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Updated: September 17, 2025
Kaffirs would do this with the hope of reward, which they often received in the shape of spirituous liquor. We proceeded all that day in the direction of Pietersburg until just before sunset we came to a small stream. We had to hurry through the bush, as horse-sickness was prevalent here and we still had a long way before us. It was midnight before we reached the foot of the Poortjesnek.
Our first and best positions were now obviously the kopjes which stretched from Donkerhoek past Waterval and Wonderboompoort. This chain of mountains runs for about 12 miles E. and N.E. of Pretoria, and our positions here would cut off all the roads of any importance to Pietersburg, Middelburg, as well as the Delagoa Bay railway.
By watching the flight of the bees they find out in what direction the hive is. A practised eye can see the rising and settling of the bees above the hive from a great distance. We went in a very different direction from that of General Ben Viljoen's commando, which took the road to Pietersburg through Leydsdorp.
There would also be some danger from the English, since the President would have to cross the Pietersburg Railway, which was in that direction. However, this plan was approved. I decided not to accompany the President, but to return at once with two hundred riders to the Orange Free State.
General Plumer came from Pietersburg, General Walter Kitchener from Lydenburg, and General Barber from Middelburg. They approached us in six different directions, altogether a force of 25,000 men, and the whole under the supreme command of General Sir Bindon Blood.
The fighting line by this time had widely extended and was at least sixty miles in length; on my right I had General D. Erasmus with the Pretoria commando, and farther still to the right, nearer the Pietersburg railway, the Waterberg and Zoutpansberg commandos were positioned. General Pole-Carew tried to rush us several times with his cavalry, but had to retire each time.
A pale of blockhouses denied them access to the "protected area." Muller effected a trifling success in the middle north. Beyers in the Pietersburg district was unable to prevent Grenfell reaching a point but sixty miles from the Limpopo and there making prisoners of a local commando. No organized attempt was made to disturb Botha in the Ermelo district.
On the other hand, the Boers had a small success against Kitchener's Scouts, killing eighteen and taking thirty prisoners. There is one incident, however, in connection with the war in this region which one would desire to pass over in silence if such a course were permissible. Some eighty miles to the east of Pietersburg is a wild part of the country called the Spelonken.
Botha and Steyn reached Pietersburg in September, where they were joined by B. Viljoen, who arrived a few weeks later after a circuitous journey from Komati Poort through the low veld. An important detail of Lord Roberts' plan of campaign had not been carried out. He had hoped that the Northern Transvaal would be denied to the Boers by Carrington, who failed to carry out his part of the programme.
The state of the commandos, I was told, in those parts was very sad. The commandant of the Boksburg Commando had mysteriously fallen into the enemy's hands, and with his treacherous assistance nearly the whole commando had been captured as well. The Pretoria Commando had nearly shared this melancholy fate. That same night we travelled to Pietersburg.
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