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Possibly it may interest Englishmen and women, too, for that matter to know what a fighting laager is like, and as I have seen half a dozen of them from the enemies' side of the wall, a rough pen and ink sketch may not be amiss. In war time the Boer never, under any circumstances, makes his laager in the open country if there are any kopjes about.
It changes the outlook on life of every individual, foul weather is robbed of its terrors; if it is stormy to-day it will be fine to-morrow or the next day, and each day's delay will mean a brighter outlook when the sky is clear. Climbed the Ramp in the afternoon, the shouts and songs of men and the neighing of horses borne to my ears as I clambered over its kopjes.
Most of the large ones were evidently craters; and everywhere were smaller kopjes or buttes, that in their day had also served as blow holes for subterranean fires. At the end of this time we arrived at the place where we were supposed to find the wagon. No wagon was there.
Beyond it, in the enemy's country, the veldt too was silvered over with moonlight and was blotted inkily with shadow from the kopjes. Three miles to the right, over a rise and down in a dip, they said there lay the Rouxville commando of 350 men.
Here there is but very little open veldt; mile after mile is covered by small kopjes that rise in countless numbers, until the whole country looks as if it were covered with a veritable forest of hills. Once inside that labyrinth of rocky excrescences, an army might easily be lost, unless every individual man and officer knew the place thoroughly.
Whereupon I divided the remaining burghers into small companies, with orders to occupy kopjes from six to seven hundred paces still further to the east; leaving to myself and Commandant Nel the task of seizing a small ridge which lay south-east of the English lines.
The Commandant said that he had been sent out on Monday to watch the invading force and to ascertain their numbers, and also stated that he had been following the troop with others for a considerable time and that he was sure Jameson had not 800 but between 450 and 500, as he had repeatedly counted them; that the force was being delayed by small parties drawing it into useless fighting and so losing time; that he himself had been obliged to come on ahead, having been recalled on account of his wife's serious illness, but that it made little difference as there were others to take his place, and they had arranged not to tackle Jameson until they had drawn him among the kopjes at Doornkop, where it would be quite impossible for him ever to get through.
From the green line of the watercourse, near which the camp showed white and tiny, the veldt swept away for miles almost unbroken. Here and there were tiny parklike openings of clear grass; here and there more kopjes standing isolated and alone, like fortresses. Far down over the edge of the world showed dim and blue the tops of a short range of mountains.
As General Botha rode into this old mission settlement the rear of the German forces, closely pursued, was galloping in retreat over the kopjes to the east. Many prisoners were taken here. General Botha spent the day at Otjimbingwe, left at dawn on the 2nd, and trekked north-west seventeen miles to Pot Mine, which he reached at 12.45 p.m.
Bronkhorst Spruit, where a British commander led more than one hundred of his men to death in 1880, lay to the left of the road in a little wooded ravine. Farther on toward Pretoria appeared rocky kopjes, where afterwards the Boers, retreating from the capital city, gathered their disheartened forces, and resisted the advance of the enemy.
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