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Updated: June 2, 2025
Even the fact that Colonel Knowle, the military engineer, was busily putting it into a state of defence, digging up its hills, piercing its walls, and encircling it with wire obstructions did not break its apathy. The 'Times of Natal' struggled to rouse excitement, and placarded its office with the latest telegrams from the front, some of which had reached Pietermaritzburg via London.
After an hour of turmoil, which I frankly admit I enjoyed extremely, I escaped to the train, and the journey to Pietermaritzburg passed very quickly in the absorbing occupation of devouring a month's newpapers and clearing my palate from the evil taste of the exaggerations of Pretoria by a liberal antidote of our own versions.
Gathering together the fragments of four scattered tribes, he trained them to hunt human beings as others hunted game. This gang was a greater scourge to the country surrounding the present site of Pietermaritzburg than even Tshaka's murdering hordes.
The fading, confused faces at Waterloo as the train swept along the platform; the cheering crowds at Southampton; the rolling decks of the 'Dunottar Castle; the suspense, the excitement of first news; a brief day's scurry at Cape Town; the journey to East London by the last train to pass along the frontier; the tumultuous voyage in the 'Umzimvubu' amid so great a gale that but for the Royal Mail the skipper would have put back to port; on without a check to Pietermaritzburg, and thence, since the need seemed urgent and the traffic slow, by special train here all moving, restless pictures and here at last a pause.
Only a few days before I had read in the newspapers of how the Kaffirs had jeered at the Boer prisoners when they were marched into Pietermaritzburg, saying, 'Where are your passes? It had seemed a very harmless joke then, but now I understood how a prisoner feels these things. It was about eleven o'clock when we reached Elandslaagte Station. A train awaited the prisoners.
Thither George repaired; the agent gave him an exaggerated account of the signal prosperity which all enterprising young men met with in Natal, praised Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the colony, and offered to give him letters of introduction to residents there, who would advise him as to the best ways of making a comfortable living.
The Pietermaritzburg Y.M.C.A., for instance, provided two correspondence tents, which were of great service to the troops. We have the report of No. 1 tent before us. From December to April this tent was pitched successively at Chievely, Frere, Springfield, Spearman's, Zwart Kopjes, beyond Colenso, outside Ladysmith, Modder Spruit, and finally at Orange River Junction.
Gathering together the fragments of four scattered tribes, he trained them to hunt human beings as others hunted game. This gang was a greater scourge to the country surrounding the present site of Pietermaritzburg than even Tshaka's murdering hordes.
In 1890 Sir Charles and Lady Hallé made a tour in Australia, which was highly successful. Five years later they went to South Africa, where they met with a flattering reception. In his memoirs, Sir Charles Hallé tells of a curious compliment which they received at Pietermaritzburg. The mayor invited them to play at a municipal concert to be given one Sunday afternoon.
Pietermaritzburg is sixty miles from Durban, but as the railway zigzags up and down hill and contorts itself into curves that would horrify the domestic engineer, the journey occupies four hours. The town looks more like Ootacamund than any place I have seen.
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