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These were for the most part acting in a spacious and inaccessible area, which included the districts of Kenhart, Carnarvon, Sutherland, Fraserburg, and Calvinia. A blockhouse line, which when completed would stretch from Victoria West to Lambert's Bay, was in course of construction through these districts.
In some years they are compelled by drought to invade the Province in large numbers. They are then seen as far south as Calvinia and Fraserburg. Large numbers are, however, fenced in on private estates in various parts of the Province.
Stephenson was put in immediate charge of the operations against Smuts, who had established himself on the Zak River between Kenhart and Calvinia, and who in January moved eastward. It was a false move, because it brought him into the Fraserburg district, and made him more accessible to the columns opposed to him.
A large convoy drawn by donkeys fell into the hands of the rebels between Beaufort West and Fraserburg, and a smaller convoy in the Sutherland district. French now took in hand the Drive, the last weapon left in the British Armoury, which his colleagues in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony had been wielding for some months.
An immediate retreat was ordered, and the small column, after ten days of hardship and anxiety, reached the railway line in safety. The wounded were left to the care of Smuts, who behaved with chivalry and humanity. At about the same date a convoy proceeding from Beaufort West to Fraserburg was attacked by Malan's commando.
At the end of the year Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep in the Colony, sweeping through the barren and thinly-inhabited western lands, heading apparently for Fraserburg and Beaufort West. The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of Zastron, in the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800 strong.
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