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General Blood and his staff conducted us as far as Potloodspruit, where we took leave. The white flag was replaced by the rifle, and we returned to our respective duties. In September, 1901, after having organized the commandos north of Lydenburg, I went back with my suite to join my burghers at Olifant's River, which I reached at the beginning of September.
I then wished to know if he would undertake to try the men for their misdeeds, but this was refused. This correspondence ultimately led to a meeting between General Bindon Blood and myself, which was held at Lydenburg on the 27th August, 1901. The captured kaffirs were tried by court-martial and each punished according to his deserts.
"They followed me because they loved me, and they fearlessly risked their lives for me several times." The good Major was full of sympathy, and made provision for the decent burial of my poor comrades at Lydenburg. Bester and I were now conducted under an escort of 150 soldiers with fixed bayonets to the village, which was two and a half miles off.
We reached Lydenburg very wet and gloomy, after having waded through a drift whose waters reached up to our armpits. Major Orr did his best to console us both with refreshment and kind words.
It was on our way back to the wagon that I chanced to mention to Anscombe that there was still a herd of buffalo within a few days' trek of Lydenburg, of which I had shot two not a month before. "Are there, by Jove!" he said. "As it happens I never got a buffalo; always I just missed them in one sense or another, and I can't leave Africa with a pair of bought horns. Let's go there and shoot some."
They divided and subdivided within their own borders, like a germinating egg. The Transvaal was full of lusty little high-mettled communities, who quarrelled among themselves as fiercely as they had done with the authorities at the Cape. Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, and Potchefstroom were on the point of turning their rifles against each other.
It will be enough to say, therefore, that to the number of thirty-five white people, men, women and children, we trekked at the beginning of the summer season, when the grass was commencing to grow, from the Lydenburg district an awful journey over mountains and through flooded rivers.
On account of this shorthandedness Lord Kitchener had to leave certain districts alone, while he directed his attention to those which were more essential. Thus to the north of the Delagoa Railway line there was only one town, Lydenburg, which was occupied by the British. They had, however, an energetic commander in Park of the Devons.
For each district two members shall be chosen, except the districts Pretoria, Potchefstrom, Rustenberg, Lydenburg and Vryheid, for which three members shall be elected. Elective districts on the Gold-fields shall each elect one member.
In 1881, the year of the retrocession of the Transvaal, a Royal Commission was appointed from England to enquire into the internal state of affairs in the South African Republic. On the 9th May of that year, an affidavit was sworn to before that Commission by the Rev. John Thorne, of St. John the Evangelist, Lydenburg, Transvaal.
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