The first time I took my seat in the Cape house of assembly on April 5th, 1881, I listened to a debate on a motion introduced by the leader of the Dutch party, which confirmed me in the intention that I had previously formed of paying Natal a visit at the end of the session.

This debate was the first, I remember, which touched the question of Dutch feeling versus English, and was in reality the expression of a sense of gratitude by the Dutch party in the colony to the Gladstone ministry, for entering into negotiations with their brethren in the Transvaal after the defeat at Majuba, rather than allowing irritation at that defeat to prolong the war.

The debate led to the house agreeing to an amendment proposed by one of the members for Capetown, to the effect: “That this house desires to express its satisfaction at the cessation of hostilities in the Transvaal, and its earnest hope that all differences may be satisfactorily adjusted and a permanent peace established.”

Whilst listening to the various speakers, I became more than ever anxious to visit the scenes of the war just closed, and study on the spot the battlefields where in one campaign we had suffered three complete and disastrous defeats.

Before describing my visit to Natal, I must not forget to state that during the first session I sat in the Cape house of assembly the time was chiefly occupied by Basutoland affairs, and in discussing a vote of censure on the government with respect to the war in that country.

Being the senior member for Kimberley, and as it was not known to which side its members leaned, my speech on this subject excited considerable attention. It was generally expected that if the government were in the majority it would depend upon the votes of these members, and this conjecture proved correct, the result of the division being thirty-seven votes for the government and thirty-four against. The Sprigg ministry found, however, in a few days, that they could not carry on the government of the country, and resigned on May 9th. No business of any importance was transacted during this session after the resignation of the ministry, Mr. J. B. Robinson, my colleague, and I merely looking after the local interests of Griqualand West.

But to resume. Ten years had flown over since I had left Natal, and many striking events had occurred during that period. Langalibalele’s outbreak, his noble and successful defence by Bishop Colenso, Sir Benjamin Pine’s recall, Sir Garnet Wolseley’s five months’ politic interval, in which he “drowned the independence of the colony in sherry and champagne,” the Zulu war, and the dethronement of Cetywayo.

I was anxious as well to see what progress the colony had made in this interval, and once again have the pleasure of meeting the many old friends whom I possessed there. Consequently, when my parliamentary duties were over, I left Capetown in the S.S. Dunkeld on the 18th of June, and landed in Natal on the 23d. We arrived off the bluff in the middle of the night, and early dawn found me feasting my eyes once more on the glorious view of this land-locked bay, which recalled to memory many a pleasant scene of the past.

Gliding gently over the dreaded bar, and landing at daybreak, I made my way to the Royal Hotel, and after breakfast sallied forth to see what changes a decade had wrought. At every step I was agreeably surprised at the improvements which I saw. Streets, which ten years before were knee-deep in sand, I now found hardened, the town council having spent £40,000 merely in re-forming a few miles of the Musgrave Road leading to the Berea; trams hourly running, where in my time horses could barely walk. New buildings and fresh stores, a magnificent theatre, and a new town hall showing the progress of the place. All, however, were not satisfied. One old colonist I met frankly said, “Don’t be deceived, Doctor, there is no reality in what you see, all imperial money, another Zulu war would suit us just now.” I could not help thinking whether the signs I saw were the evidence of real progress or mere ephemeral prosperity, and I asked myself the question, “Has sugar, has coffee, has the Overberg trade done all this?” I knew that two recent and eminent visitors had taken a harsh view of Natal and Natalians, having formed but hurried opinions of the situation.

Froude and Archibald Forbes no doubt thought themselves competent to judge, but the one was just as far wrong, and acted as unfairly to the body of Natal colonists, when he said: “Many of these are no better than the mean whites in the Southern States of the Union,” as the other when he wrote that the leading attributes of Natal colonists are “untruthfulness, insobriety and swagger.” With due deference to Mr. Froude, I distinctly say from years of observation, there is no section in Natal low enough to be compared with the mean white of the Southern States, whom even the darkies themselves despise.

The mistake which both Froude and Forbes made was one which a well-known writer has described as the great error of the nineteenth century, viz, hasty generalization.

Resting a night I took train to Verulam, Victoria County, my old seat of practice. This line of rail was all new to me, having been laid since I left, though it ran through sugar and coffee plantations which I knew well. On arriving at Verulam I procured a horse and rode off to visit the various estates in the neighborhood: Redcliffe, the Grange, Ottawa, Hammonds, Waterloo, Trenance, Southburn, Sunderland, and others whose names have escaped my recollection, and their hospitable owners I saw again. Many of the estates, however, I found had been taken up by Mauritians, and the vacuum pan sugar boilers, as well as the field overseers, had mostly come from that island, in fact old residents told me that in the trains running to and from D’Urban there was now almost continually a complete babel of French, English, Hindustani and Kafir. I must say that I was disappointed with the general appearance of the coast. Coffee enterprise seemed dying out fast, no planting going on, the trees suffering from an insect, the “borer,” and from the leaf disease (Hemiteia Vastratrix), which has played such havoc in Ceylon. The extent of land under sugar had increased, but drought, low prices, and the competition of beet-root were making the planters look serious.

Another phase of affairs which struck me as assuming unmanageable proportions was the keen competition of the cheap-living Asiatic, who in the cultivation of small holdings could almost beat the European out of the field. When I saw these men, these crofters, themselves working their patches of ground, I was at once let into the secret of their success.

White men in Natal, as a rule, think manual labor in the fields derogatory. The only exception to this of which I ever knew was a settlement of Germans near D’Urban. From the feeling generally abroad I can easily understand the unpalatableness of Froude’s remarks when he wrote: “Here and there a farmer makes a fortune, but generally the whites will not work because they expect the blacks to work for them. The blacks will not work because they prefer to be idle, and so no one works at all.” After all there is a considerable stratum of truth running through this statement.

To return to the coolie question, Indians seem very loath to leave Natal. I find in the last Natal Blue Book that out of 33,343, comprising men of all castes landed from India since immigration began in 1860, only 2,141 have returned, the total number of Indians in the colony in 1884 being 27,276, of whom 17,241 were males and 10,035 females.

Gen. Sir J. J. Bissett, in an address to the electors of Alfred and Alexandra counties in June, 1884, recognizing the importance of this point, said: “With regard to coolies, I consider that they are introduced for a specific purpose, they should at the expiration of their term of indenture be required to return to India, subject to a maximum extension of term (say) to fifteen years in all. I consider that any benefit derived from them by a section of the community is very greatly counterbalanced by the injury their presence causes the colony, both directly and indirectly. I am also opposed to coolies holding land in this colony.”

In my opinion Sir J. J. Bissett’s views display a lamentable ignorance of the first principles of political economy, and are suitable to a timid mercantile community only, afraid of the further cheapening of articles of consumption. A great proportion of the Indians, both in the West Indies and in Natal, as soon as they have served their time and are free from their indentures, become in every sense thorough colonists; they buy property, invest their savings, “marry and are given in marriage,” and show no desire, as statistics prove, to return to India—differing entirely from the Chinese, whose sole object is to return home as soon as possible with every sixpence they can drain out of the country in which they have been living. To my mind the turning away of thrifty bread winners from a country sparsely populated by an infinitesimal working class of whites is the height of absurdity. There is not even the excuse on the ground of morality which the Americans have against the Chinese in California. Moreover, how would Sir J. J. Bissett treat the question of the increase in their population? Would the children born in Natal be allowed to remain there or not? Would he have the Indians under British rule treated in the same manner as the Dutch have since treated them in the Transvaal State, where, certainly without the “liberty, equality and fraternity” popularly supposed to pertain to republican ideas, they passed a law through the Volksraad, which was promulgated on June 10th, 1885, disqualifying “Coolies, Arabs, Malays and other Asiatics” from obtaining the right of citizenship, or from possessing landed property, and compelling them further, under penalty, not only to register themselves, and pay £25 for so doing, but also giving the government power to place them in locations;^[66] or would he have them treated as they are in the other Dutch republic (the Free State), where it is contrary to law to let fixed property to Arabs, and where they cannot even procure a license to trade.

No! Thank God such outrages cannot be committed under the British flag! In Natal less false pride, greater economy and industry are all the requisites necessary to produce a competition vigorous enough to stem the tide of Asiatic intrusion. There is one fact, however, which Natal colonists have seriously to face which is that to every white man there are at least thirteen Kafirs and one Indian.

The great point to my mind is for the European element to retain the voting power within fixed limits.

After my visit to Victoria County I returned to D’Urban and took train to the capital, Pietermaritzburg. The railway again was all new to me. No pleasant rest at host Padley’s now, no exciting drive round the Inchanga, no gallop over Camperdown Flats! Simply a six hours’ monotonous railway trip.

The first sight I caught and the first hand I grasped on my arrival was that of good Bishop Colenso, who met me at the station. Ten years had passed since last we met, but how delighted was I to see the same penetrating eye, the same majestic figure, the same elastic step, and to hear the same cheery voice as in years gone by. I had a long talk with him and his talented and philanthropic daughter over the events which had occurred during the years that I had been absent from Natal. Church matters and matters of state kept us engaged until evening approached, when the bishop started for Bishopstowe, leaving me to spend the night with my friends in Pietermaritzburg. Bishop Colenso was indeed one of those few men “who never swam with the stream, who bravely strove to stem the current, and regardless alike of popular and aristocratic favor pleaded with his latest breath for what he thought to be right and just.”

Little did I think when he shook me by the hand on getting into his carriage that I should never see him again. It is a benign provision for us mortals that the future is wrapped in obscurity!

I left Pietermaritzburg the next day, June 30th, at 11 A. M., passed Howick and the magnificent falls of the Umgeni, and reached the Plough hotel, Estcourt, where I had a short rest. Leaving there at 2:30 in the morning I arrived at Ladysmith at noon, where we changed horses. The feeling against the “ignoble peace,” as it was called, I found increasing the nearer I approached the seat of the late war. In the hotel where the mail cart changed horses the landlord had just posted up the following notice:

and it was curious to see the soldiers and civilians crowding round the placard and to listen to their very candid if not complimentary remarks on the Gladstonian ministry.

Right opposite the hotel where we stopped was to be seen the large loop-holed laager, I should say, roughly speaking, about 300 yards square, which had been built by the villagers during the late scare. As we drove out of the village to Newcastle I saw how “in this weak, piping time of peace” the pomps of war could be utilized, for our parting recollection of Ladysmith was the sight of a large crowd of the youth and fashion of the neighborhood parading round a military band belonging to the troops stationed there, which was discoursing proud martial strains, a sorry satire on the situation!

In the afternoon, toiling up the Biggarsberg, we came upon a batch of Zulus, fine, strapping, jovial fellows, forming a large road party. At the moment what should appear in sight but two ambulance wagons full of our wounded men, just sufficiently recovered to be removed to one of the bare hospitals.

This sight was enough of itself to make all the Zulus stop work and “wau” with curiosity. Seeing some wounded men accompanying the ambulances one Zulu bursting with fun and grinning from ear to ear, shouted out, “Sakubona,” (“I see you,” a form of greeting) “Johnny! upi lo Dutchman?” (“Where is the Dutchman?”) of course a regular peal of laughter at once followed this sally of native wit. I can assure my readers, that as an Englishman I sincerely felt for our wounded soldiers thus tauntingly jeered at, and I was able to estimate the tremendous shock that our prestige had received among the aborigines. The Zulus recognized the situation at once, the only thing our poor fellows could do was to grind their teeth and curse their fate as they wearily trudged along, victims of vanity^[67] and misjudgment, the defeated of Laing’s Nek, Ingogo and Majuba!

There is no doubt that the retrocession of the Transvaal was a violation of a series of guarantees which had been previously given. Not only Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley, but also Sir Garnet Wolseley, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Theo. Shepstone and Sir Owen Lanyon had over and over again declared that the Transvaal would remain English territory, and that under no circumstances could the annexation be reversed. These emphatic utterances were made long before the outbreak of hostilities, and consequently the withdrawal of English rule after the Dutch had gained four signal victories within nine weeks, could be interpreted only by both Dutch and natives as an act, not of principle and equity, but of weakness and defeat. My friend, Mr. C. K. White, one of the nominees appointed by Sir Garnet Wolseley to the legislative council, which he gave as a sop to the Transvaal Boers, in a letter at the time appealed to Mr. Gladstone in the following touching words: “If, sir, you had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of Pretoria dying of wounds received for their country, and if you had had the painful duty, as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home the last mementoes of the departed; if you had seen the privations and discomforts which delicate women and children bore without murmuring for upward of three months; if you had seen strong men crying like children at the cruel and undeserved desertion of England; if you had seen the long strings of half desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off their feet as they left the country, which I saw on my way to Newcastle; and if you yourself had invested your all on the strength of the word of England, and now saw yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the acts of the country in which you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be ‘pronounced,’ and England would ring with eloquent entreaties and threats which would compel a hearing.”

Mr. Gladstone, however, changed his previously declared convictions. On January 21st, 1880, he stated in the House of Commons: “I must look to the obligations entailed by the annexation, and if in my opinion, and in the opinion of many on this side of the house, wrong was done by the annexation itself, that would not warrant us in doing fresh, distinct and separate wrong by a disregard of the obligations which that annexation entailed;” or again on June 8th, 1880, when in answer to Messrs Kruger and Joubert who had written to him, asking him to rescind the annexation of the Transvaal, he said “our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal.” Yet little more than a year saw this “pronounced” opinion totally changed, and all confidence in Mr. Gladstone and his ministry almost annihilated throughout the length and breadth of South Africa.

Proceeding on my journey I crossed the Ingagane, passed the forts in course of erection by our soldiers close to the river, the heliograph twinkling in the sun, and after a long, tiring journey arrived at Newcastle in the afternoon.

Newcastle lies on a large grassy plain and in the centre of a district containing no less than 1,350 square miles of workable coal^[68] close to the surface; and in the near future destined to keep up the credit of its name when the mines have been properly opened up, it will be noted for this production, and then no doubt a railway to the coast being by that time un fait accompli will supply the traffic of the eastern seas.^[69] Newcastle was in the zenith of its commercial prosperity during the late war, and even when I visited it its glory had not quite departed.

Wishing to proceed and see Majuba without loss of time, I found this would be an impossibility, at least for some days, had not Mr. Greenlees, an old resident, kindly given me his assistance and offered to drive me there himself the next day.

As a pleasurable interlude, especially in a place like Newcastle, a grand concert was advertised, which took place on the evening of my arrival, and the band of the 97th put forward as a special inducement. I went and saw a sight that I shall not soon forget. The “gods” were very uproarious and demonstrative, and not at all reticent in expressing their opinion. One singer, well known as a notorious bouncer about the power of England and the valor of her troops, on coming on was most cynically received. To me it was a mystery, but this was explained when he commenced to sing:

for a terrific burst of pent-up anger seemed to thrill the “gods.” “Loop,” “Verdomde Englishman,” “Go and fight the Boers,” “Why did you run?” were the cries all round the hall, until the poor fellow slid away amidst the jeers and laughter of the audience.

Starting early in the morning, we were lucky enough to have as a companion a young colonial volunteer named Maclean, a relative of a former governor of Natal, who was one of the brave men who, after the day’s slaughter, stayed all night with the wounded on the battle field of Ingogo. Crossing the Incandu, our road lay past Fort Amiel, built during the Zulu war, and a twelve miles’ journey, ending in a precipitous rise, landed us on the plateau where the battle of Schuin’s Hooghte was fought. Then crossing the drift of the Ingogo, we breakfasted at Virmstone’s roadside inn on the bank of the river.

Just as we were once more inspanning to continue our journey, up rode Lady Florence Dixie and Sir Beaumont on their way to Newcastle. I was naturally pleased to have the opportunity of seeing a lady whose chivalrous defence of Cetywayo afterward had so much to do with his restoration, and with whose opinions on the late Zulu war and the treatment of the dethroned king I was so much in harmony. I may here mention that a few months later I had the pleasure of making Lady Florence Dixie’s personal acquaintance, when she and Sir Beaumont were passing through Kimberley.

But we had sixteen miles further to travel to Majuba, so on we went, leaving Mount Prospect and its cemetery on our right. We reached the foot of the mountain about 2 P. M. The views of Majuba from the road as we approached were simply grand, and it was hard to picture war and its horrors invading such a lovely spot!

I was again fortunate; at the regimental canteen at the bottom I met a corporal, who had been in all the three engagements, and persuaded him to guide us to the top, which he did, whiling away the tediousness of our mountain climb by relating his experience of the dreadful Sunday (never to be blotted out of South African history), and by recounting events of which he stated that he was an eye-witness, and which, whether his account was strictly correct or not, I prefer to leave unrecorded.

Greenlees, Maclean, myself and our guide all went up the same path, being the via dolorosa the English soldiers under Colley took on the ill-fated night of Feb. 26th, 1881, and not toiling, laden with ammunition and accoutrements, as they did, from 9:30 P. M. to near daybreak, but making the four miles’ circuitous ascent in three hours.^[70] The top is just like a large soup plate, sinking down all round from the sides and flat at the bottom (about 420 yards long by 300 wide), so that no troops resting in the centre could see an enemy advancing up the sides of the mountain. Our guide told us the first intimation he got of the attack of the Dutch was from the consternation which seized every one, when the Boers, who had gained the summit from the Transvaal side, suddenly poured into them their first deadly general volley, although like other eye-witnesses he said there had been considerable desultory firing since daybreak.

This volley at once created such a panic that a regular stampede commenced, which the officers tried in vain to stop. It was sauve qui peut.

I had pointed out to me the perpendicular rocks, some as much as forty feet in height, where many of our men killed themselves jumping headlong down them in their mad retreat, bleeding, tumbling, dying one on the other.

There can be no excuse for the disaster of the day. The Boers themselves were astonished at their own success. Some apologists, I remember at the time, said our men were fatigued with the ascent, but yet they got to the top at 3 A. M., long before daybreak, and it was past mid-day when the Dutch fired the fatal volley which decided the issue of the day. Surely this gave hours enough for our soldiers to rest. Then who, I may ask, was responsible for the equipment of the expedition? Where were the Gatling guns and the rockets, which could have rained death and destruction on the Boer camp below? Why was no diversion made by us from our own camp at Mount Prospect? Who superintended the digging of the intrenchments(?) on Majuba? These and other questions will never now be answered. Again, about sixty Boers only gained the summit at first, therefore it could not be said our forces (554 rifles) were outnumbered.^[71]

The very graves themselves bear silent witness to our blind retreat, for out of ninety-two killed that day only fifty-nine are buried on the top of the Majuba. The others, shot like game by the Boers in the wild run for life down the mountain sides, and who killed themselves in their panic-stricken flight, were buried below at the cemetery of Mount Prospect.

We remained at the top, enjoying a splendid bird’s-eye view of the Transvaal, the site of the Boer laager during the war, the battlefield of Laing’s Nek,^[72] our own camp, etc., until the moon rose, when starting on our downward journey we reached the bottom at nine o’clock, and in half an hour were partaking of the hospitalities of Mrs. Greville’s hotel, where we discussed the merits of that eventful day, and the question of Dutch strategy versus English mismanagement far into the night.

Next day, before sunrise, I started for Mount Prospect, leaving my companions sleeping, overcome with the previous day’s exertions. A walk of three miles brought me to the cemetery, thirty yards long by twenty-six broad, which was surrounded by a double inclosure, the first built of sod, the second of stone.

The sunrise was magnificent, the air keenly crisp and clear, and the scenery, with Majuba filling up the background, I have never seen surpassed, but a more melancholy sight or one recalling sadder events to memory could not be seen the wide world over. Here in this little graveyard, all dead in vain, I saw quietly resting all that “outrageous” fortune had left of disappointed ambition, ruined hopes, and dreams of a glorious future! Far in the corner were the plain marble crosses erected to Sir Pomeroy Colley and Colonel Deane. Sir Pomeroy’s simply chronicled his death and burial, with the beautiful lines from “In Memoriam:”

while Colonel Deane’s spoke the truth of a valiant soldier “who fell in action at Laing’s Nek, at the head of a storming party, ten yards in front of the foremost man.” Alongside these were two little wooden crosses, pointing out the graves of Doctors Landon and Cornish. On Surgeon Major Cornish’s grave there was a beautiful wreath, with the touching words:

In fact the whole cemetery was like a garden of flowers, the graves covered with beautiful wreaths of immortelles, tributes from all parts.

I may here mention that I had the pleasure in August, 1886, just five years after making this visit and five years after the peace was signed, of being introduced at Barberton-the principal town on the Kaap gold fields, and elsewhere described—to Commandant General Piet Joubert and General Smit, who were the Boer commanders at Majuba. I had long been anxious to hear a viva voce statement of the Boer side of the question from some of the chief actors, and I eagerly seized the opportunity of “interviewing” the generals. On waiting on them according to appointment I was very courteously received. General Joubert I found to be a man who had seen some sixty summers, of middle height, with a tendency to corpulency, a greyish beard, sharp, dark eyes and a pleasing expression of countenance, though it was easy to see from his firm set mouth that he was a man possessed of great determination of character. There was no mistaking his nationality as his features were in the main those of the typical Boer. General Smit was taller, his features more regularly cut and of sterner cast, and with hair almost grey he looked just the determined man to lead a forlorn hope. General Joubert at once began the conversation by telling me that for some time he had considered it dangerous to allow the English forces the chance of obtaining the key to the position, which the occupation of Majuba certainly afforded, and acting on this idea he had determined to occupy the mountain, “but” he said, “before taking this step I was determined with the other commandants to make a thorough examination of the locality.” “All came to the opinion” continued General Joubert, “that the occupation of the mountain by the English was impossible, but I thought otherwise, and after this sent up a picket of fifty men each night. This was commenced on the Thursday night (Feb. 24th) preceding the eventful Sunday on which Majuba was fought, but by a remarkable act of Providence, the picket which was told off for duty on Saturday night, being composed of burghers newly arrived from Pretoria, lost the path up the mountain and spent the night encamped midway.”

“But,” I asked the general, “hadn’t Colley asked you to disarm?” “I will tell you,” he replied; “on Friday morning I received a message from General Colley calling on me to disarm, and saying he would send a dispatch to the imperial government representing the Boer grievances. I answered to the effect I could not do this without first getting permission of the chairman of the Triumvirate at Heidleberg, a process which would take four days. Now, I thought, all was right till Monday, and as a proof of my confidence, I even reduced my patrols. What made me also more certain was that on the next day I got a letter from President Brand telling me that there was every chance of negotiations for peace coming to a successful conclusion. I sat up late that night making copies of Brand’s letter to send to the Triumvirate at Heidleberg and to General Colley. On going to bed, I can assure you, I couldn’t sleep, my rest was uneasy and I tossed about till nearly four o’clock in the morning, when I called my boy to make a fire. Just as the day was dawning my wife, who had been with me only a few days, got up to make coffee. Going out of the tent she said, ‘see what lots of men are on the mountain!’ Suspecting nothing I merely said: ‘It is only our own people.’ She was not satisfied, however, but got my binocular, and looked again, when she called out excitedly: ‘Leave your writing! put down your pen! come here! the English are on the mountain!’ I ran out at once, there was no need for me to take the glass as I could plainly distinguish the English troops by their walk. I jumped on my horse, which like all other horses in the camp, according to general orders, was saddled at four in the morning, and rode at once to Franz Joubert^[73] who had just come into laager the day before. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘didn’t I tell you the English would get up the mountain? Look, there they are.’ He wouldn’t believe me but insisted they were our own people. At this juncture I saw the men returning who should have formed the picket on Majuba the night before, and heard and saw two shots fired on them from the hill. I almost lost my temper. ‘Would our own people fire on us?’ I asked. ‘No! they are English, I say.’ When Franz Joubert calmly answered, ‘If that is so we shall have to get them down.’ Hurriedly telling him to go on up the mountain, while I would go back and send some more men, I galloped off to our laager. On my way I met my son with a message from General Smit advising me to come to Laing’s Nek at once as that might be attacked. So I left instructions for Veld Cornets Roos and Minnaar to attack Majuba on one side with about forty men, and the commandant of Utrecht with something like the same number would go up the other.”

“But tell me, general,” I said, “were the English fully aware that the Boers were really coming up the mountain to attack them?”

“Yes! of course they were, they knew it for eight hours, as it was five o’clock in the morning when they fired the first two shots, and it was one o’clock when we got to the top.”

“Then it was not, as it is alleged, a sudden attack in force which gained the day?”

The general smiled at my question. “How could it be when heavy firing was going on all the morning up to the very last moment.”

“When the top was gained by the Boers, what took place next?”

“There was no resistance, all was over in a minute or two.”

“But tell me, general, how do you account for the fact that 500 English should run before 60 Boers who had just had an eight-hours’ climb up the mountain?”

“I don’t wish to give any opinion,” said the general, looking serious indeed, “but I am certain the hand of God was with us all through.” Then waxing quite eloquent, he continued: “Men of mine, whom I knew were such cowards, that in Kafir wars even I have set them to cook the pots, advanced with determined step, impressed with the work before them, actuated, I am sure, by an Almighty power.”

Then, continuing the narrative, he told me how General Smit sent him word about three o’clock that Colley was killed and how he forwarded instructions that the body should be carefully guarded during the night with “all honor and respect,” and that the wounded should be laid together and covered up, the prisoners of war in the meantime being sent under escort to the Boer camp and transported the next day by wagon to Heidleberg.

Considering the state of utter demoralization in which our troops had apparently fallen at the time, the Boers having been victorious in every engagement of the campaign, all Englishmen may be glad that a sudden mist stopped the attack upon our camp at Mount Prospect, which General Smit told me the Boers had decided to make, or a yet more disastrous defeat would, I feel certain, have been chronicled. I was strongly impressed with the belief that General Joubert recognized a divine Providence in everything, as over and over again he said, “the hand of God was in it all.” I was also informed that when this sudden mist arose, hiding our camp completely from view, that he quietly said: “Look at the mist, the Lord won’t allow us to go;” seemingly, like Cromwell, he was a firm believer in the universality of divine interposition and so accepted the sudden mist as a command of the Deity! “Thus far shalt thou go and no further.”

General Joubert’s description of his interview with Gen. Sir Evelyn Wood, five days after Majuba, was very graphic. I asked the general to allow me to take notes, to which he consented—when lighting his pipe he began: “You must know, doctor, that five days after the fight General Wood sent to ask me if I would meet him half-way between the two camps. This I agreed to do, and we sent wagons and tents from both sides. There were myself, General Smit and Mr. Dirkhouse, as clerk on our side, and General Wood, General Buller and Major Fraser on the English. When I arrived, after wishing each other ‘good morning,’ General Wood asked me: ‘Have you authority to make peace?’ I answered, ‘Yes, on one condition;’ he said, ‘what is that?’ I replied, ‘the annexation of our country to be withdrawn.’ ‘Then,’ I added, ‘her Majesty’s troops can leave with honor, I want no more.’ ‘But if I sign such a peace, will all agree?’ inquired the general. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘all must in accordance with our law.’ After some moments’ deliberation General Wood asked me whether or not I would make peace according to the terms offered in a letter sent by Mr. Kruger to General Colley through President Brand. I answered distinctly, ‘No.’ At last General Wood begged that the armistice might be extended to twenty days to give Mr. Kruger time to arrange about terms, when, after discussing the matter for some time, a further cessation of hostilities for eight days was agreed upon between us, and we left Buller and Fraser to draw up a document to that effect.

“As we were standing outside the tent while this document was being prepared, General Wood told me I should have to get away from the Nek, because it was English territory, but I said: ‘We don’t fight for ground, we don’t claim any; why should I go? If you mean to make peace, the closer we get the better.’ General Wood replied, ‘I shall have to force the place then and drive you away,’ and pointing to his breast, and counting his medals one after the other, said: ‘Look, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine medals, and if I pitch you out, another, which will make ten.’ I answered: ‘I must defend my country at all risks, and stand the consequences,’ He then looked straight at me and said: ‘Perchance you may kill me, but that is nothing; England has sixteen generals more.’ I then turned up my coat, and pointing to my breast, which was perfectly plain, said: ‘General, there is nothing here, and thank God, I want nothing behind that Nek there. I have not one single man to be killed for that. (I pointed to a medal on his breast.) We do not fight for glory, we fight for liberty, and for liberty every English general, I know, would also yield his life. We have not many generals, but although I and General Smit lead our men, each man knows he fights for himself and his country.’ General Wood then continued: ‘But what do you think of Colley going up the mountain?’ I answered: ‘I don’t know what to think; all I know is that I received letters from Brand and Colley only the day before, which tended to throw me off my guard, and while I was in the very act of writing answers Colley took the opportunity to go up the mountain.’ ‘And you drove him down?’ ‘I don’t say that, and I am glad no one behind that Nek says that either, but this I will say, that every man of mine when he looks at Majuba, when he looks at the top of that mountain there, thinks of nothing but the wondrous work of the Almighty.’ Wood seemed touched. ‘I am not an unbeliever; I also say my prayers,’ he ejaculated. ‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to hear you say that, but do you know what we pray for? We don’t pray to conquer nations and annex countries; what we pray for is that Almighty God may so open the eyes of the gracious Queen of England that she and her counsellors may see what is justice and what is right, then we shall feel sure of our case and know that freedom to our country must come.’

“We then talked a little about Bronker’s Spruit and other incidents of the war, when, the document being finished, we went into the tent to sign it.”

Shortly after General Joubert concluded the above somewhat melo-dramatic description of his meeting with Sir Evelyn Wood, I took my leave, having spent a most interesting hour in the society of the generals.

Returning, however, to the description of my trip of 1881; when I got to the hotel I found all prepared for leaving, and after breakfast we started for Newcastle, intending to rest at Ingogo, as we had not time to visit Laing’s Nek (and moreover we could see the position from the road), where Colley’s first defeat took place on Jan. 28th, with a loss of 260 killed and wounded, and where Colonel Deane and Major Poole (Cetywayo’s old friend) were shot down. After a pleasant drive we crossed the Ingogo drift, the road gradually ascending until the plateau of Schuin’s Hooghte was reached, where Colley suffered his second defeat on Feb. 7th. Making a reconnaissance that morning with 273 of the 60th Rifles and 38 men of the mounted squadron from Mount Prospect, Colley was virtually lured to his destruction. The Boers retired before his advance, until having decoyed our troops to Schuin’s Hooghte, a high and perfectly unsheltered plateau, they opened a galling fire from the other side of the valley which intervened, a perfectly safe position for them. This was at 10:15 A. M., and until sundown our soldiers were nothing more or less than English targets for Dutch bullets. The field guns which Colley brought with him were useless; he had nothing to fire at but rocks, the Boers finding most excellent cover. The horses were shot down at the guns, the mules at the ambulance wagons, nothing living was safe for a moment from the Boers’ unerring aim. Maclean pointed out to me the exact stone, near the centre of the plateau, where Colley, Essex and Wilkinson took cover most of the day, and gave me a most vivid description of the field when, on a second visit next day, he found the place literally stormed by armies of cowardly vultures, attracted by the putrid effluvium from the rotting carcasses of the dead horses and mules. With my penknife I picked out splashes of lead from the crevices of the stones, as relics of the Boers’ accurate sighting. Wilkinson, brave young fellow, was drowned the same night in the Ingogo, when pluckily returning with comforts for the wounded, that river having become a sweeping torrent owing to the storm of rain which had been raging for some hours previous.

These poor fellows, left on the plateau in the rain, were totally deserted except by one or two, Parson Ritchie, Maclean and Dr. McGan, Colley having made good his retreat in the night with his troops and guns to Mount Prospect. There these men lay in a heap, the dying and the dead together, the pitchy darkness of that long, cold, wet, dreary night now and again relieved by vivid flashes of lurid lightning. Only 142^[74] of our soldiers were sacrificed on this occasion. I went to look at one of the two inclosed grave-yards of these ill-fated men. In the corner of a little inclosure by the roadside I found tokens of the conflict and relics of our loss. The helmets of the dead soldiers, riddled with bullets, were promiscuously piled together, while all around could be seen traces of the desolation war had produced.

Turning to the Boer losses and casualties. The news of the Boers having taken the Amajuba mountain reached the Red Cross Association on March 6th, at Bethlehem, O. F. S., when its members at once left for Laing’s Nek, arriving there on March 16th. Dr. A. C. Daumas, in a report which he wrote to the secretary of the association, dated Aliwal North, July 29th, 1881, said:

“You may easily fancy what our astonishment was on being informed that although accepted with thanks, our services were by no means so urgent and necessary as we had at first supposed.

“In fact, the hospital established by Dr. Merinski, close to the camp, only contained in all one man sick and three wounded.”

Further on, in the same report, Dr. Daumas stated:

“It would be rather difficult to tell accurately the number of Boers encamped in this pass (Laing’s Nek), but I do not think I am far from the truth in estimating their number at 1,000 men.

“This small army subsisted there without the help of any commissariat; each man was obliged to provide himself with his own food, which consisted generally in a purely animal diet. He did not receive any pay, and had beside to get his accommodation at his own expense. His obedience to his commanders was absolute. The most perfect order prevailed in this camp, where, strange to say, there never was any drilling done. Far from being intoxicated with their victories, the Boers always showed themselves extremely modest, attributing all their successes to the protection of heaven.... But what remains to be explained is how an army of several thousand men may have been able to take the field and keep it during several months without commissariat, and especially without any medical service, and should not have been more subject to the class of diseases which are in time of war the ordinary sad attendants of all armies.

“Should not the reason of these facts lie in this, i.e., that owing to his sobriety and to the strength of his constitution the Boer has been able to resist the physical causes which produce those diseases; as also through his political faith, coupled with genuine religious faith, he has been able to bear up against the moral causes.”

There is no gainsaying the fact that all through the war the Boers had implicit faith in divine assistance.

Leaving Schuin’s Hooghte we hurried to Newcastle, and next day I left for Ladysmith, intending to catch the mail cart which runs from the Rising Sun to Bloemfontein, and so through the Free State to Kimberley.

Passing through Harrismith, the border town of the Free State, we came to Bethlehem, where I saw the handsome Dutch Church, just finished at a cost of £16,000, and passing Senekal at 5 A. M., nearly frozen in the pitch darkness, I arrived in Winburg at twelve, at noon. Dr. Dixon, the leading practitioner there, soon found me out, and dining at his table with some Kimberley speculators, on coal not diamonds bent, spent a very pleasant afternoon. The post-cart left at 6:30 P. M.; at eight next morning we were in Bloemfontein, and everything going favorably along, July 12th saw me once more on the diamond fields.