ardiner for
his inestimable services in the hour of need, and for kindly submitting
to us the "papers" bearing on the trial.

P.H. KRITZINGER.

R.D. MCDONALD.

Contents.

CHAP. PAGE

PREFACE iii

I. ANTECEDENTS 1

II. DARK DAYS 5

III. ENGAGEMENTS 21

IV. IN TIGHT CORNERS 43

V. TO THE CAPE COLONY 56

VI. WOUNDED 70

VII. COURT-MARTIALLED 81

VIII. WHY WE SURRENDERED 102

IX. THE BOER AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF THE WAR 118

X. THE RISING IN THE CAPE COLONY 149

XI. WAR INCIDENTS 170

"In the Shadow of Death."

CHAPTER I.

ANTECEDENTS.

The child is father to the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

_Wordsworth._

A few preliminary pages of personal history I offer to those who
followed me either in thought or deed during the Anglo-Boer War.

My ancestors were Germans; my grandfather was born in the South. About
the year 1820 he, along with two brothers, bade farewell to the land of
his nativity and emigrated to South Africa. They found a home for
themselves in the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth, and there they
settled as farmers. Two of the brothers married women of Dutch
extraction; one died a bachelor. A small village, Humansdorp, situated
near to Port Elizabeth, was the birth-place of my father. There he spent
the greater part of his life. He, too, married a Dutch lady; and we
children adopted the language of our mother, and spoke Dutch rather than
German.

My father took an active part in several of the early Kaffir Wars, and
rendered assistance to the Colonial forces in subjugating the native
tribes in the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony. With rapt attention
and enthusiasm we children would listen to him as he told the tale of
those early native wars. I then thought that there was nothing so
sublime and glorious as war. My imagination was inflamed, and I longed
intensely to participate in such exciting adventures. My experience of
recent years has corrected my views. I think differently now. Peace is
better than war. War is brutal an