lieving force from Bloemfontein; so I decided to attack at
once. First, however, I despatched some of my best scouts in the
direction of Bloemfontein and Reddersburg, while I ordered the commandos
under Generals Piet de Wet and A.P. Cronje to take up positions to the
east and south-east of the capital.

Early in the morning of the 7th of April I made an attack on two points:
one to the south-west, the other to the south-east of Dalgety's
fortifications, opening fire on his troops at distances of from five to
fifteen hundred paces. I dare not approach any nearer for lack of
suitable cover. The place was so strongly fortified that many valuable
lives must have been sacrificed, had I been less cautious than I was.

After a few days I received reinforcements, and was thus enabled to
surround the English completely. But their various positions were so
placed that it was impossible for me to shell any of them from both
sides, and thus to compel their occupants to surrender.

Day succeeded to day, and still the siege continued.

Before long we had captured some eight hundred of the trek-oxen, and
many of the horses of the enemy. Things were not going so badly for us
after all; and we plucked up our courage, and began to talk of the
probability of a speedy surrender on the part of the English.

To tell the truth, there was not a man amongst us who would have asked
better than to make prisoners of the Cape Mounted Rifles and of
Brabant's Horse. They were Afrikanders, and as Afrikanders, although
neither Free-Staters nor Transvaalers, they ought, in our opinion, to
have been ashamed to fight against us.

The English, we admitted, had a perfect right to hire such sweepings,
and to use them against us, but we utterly despised them for allowing
themselves to be hired. We felt that their motive was not to obtain the
franchise of the Uitlanders, but--five shillings a day! And if it should
by any chance happen that any one of them should find his grave
there--well, the generation to come would not be very proud of that
grave. No! it would be regarded with horror as the grave of an
Afrikander who had helped to bring his brother Afrikanders to their
downfall.

Although I never took it amiss if a colonist of Natal or of Cape Colony
was unwilling to fight with us against England, yet I admit that it
vexed me greatly to think that some of these colonists, for the sake of
a paltry five shillings a day, should be ready to shoot down th