal is due to
the diamond fields, and the different classes they have attracted. On
the coach arriving at a Dutch farm-house, where as a favor its
passengers were allowed to rest, some among them would, too often, take
unpardonable liberties, would order round the inmates, enter the
gardens, break off branches of the trees, steal the fruit if ripe, if
unripe pelt each other with it from sheer wantonness, and leave when
they had caused the farmer all the damage and annoyance they could. No
wonder that in time all strangers were treated alike with abrupt and
scant courtesy. Pushing along when the moon rose, we drove to Zwart
Kopje, close to which there is a nice farm-house surrounded by splendid
fruit trees. This was the place where the first fight took place after
Bronkhorst Spruit. Zwart Kopje at the time was a very strong position,
but our troops were successful in dislodging the Laager which the Boers
had formed there, losing, however, six men in the attempt, while our
enemies lost three. Here we took a good rest; intending to make the
“Eerste Fabrieken” the last stage before Pretoria; we did this and then
resting a short time at Mundt’s farm, seeing some pretty girls and
eating some delicious fruit, we arrived at Pretoria about six P. M.,
after a most delightful and interesting trip.
I need scarcely say that sleep soon fell upon me, but dreams of cruel
disappointment, broken faith, ruined prospects, shattered fortunes,
disgrace and despair, haunted me the livelong night, and when morning
broke, I woke up with the stern fact forcing itself upon me, that all,
alas! was but too true, the vivid dreams of the night being but
phantasms of the day’s sober realities.
Even in Mr. Gladstone’s political manifesto, previous to the last
general election but one, he thus attempted to excuse his disgraceful
surrender to the Boers after the defeat at Majuba: “We have been
severely condemned because, after supplying military means such as to
place beyond doubt the superiority of the British power, we refused to
prosecute a work of sanguinary subjugation.”
How Mr. Gladstone could write such misleading words, in the face of his
own previously expressed opinion, in face of the distinct and positive
answer he made Mr. Rylands in the House of Commons on January 22, 1881,
that, “it was the resolute intention of the government to establish the
British supremacy in the Transvaal in the first instance,” in the face
of Bronkhorst Spruit, Laing’s Nek, Tugogo, and Majuba, four defeats,
which entirely put an end to the belief in British superiority, not only
in the minds of the Boers, but also in those of the natives, is
difficult to understand.
The retrocession of the Transvaal will remain a blot on the Gladstone
escutcheon which no amount of sophistry will ever be able to wipe out.
My medical friends were very kind; the luncheons, dinners, and suppers I
ate, and the genial society I enjoyed at their hospitable boards, I
shall never forget.
The mail cart I learned started for Natal the next evening, so I spent
the day in taking my farewells and in preparing for my journey. The mail
was, however, delayed, and did not leave until two o’clock in the
morning, Dr. Crow very kindly sitting up to see me safely away. At last
we started for Pieter Maritzburg, when bidding the genial doctor “Good
bye” and Pretoria adieu we rattled away at full gallop, with 450 miles
of South African road before us.
[Illustration]