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Updated: May 31, 2025
One morning Bottles had been out buck hunting with the scratch pack kept in those days by the garrison at Maritzburg. The run had been a good one, and after a seven or eight-mile gallop over the open country they had actually killed their buck a beautiful Oribe.
"There will not be many who have to do so," another said. "Sankey's people and Carmichael's are going to Cape Town, but, so far as I know, all the others will stay and see it out either at Maritzburg or Durban. Do you think that we should take any others with us, Chris?" "I don't think so. You see we all know each other, and it would be a nuisance having fellows with us of whom we know nothing.
"He had been far away to the north of Oliphants river, where, after having lost his oxen and fallen sick, he was detained by an Amatonga chief, a regular savage, who from mere wantonness used once a month to threaten to put him to death if his friends did not send the heavy ransom he demanded, while all the time he was detaining the messengers my father endeavoured to despatch to Maritzburg.
"I don't say," he went on, "that I should care, any more than you do, to stop here for the next two months. The smell of dead horses and things is enough to make one ill. The water of the river is poisonous, for we know the Boers used to throw their dead animals in it on purpose. So I shall go down to Maritzburg and wire to my people where I am, and ask for orders.
We have outposts on Intombi or Maiden's Castle, which forms the horse-shoe's southern heel, others stretching westward thence to a gap in the toe of the shoe, through which a wood runs nearly due west until it branches off to the Drakensberg Passes in one direction and Maritzburg in the other, and pickets on the north-western and northern heights, with a detached post at Observation Hill, an elongated kopje outside the general defences, overlooking a wide valley of mimosa scrub towards Rietfontein, which is the enemy's main stronghold, commanding as it does the railways to Van Reenan's Pass in the west, and to Newcastle in the north.
"Uncommonly well. Brookfield's subscriptions must have come in handsomely for him to be able to buy such horses as those." "We provide our own mounts and equipments," Chris said, "and consider ourselves very lucky in getting hold of this batch of horses from Mr. Duncan on the day he arrived at Maritzburg. I really think they were very cheap at sixty pounds each."
Rather let our homes be flattened out! To-night my grey-haired Cape-boy and my Zulu came to me in silence and tears. They had hoped for escape. They longed for the peace of Maritzburg, and now, like myself, they were bottled up amid "pom-poms." Had I not promised never to bring them into danger always to leave them snug in the rear? They were devoted to my service. Others ran.
At Ladysmith I disposed of my tent for ten shillings, which was less than a quarter of its value. But my money, was rapidly running out; the heavy rains had on several occasions driven me to ask for shelter, and this always meant spending money. At Ladysmith I engaged another native to accompany me to Maritzburg.
In town the mosquitoes are plentiful and lively, devoting their attentions chiefly to new-comers, but up here I write as though we were five thousand feet instead of only fifty above Maritzburg it is rare to see one. I think "fillies" are more in our line, and that in spite of every floor in the house being scrubbed daily with strong soda and water.
He saw that the lad a little resented the joking tone in which he had asked the question. "I have no doubt that you are right," he said, "and I am quite sure I should like half a dozen of you as subalterns. When did you come from Johannesburg?" "We left there about a week ago, and as we were only at Maritzburg three days, we have not lost any time." "Indeed, I think that is a record performance.
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