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Updated: June 28, 2025
I think this was merely a dodge on De Wet's part to find out by the signature of the reply who was in charge of the army at the pass, and so to make a guess at the numbers of the enemy. He decided not to attack the pass, and before daybreak next day we were on the move again.
We also learnt that Steyn was ill, that he was hiding on a farm near Heilbron, that he was a prisoner in De Wet's camp, that his mind had given way, that he wouldn't let De Wet surrender, that De Wet wouldn't let the burghers surrender, that the burghers wouldn't let Steyn surrender, ad fin. ad nauseam.
Although the vegetable strain was frequently predominant in De Wet's constitution, he was not over-zealous to return to his former pastoral pursuits, and continued to lead his commandos over the hills of the eastern Free State long after that territory was christened the Orange River Colony.
Before the war, De Wet's chief claim to notoriety lay in the fact that he attempted to purchase the entire supply of potatoes in South Africa for the purpose of effecting a "corner" of that product on the Johannesburg market. Unfortunately for himself, he held his potatoes until the new crop was harvested, and he became a bankrupt in consequence.
For a few days there was a hurrying to and fro of commandoes, and then one morning De Wet's laager was seen to have disappeared. Prinsloo was left behind over four thousand men, with orders to stand his own. IT was no easy matter to pass through the British forces that lay massed around the mountain-chain.
Of all the daring and skilful attacks delivered by the Boers during the war there is certainly none more remarkable than this one. At two o'clock in the morning of a moonlight night De Wet's forlorn hope assembled at the base of the hill and clambered up to the summit.
The large mill of the Kaffrarian Steam Flour Company had been converted into a fort which was, in case of necessity, impregnable to rifle-fire. The rebels in the field had declared the New Republic practically established, with temporary capital at Reitz. Just before we saddled up to track them the news came of De Wet's capture on the Malopi River, near Mafeking.
No men could have made greater efforts than did those of Methuen, for there was not one who did not appreciate the importance of the issue and long to come to close quarters with the wily leader who had baffled us so long. On the 12th Methuen's van again overtook De Wet's rear, and the old game of rearguard riflemen on one side, and a pushing artillery on the other, was once more resumed.
It successfully threaded its way among them and escaped. It was followed to the northward as far as the town of Winburg, which remained in the British possession. Lord Roberts had failed in his plan of cutting off De Wet's army, but, at the expense of many marches and skirmishes, the south-east of the State was cleared of the enemy.
Both these railways were strongly blockhoused and barbed-wired, so that any force which was driven into the angle, and held in it by a force behind it, would be in a perilous position. To attempt to round De Wet's mobile burghers into this obvious pen would have been to show one's hand too clearly. In vain is the net laid in sight of the bird.
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