United States or Poland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hardly had the dust raised by the trampling of the third drive settled down upon the veld when the fourth drive was in progress, and 14,000 men on a front which stretched from one blockhouse line to the other were plodding eastward to the Drakensberg.
The Cape Colonial high veldt near the Drakensberg range is intersected by high continuations or spurs, but north and westwards those plateaux assume more the real aspect of continuous high plains.
They had made a great "kraal" what they themselves call a "drive" and stood, "hand in hand," one might almost say, in a ring around us, coming from Heilbron, Frankfort, Bethlehem, and Harrismith, and stretching, on the Transvaal side, from Vrede to the Drakensberg. Narrower and narrower did the circle become, hemming us in more closely at every moment.
The other, much larger, not less probably than six or seven thousand men, were the contingent from the Free State and a Transvaal corps, together with Schiel's Germans, who were making their way through the various passes, the Tintwa Pass, and Van Reenen's Pass, which lead through the grim range of the Drakensberg and open out upon the more fertile plains of Western Natal.
The Colesberg and Stormberg commandos had received the order to go northwards in the direction of Thaba'Nchu and Ladybrand. These commandos also had been panic-stricken since General Cronje's surrender. The Kroonstad, Heilbron, Harrismith and Vrede burghers, under Commander-in-Chief Prinsloo, were directed to remain where they were, and guard the Drakensberg.
The Drakensberg Range on the one side and the Buffalo River on the other formed the cleaving surfaces, Majuba and Laing's Nek were the cutting edge, and the base was the Tugela River. In mechanics a wedge is an instrument which can be usefully employed only under favourable circumstances. It has many disadvantages. It is easily jammed.
"Well, all our forces are here in the mountains now, and we can hold out for years. There are only two passes; they are strongly held, and the enemy will never get through them. We tried to get our prisoners to take parole, but they refused, so we have driven them over the Drakensberg into Natal. Last, but not least, the traitor Vilonel is here, waiting for his appeal to be heard."
Wild hat-waving men upon the Hlangwane uplands see the silhouette of the active figures of the stormers along the sky-line and know that the position is theirs. Exultant soldiers dance and cheer upon the ridge. The sun is setting in glory over the great Drakensberg mountains, and so also that night set for ever the hopes of the Boer invaders of Natal.
The same hateful invading Englishman, with his new ideas and his higher forms of civilisation, who had caused them to quit the "Old Colony," the land of their birth, came and drove them, vi et armis, from the land of their adoption. And it was not long before these same English became lords of this red African soil, from the coast up to the Drakensberg.
Others settled west of the Drakensberg Range and founded the Orange Free State Republic. These states were then infested by wild beasts and uncivilized native tribes.
Word Of The Day