ous impressions. I could neither refute
nor defend myself against their infamous libels, and for the rest, my
friend "Mr. Atkins" kept us all exceedingly busy.

That which is left of Ben Viljoen after the several "coups de grace"
in the field and the tragic execution at De Aar, still "pans" out at a
fairly robust young person--quite an ordinary young fellow, indeed,
thirty-four years of age, of middle height and build. Somewhere in the
Marais Quartier of Paris--where the French Huguenots came from--there
was an ancestral Viljoen from whom I am descended. In the War just
concluded I played no great part of my own seeking. I met many
compatriots who were better soldiers than myself; but on occasions I
was happily of some small service to my Cause and to my people.

The chapters I append are, like myself, simple in form. If I have
become notorious it is not my fault; it is the fault of the newspaper
paragraphist, the snap-shooter, and the autograph fiend; and in these
pages I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to leave the stage to
more prominent actors, merely offering myself as guide to the many
battlefields on which we have waged our unhappy struggle.

I shall not disappoint the reader by promising him sensational or
thrilling episodes. He will find none such in these pages; he will
find only a naked and unembellished story.

BEN J. VILJOEN.
(_Assistant Commandant-General
of the Republican Forces._)

St. Helena,
_June, 1902_

[Illustration: 8 Maps of Nicholsons Nek & Modderspruit, Monte Christo,
Colenso, Spioen Kop, Vaalkrantz, Pieter's Hill, Stromberg and
Abramskraal.]

MY REMINISCENCES

OF THE

ANGLO-BOER WAR

CHAPTER I.

THE WAR CLOUDS GATHER.

In 1895 the political clouds gathered thickly and grew threatening.
They were unmistakable in their portent. War was meant, and we heard
the martial thunder rumbling over our heads.

The storm broke in the shape of an invasion from Rhodesia on our
Western frontiers, a raid planned by soldiers of a friendly power.

However one may endeavour to argue the chief cause of the South
African war to other issues, it remains an irrebuttable fact that the
Jameson Raid was primarily responsible for the hostilities which
eventually took place between Great Britain and the Boer Republics.

Mr. Rhodes, the sponsor and _deus ex machina_ of the Ra