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Very loyal, too, were these colonists, and no German would have had a pleasant time of it there just then, with the Kaiser's famous telegram to Kruger fresh in everyone's memory. From Pietermaritzburg to Johannesburg the railway journey was a very interesting one.
Encouraged by the capture of an armoured train at Chieveley, Joubert advanced south in two bodies, one on each side of Estcourt, and seized the railway at Highlands, thus cutting off Hildyard's communication with Pietermaritzburg; and Hildyard having no cavalry was unable to touch him.
Information has been received that raids in force will be made by way of Middle Drift and Greytown and by way of Bond's Drift and Stangar, with a view to striking the railway between Pietermaritzburg and Durban and cutting off communications of troops and supplies.
It is with all this that they should interfere, and they are perfectly competent to do so. They could compel us to retreat on Pietermaritzburg, they could tear up the railway, they could blow up the bridges; and by all these means they could delay the arrival of a relieving army, and so have a longer time to worry Ladysmith, and a better chance of making it a second Saratoga.
Miss Raynard was enthusiastic, and he gathered they had been trained together in Pietermaritzburg, but lived somewhere on the coast, where there was tennis all the year and moonlight bathing picnics in the season, and excellent river boating. He could not catch the name, but it was not too far from Durban.
Thither a gallant civilian named King, who was one of the pioneers, rode in ten days; and on June 25, when the little garrison was in extremity, it was relieved by sea. Pretorius withdrew into the interior, and the Volksraad at Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the Republic of Natalia, voted the submission of the Boers.
Seediness marked the second-class; the third-class came from all parts, from the Cape to Pietermaritzburg, but they might have conspired to assemble on the Cambuscan as a protest against high hopes and dreams of a promised land. The protest, let me add, was an entirely passive one.
It is not clear whether there were more infantry battalions and it seems probable that one battalion and perhaps a battery were at Pietermaritzburg. The Ladysmith force was at least six thousand five hundred strong, and its total may have been as high as eight thousand. The Boer plan was dictated by the configuration of the frontier and of the obstacles and communications in Northern Natal.
French, with his cavalry, pushed out feelers, and coasted along the edge of the advancing host. His report warned White that if he would strike before all the scattered bands were united he must do so at once. The wounded were sent down to Pietermaritzburg, and it would bear explanation why the non-combatants did not accompany them.
Now, neither Langley nor Whitson had the remotest idea of visiting Pietermaritzburg. It is necessary, of course, for the reader to know where they did intend going to, and how the intention arose; but before doing this we must deal with some antecedent circumstances. Langley was most certainly the most boyish-looking man in the force.
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