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Updated: June 7, 2025
The news put everyone in fresher spirits. The charm around the famous guerilla fighter had broken. That the Rebellion was doomed we all knew. But most of us were weary, nevertheless. It furnished a refresher. We left a happier Bethlehem at a rainy dawn the next day. Half way to Reitz we outspanned in the rain. It rained all night.
The scene had no resemblance whatever to that where they had outspanned. It must be the camp of some other travellers, thought they. They had fully arrived at this conclusion, when Swartboy, whose eyes had been rolling about everywhere, now rested upon the ground at his feet.
At any rate it was absolutely necessary that she should know what was happening. She might as well be a hundred miles away as a hundred yards. "Jantje," she said, "tell me where the Boers are." "Some are in the waggon-house, missie, some are on sentry, and the rest are down by the waggon they brought with them and outspanned behind the gums there.
As it was late in the day, and I being on the right side for the wind, the blesboks were very tame, and allowed me to ride along within rifle-shot of them, and those which ran barged resolutely past me up the wind in long-continued streams. I took a lucky course for the wagons, and came right upon them, after they had outspanned on the bank of the Vet River.
Indeed, it could not but be acknowledged that the site of Pieter Maritzburg had been admirably chosen for a colonial town. Hendricks having outspanned in an open place at the entrance of the town, left Umgolo to look after the waggon, and took Denis and Lionel to dispose of them as he had arranged.
The spot upon which the wagon was outspanned was at the extremity of the south-western slope of the mountain, almost on the northernmost extremity of a wide, flat plain; and from this position, looking northward, we saw that the country again presented a somewhat broken appearance, with high ground to the right and left, and something in the nature of a valley directly ahead.
Then on the morrow we but crawled along, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor. That time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drew in on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned and went on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shoulders to wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we had been delayed far into another day.
As it was past one o'clock, they were by no means sorry to hear this, and John drew up the cart about fifty yards from the place, where they outspanned the horses, and, having watched them roll and drink, they went up to the house.
The rest of the day was spent at Husab; at 6.30 in the evening the Commander-in-Chief, and with him General Brits, left for Riet, outspanned for a few hours and attacked the German position at Riet at dawn on the 20th. The general action which was fought on the Pforte-Jakalswater-Riet front on this day was conceivably the most important move of the campaign.
At the border I found many English and Scotch families, who had driven across the veldt from Ermelo, surrendering all their possessions. All spoke of the good treatment the Boers had shown them on the journey, even when the waggon had outspanned for the night close to the Boer camp. I came down to Newcastle with a Caithness stonemason and his family. They had lost house, home, and livelihood.
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