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Updated: June 23, 2025
Commandant Henning Pretorius, one of the most prominent Boer officials, having paid a visit to his native district in the Cape Colony shortly after the Jameson raid, purchased from the owner of a farm at Cookhouse Drift the beam from which the five Boers had been hanged at Slagter's Nek for rebellion in the year 1816. Reference has already been made in the first chapter to this deplorable affair.
We, the undersigned, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, Martinus Wessel Pretorius, and Petrus Jacobus Joubert, as representatives of the Transvaal Burghers, do hereby agree to all the above conditions, reservations, and limitations under which self-government has been restored to the inhabitants of the Transvaal territory, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, and we agree to accept the Government of the said territory, with all rights and obligations thereto appertaining, on the 8th day of August; and we promise and undertake that this Convention shall be ratified by a newly-elected Volksraad of the Transvaal State within three months from this date.
The demand made for his subjection and service in preventing the English traders passing to the north was kept out of view. Very soon after Pretorius had sent the marauding party against Kolobeng, he was called away to the tribunal of infinite justice. His policy is justified by the Boers generally from the instructions given to the Jewish warriors in Deuteronomy 20:10-14.
This seemed to them a most convincing proof of our sound sense. We shall see farther on the confidence my account of our Queen inspired. The Boers, encouraged by the accession of Mr. Pretorius, determined at last to put a stop to English traders going past Kolobeng, by dispersing the tribe of Bechuanas, and expelling all the missionaries.
Holmes had evidently just sneaked in an extra shot in the arm without any one's getting wise, and I, who knew him of old, was sure that he would have a fit on for several hours. "Peter Adrian Van Damm. Twenty-nine. Pretorius Brothers' diamond-importing house in Amsterdam, Holland. No, sir," replied the valet, just as quickly as Holmes had questioned him.
They were met by a severe fire from the fort, but when they got to close quarters up went the white flag, and the English shouted "We surrender!" Thus Willem Pretorius and four burghers captured twenty prisoners and a like number of horses, saddles, bridles, rifles and bandoliers, not to mention some three thousand cartridges.
On being assured by Pretorius and his party that they were not Boers and did not belong to the Boer forces, he told them very confidently all, and perhaps more than they wanted to know, for he began to express himself very strongly against the so-called marauding bands of Boers still roaming at large.
General Koch, Dr. Coster, Colonel Schiel, Pretorius, and other well-known Transvaalers fell into our hands. Our own casualty list consisted of 41 killed and 220 wounded, much the same number as at Talana Hill, the heaviest losses falling upon the Gordon Highlanders and the Imperial Light Horse.
The meeting was held at a place called Paarde Kraal, and resulted in the sudden declaration of the Republic and the appointment of the famous triumvirate Kruger, Joubert, and Pretorius.
I have not forgotten that "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo" used to take their human toll early in the evening, but not alone had they deliberately adopted man-eating, so to say, as a profession, but long impunity had made them careless. I knew a man who once lay sleeping in a patrol tent near Pretorius Kop on the Delagoa road. The night was chill, so he folded a gunny bag over his feet to keep them warm.
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