's.

What were we to do? To continue the struggle meant extermination.
Already our women and children were dying by the thousand, and
starvation was knocking at the door--and knocking loudly!

In certain districts, such as Boshof and Hoopstad, it was still possible
to prolong the war, as was also the case in the districts of Generals
Brand and Nieuwouwdt, where the sheep and oxen, which had been captured
from the enemy, provided an ample supply of food. But from the
last-named districts all the women and children had departed, leaving
the burghers free to wander at will in search of food--to Boshof, to
Hoopstad, and even into the Colony.

In other parts of the Free State things were very different. In the
north-eastern and northern districts--for instance, in Ladybrand,
Winburg, Kroonstad, Heilbron, Bethlehem, Harrismith and Vrede--there
were still many families, and these could not be sent to Boshof or to
Hoopstad or to the Colony. And when, reduced to dire want, the commandos
should be obliged to abandon these districts, their wives and families
would have to be left behind--to starve!

The condition of affairs in the Transvaal was no better. We
Free-Staters had thought--and I, for one, had supported the view at
Vereeniging--that, before sacrificing our independence, we ought to tell
the owners of these farms, where there were still women and children, to
go and surrender with their families, and thus save them from
starvation. But we soon realized that such a course was not
practicable--it would involve the loss of too many burghers.

Moreover, even if, by some such scheme as this, we had succeeded in
saving the women, we, who remained in the field, would still have been
exposed to the dangers of starvation, for many of us, having no horses,
could not have left want behind us, by removing to Cape Colony or some
other equally prosperous region.

In the large eastern divisions of the Transvaal also, there were many
burghers without horses, while the poor jaded creatures that remained
were far too feeble and exhausted to carry their masters into Cape
Colony, without the certainty of being captured by the enemy.

Our forces were now only twenty thousand in all, of which the Transvaal
supplied ten thousand, the Free State six thousand, while the remainder
came from Cape Colony. But our numerical weakness would not in itself
have caused us to abandon the struggle had we but received encouraging
news from the Colony