hasberg. There Van der Merwe died.

The boy had already been relieved from his sufferings. Thus, once again,
the soil drank the blood of a child.

Eleven of my men were left dead on the battlefield. We had to leave them
there, for to recover their bodies might have meant the sacrifice of
more lives.

When the burghers and I forced our way through the storm of bullets, we
had with us President Steyn, the Members of the Government, and the Rev.
D. Kestell, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Harrismith.

The greater part of the English, indeed all of them, so far as we could
observe, remained, during the 24th, on the spot where we had left them.
We found out, later on, that we had broken through their lines at the
point where Colonel Rimington's force was stationed.

The following day the columns departed. We then went to bury our dead,
but found that the enemy had already done so. But as the graves which
they had made were very shallow, we dug them deeper.

During that night (the 25th) another force of burghers, to the number of
about three hundred and fifty, broke through the English cordon. Our men
only lost two killed, and eleven wounded.

Besides those already mentioned, the burghers under General Wessel
Wessels and Commandant Mentz were also among those who escaped of the
two thousand troops surrounded by the enemy.

With the others it fared but ill.

The English closed in, and the circle became narrower and narrower.

On the 27th of February, 1902--"Majuba Day"--Commandant Van Merwe and
four hundred men fell into the hands of the enemy.[106]

On that very day, in the year 1881, the famous battle of Majuba had been
fought. Nineteen years afterwards, on the same day of the same month, we
suffered a terrible defeat at Paardeberg, where we lost General Piet
Cronje and a great force of burghers.

And now the 27th of February had come round again, and this time it was
the twenty-first anniversary of Majuba that we were celebrating. The day
of our coming of age had thus arrived, if I may be allowed to say so.
But instead of the Republics now attaining their majority--as they
should have done, according to all precedent--_minority_ would have been
a more fitting word to describe the condition in which we now found
ourselves--for, through the losses which we had just sustained, we were
_minus_ not only a large number of burghers, but also an enormous
quantity of cattle, which ought to have served as food t