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Updated: June 16, 2025
On many a level mountain terrace can still be seen the circular stone walls indicating where populous villages once stood. Many clans, some large and some small, had inhabited the fertile valleys of the Drakensberg between what is now Wakkerstroom and the Olifant River. They lived in comparative peace with one another.
The scenery in this particular area of the Drakensberg range, the neighbourhood of the Mont aux Sources, is indescribably grand and impressive, and is quite unlike anything else in South Africa. Enormous and fantastically shaped mountains are here huddled together indiscriminately, and between them wind and double deep gloomy gorges, along the bottoms of which mighty boulders are thickly strewn.
There was a rumour of the Bronker's Spruit disaster and other rumours of the investment of Pretoria, and of the advance of large bodies of Boers to take possession of the pass over the Drakensberg, known as Laing's Nek, but there was no definite intelligence. "You won't get into Pretoria," said one melancholy man, "so it's no use trying.
His advance from Bloemfontein had driven many of the commandos into the N.E. corner of the Free State, and he asked Buller to cross the Drakensberg and take them in rear by passing into the Transvaal by way of Vrede; but Buller could not be persuaded to remove himself so far from the railway.
Estcourt, indeed, was hidden by its engulfing hills, but Colenso was plainly visible, and the tin roofs of the houses showed in squares and oblongs of pale blue against the brown background of the mountain. Far away to the east the dark serrated range of the Drakensberg rose in a mighty wall. But it was not on these features that we turned our glasses.
There were a few indeed who still believed that the Boers would stand entirely upon the defensive so far as Natal went. They would occupy the formidable passes through the Drakensberg and await attack there, while they would invade Cape Colony at many points and raise the Boer population.
You see what it is here, and if the Boers don't lose heart, and defend the Biggarsberg and the Drakensberg, we shall find at least as much difficulty there as we shall here. It is quite certain that the Ladysmith men will take a long time to recover from what they have gone through; and as for the cavalry, I fancy their horses have been eaten.
The guides had been told to delay the march as much as possible by avoiding the direct route wherever such could be done without creating suspicion. Kondwana and his men reached the mountain range which is a continuation of the great Quathlamba or Drakensberg chain, and saw great frowning precipices rise over steep slopes covered with dense forest.
He fulfilled his duties admirably, until he was made a prisoner of war. This happened when he was leading a courageous attack at Paardeberg in order to relieve General Piet Cronje. From Harrismith our commando advanced to within six miles of the Natal-Free State frontier, and camped not far from Bezuidenhoutspas, in the Drakensberg.
But before I departed, I took care that the bridge over the Valsch River should be destroyed by dynamite. In the meantime, those portions of the Heilbron and Kroonstad commandos which had gone into Natal at the beginning of the war, received orders to leave the Drakensberg.
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