, his
grandson, his secretary, his adjutant, and his servant might accompany
him. The same evening he was despatched to Cape Town, receiving those
honourable attentions which were due to his valour rather than to his
character. His men, a pallid ragged crew, emerged from their holes and
burrows, and delivered up their rifles. It is pleasant to add that, with
much in their memories to exasperate them, the British privates treated
their enemies with as large-hearted a courtesy as Lord Roberts had shown
to their leader. Our total capture numbered some three thousand of the
Transvaal and eleven hundred of the Free State. That the latter were not
far more numerous was due to the fact that many had already shredded
off to their farms. Besides Cronje, Wolverans of the Transvaal, and the
German artillerist Albrecht, with forty-four other field-cornets and
commandants, fell into our hands. Six small guns were also secured. The
same afternoon saw the long column of the prisoners on its way to Modder
River, there to be entrained for Cape Town, the most singular lot of
people to be seen at that moment upon earth--ragged, patched, grotesque,
some with goloshes, some with umbrellas, coffee-pots, and Bibles, their
favourite baggage. So they passed out of their ten days of glorious
history.

A visit to the laager showed that the horrible smells which had been
carried across to the British lines, and the swollen carcasses which
had swirled down the muddy river were true portents of its condition.
Strong-nerved men came back white and sick from a contemplation of the
place in which women and children had for ten days been living. From end
to end it was a festering mass of corruption, overshadowed by incredible
swarms of flies. Yet the engineer who could face evil sights and
nauseous smells was repaid by an inspection of the deep narrow trenches
in which a rifleman could crouch with the minimum danger from shells,
and the caves in which the non-combatants remained in absolute safety.
Of their dead we have no accurate knowledge, but two hundred wounded in
a donga represented their losses, not only during a bombardment of ten
days, but also in that Paardeberg engagement which had cost us eleven
hundred casualties. No more convincing example could be adduced both of
the advantage of the defence over the attack, and of the harmlessness
of the fiercest shell fire if those who are exposed to it have space and
time to make preparations.

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