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Updated: May 27, 2025
The captured cattle which we had hoped to find at the fort had been sent away to Komati Poort a few days before our attack and according to their "books" it must have numbered about 4,000 heads. Another section of this notorious corps met with a like fate about this time at Bremersdorp in Swaziland.
In the early part of 1875 a large party of Australian prospectors started from Pilgrim's Rest to seek for gold on the north-eastern borders of Swaziland. They took with them a light wagon which could easily be taken to pieces and a span of oxen. They were accompanied by guides. At that time little was known of the country beyond the boundaries of the Transvaal on its eastern side.
I pointed this out to some of our generals, but a commandant's opinion did not weigh much just then; nor was any notice taken of a similar warning from Commandant Christian Botha, who held a position close to mine with the Swaziland burghers.
This was his command, that a great impi should be gathered and sent to Swaziland against the Halakazi tribe, to destroy them and seize the maid.
He was out of the Old Colony Burgersdorp, I think but he had come to the Transvaal when the Lydenburg goldfields started. He was prospector, transport-rider, and hunter in turns, but principally hunter. In those early days he was none too good a citizen. He was in Swaziland with Bob Macnab, and you know what that means.
The Transvaal Government had vanished, and Botha and his chief lieutenant, P. Viljoen, instead of being on the run towards Swaziland, had broken back and were now behind him. In order to deal with them, a pause in the operations became necessary. A series of night raids was instituted. In the first of these Botha, who was lying twenty miles west of Ermelo, was nearly taken.
'You're listening for the drums, but you won't hear them. That business is over here. To-night they beat in Swaziland and down into the Tonga border. Three days more, unless you and I, Mr Crawfurd, are extra smart, and they'll be hearing them in Durban. It was not till the lamp was lit, the fire burning well, and the house locked and shuttered, that Captain Arcoll began his tale.
His project was defeated; but the aim of the Boer Government was ultimately achieved, nevertheless, and Swaziland has now been handed over to the control of the Republic in spite of the prayers and protestations of the Swazis themselves, who had proved in the past with very practical results to be useful, ready, and loyal allies of the British Government.
"I came from Swaziland from the tribe of the Halakazi, which I should rule. This is the story: Siguyana, my grandfather, was a younger brother of Senzangacona, the father of Chaka. But he quarrelled with Senzangacona, and became a wanderer.
They had been terribly frightened in Swaziland, and when we again crossed the river they may have thought, naturally enough, that we were going back. In sadness we sorted our belongings, selecting the indispensable and the more valuable; we cached the remainder in a krantz cleft. I wonder if it is still where we hid it?
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