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Updated: June 9, 2025
I observed the dam picking out insects from the bark and leaves of the baobab, keeping on the wing the while: it would thus appear to be insectivorous as well as a honey-bibber. Much spoor of elands, zebras, gnus, kamas, pallahs, buffaloes, reed-bucks, with tsetse, their parasites. 13th December, 1866.
The Boers who fled with their cattle in that way we called 'Bush-lancers. We came up with De la Rey's lager near the Elands River, and later on made the acquaintance of Captain Kirsten's scouts, to whom we offered our services. In those days it was very pleasant to belong to the reconnoitring corps.
They have been there since Elands Laagte, nearly four months now, with no news, nothing to do, and nothing to see except one little bit of road visible over the wall. The solitude has so unnerved them that when the shells fall near the gaol or whiz over the roof the prisoners are said to howl and scream.
The following day Colonel Firman's scouts were, as might have been expected, informed by the Kaffirs of what they had heard from the burghers under Commandant Jacobsz; and the day after that is, the 22nd of December Colonel Firman's column, about six to seven hundred men strong, marched from Elands River to Tweefontein, half-way between Elands River and Tijgerkloof.
At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the commando of Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was beaten back by the garrison. From all over the country, from Plumer's Bushmen, from Barton at Krugersdorp, from the Colonials at Heilbron, from Clements on the west, came the same reports of dwindling resistance and of the abandoning of cattle, arms, and ammunition.
So the antelopes escaped?" "Yes, but we have the elands, which you say are such good eating. Do we stay here any longer, or do we proceed up the river?" "You must ask Wilmot to decide that point," said Swinton. "It is just as you please," said Alexander; "but they say that the more you go to the northward, the more plentiful is the game."
And so we trekked on through the sunrise, through the burning mid-day and glowing sunsets, steering by the sun and making our own road; now through tambouki grass higher than the oxen, and now through dense bush, till at length, one day, we said good-bye to the Olifants' just where the Elands' River flows into it, and turned our faces eastward.
Often I had talked of being thirsty, but I had never before known what thirst really was. My uncle, I had no doubt, was suffering as much as I was, but his endurance was wonderful. We had seen numbers of elands sporting round us in every direction, but as soon as we approached them, off they bounded. "Surely those deer do not live without water; it cannot be far away," I observed.
The adventures of the day were over; the azure of the sky had changed to a dead grey; the moon was appearing just over the trees; the water of the Gombe was like a silver belt; hoarse frogs bellowed their notes loudly by the margin of the creek; the fish-eagles uttered their dirge-like cries as they were perched high on the tallest tree; elands snorted their warning to the herds in the forest; stealthy forms of the carnivora stole through the dark woods outside of our camp.
The Australians have been so split up during the campaign, that though their valour and efficiency were universally recognised, they had no single exploit which they could call their own. But now they can point to Elands River as proudly as the Canadians can to Paardeberg.
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