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Updated: May 21, 2025
Having thus escaped from the last "White Elephant" that we should have to reckon with, the next obstacle to be encountered was the Vaal River. For the President, since we had crossed the Valsch River, had decided to visit De la Rey, in order to place himself under medical advice. His eyes had become very weak during the last fortnight or so, and he thought that Dr.
Whilst we were still talking, news arrived that there was a strong force of cavalry on the banks of the Valsch River, six miles from Kroonstad, and that it was rapidly approaching the town. On hearing this, I hastened back to the south of the township, where a body of Kroonstad burghers had off-saddled, and I ordered them to get into their saddles immediately, and ride with me to meet the enemy.
"The British, being warned by the dust in the distance that our commando was coming, considered it wiser to quit the village, fall back on Valsch River and occupy positions on the right bank of it. Darkness had now set in, and we could do no more than place our pickets round the column.
President Steyn, however, did not go to Heilbron, but paid a visit to General Philip Botha, whose commando had held back the English outposts some six miles from Kroonstad. The President, before leaving the town, had stationed police on the banks of the Valsch River with orders to prevent burghers from entering the dorp ; he had only just crossed the drift before my arrival.
I got up and went to the outhouse where my Kaffir slept. I woke him up and asked him where the Hottentot was. "Oh, he is gone," he replied, "to go and fetch his things to go with the baas." I at once felt that there was something wrong, and went and called my men. I told them to saddle-up, and went off with my staff to the farm of Mr. Schoeman on the Valsch River, to the east of Bothaville.
These boys would have been taken away from their mothers had they stayed at home; and thus the only way to keep them from captivity was to let them join the commandos. The burgher soon returned, and told me that the whole commando and all the cattle had crossed the line. Then I marched forward again. At break of day we were close to the Valsch River.
When we arrived at the Valsch River, there was a sound of shouting behind us, and presently the cattle appeared coming over a rise. I heard from the drivers that they had lost their way, and had only reached the blockhouses at daylight. But they had succeeded in breaking through under a fierce rifle fire.
On the following day the enemy marched to Liebenbergsvlei, between Bethlehem and Reitz. Thence they took the road between Lindley and Reitz to Kroonstad. Piet de Wet, of the National Scouts, was with these columns. After we had remained two days at Kaffirskop, we crossed the Valsch River. The news then came that a column with a convoy was on the march from Harrismith to Bethlehem.
In his impatience against "the beautiful, false French poets who rhyme more than they know," van Maerlant declared that all French things were false: "wat waelsch is valsch is," but one would seek vainly any systematic hostility towards France in the poet's encyclopædic work.
But before I departed, I took care that the bridge over the Valsch River should be destroyed by dynamite. In the meantime, those portions of the Heilbron and Kroonstad commandos which had gone into Natal at the beginning of the war, received orders to leave the Drakensberg.
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