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main body at Pretoria. The relief-parties that went into the Waterfall suffered severely; and when Captain Clarke abandoned Fort Weeber, bringing in A troop of the Provisional Police to Lydenberg, no less than five of this small body were ill.

Up to this time I had acted as a sort of district adjutant. I had now to become district surgeon.

On 17th February I obtained an order to open a hospital at Government expense. This was speedily full. Even the natives-men, women, and children-of Windvogel's clan, who had lain out for a few nights in the Waterfall valley, in their flight from Fort Burgers, were attacked.

The fever differed materially from that of 1877. It began with extreme anxiety, pains in the back of the neck and left shoulder, with vomiting; and was accompanied by a most singular cough, and inflammation of the lungs.

If the patient were pulled through, he got on to ordinary low fever, and slept off the disease, which finally produced violent hæmorrhage from the bowels; after which, with proper remedies, the skin began to act, the bowels and stomach to regain tone, and the patient hope and strength.

When the disease terminated fatally, it did so from the fifth to the twelfth day. The symptoms at first were less violent; and in those cases the vomiting was noticeably absent. High fever, filthy and furred tongue, accompanied by thirst and impatience, marked the opening stage. These symptoms almost at once abated on salines being exhibited; but when the patient was apparently doing well, he would be suddenly seized with a convulsion, his teeth would close, breathing become stertorous, effusion on the brain rapidly took place, and the patient died suddenly, with all the symptoms that had hitherto been noticed only in horsesickness of the Dyk Kop, or swollen head and staggering type, as distinguished from the pleuritic type common in the Free State and Natal.

The hospital was closed before the end of April, not because the fever had abated, but as there had been no new exposures; and the Bushveld valleys being now utterly abandoned, I had, except two operations, no new cases.

In connection with medical duties, great dissatisfaction

was given to the volunteers by Government not employing Ashton, who had served so long and faithfully in the previous war. Government sent some doctors in whom the men had no confidence, and for months patients were much neglected, many men, including Captain van Deventer, Bathe, and Sergeant Wood, dying of trivial hurts.

This, with the parsimony shown in providing comforts for the sick, lost many a brave man to the service.

The ladies of Lydenberg, headed by Mrs Herbert Robins of that town, proved their pluck and humanity most amply at the bedsides of the poor during my period of office in the rather odd position which circumstances forced on me.

Captain Clarke, with the feeble forces at his disposal, repeatedly worried the enemy in the vicinity of Fort Weeber. He attacked and half carried Masselleroom, but from unavoidable circumstances, was forced to retire, after four hours' fighting, having lost some Zulu policemen, whose dead bodies and rifles had to be abandoned on the top of the rock. He had also two European officers and two white men seriously wounded. However, he took 230 head of cattle and some goats. At this unfinished storming of Masselleroom occurred one of those incidents which evoke so much excitement and condemnation amongst well-thinking people at home. The Zulu police, in the heat of action, bayoneted and thrust into the flames of the burning huts all the people they met, without distinction of age or sex. In some instances these savage warriors, as the residents of Lydenberg have been publicly informed by eyewitnesses, tossed on the points of their bayonets young infants. In fact they were barbarians, and their conduct was barbarous.

For this their officer, Mr Lloyd, can in no way be blamed. This humane and excellent man had at this time been shot with two bullets, one in the shoulder and the other in the arm, and had plenty of work, guiding and leading his division, without meddling with what he could not prevent. There are no more humane or excellent men in the British service than those who directed the attack I refer to. They cannot be blamed or held responsible in any way for the catastrophe that occurred; and I only mention it here for the purpose of showing plainly to the public that such

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terrible incidents can occur under the British flag, and that the condemnation of the use of native allies, with their barbarous methods of warfare addressed by Lord Carnarvon and Sir Henry Barkly to the South African Republican Government, might be applied nearer home. Up to this moment, no bitterness had entered into the conduct of the war. The last war with Secocoeni had not been characterised by such an occurrence. I myself most unhesitatingly condemn such revolting cruelty; and I wish, above all things, to impress upon my readers that it was not the work of Commandoes, cattle-lifters, Boers, or filibusters, but was perpetrated by a police force in the pay and regular employment of the most highly civilised Government in the world. But even atrocities, however blamable and however regrettable, have their results. Kafirs do not usually remain, for purposes of either war or peace, in any place where persons of their own tribe have been recently slain. They have a superstitious horror of dead bodies; and so, although the direct attack was a complete failure, within a week Legolani evacuated her position and Captain Clarke got possession of it. But this was not till other lives were lost. The day after the repulsed attack on Masselleroom, the place was threatened again by a large body of Captain Clarke's Bechuana allies, who had misbehaved in the previous affair. Through this second attempt, the life of one of the bravest and best of Boer leaders, Captain van Deventer, was lost. But as a result of the whole operation, the tribe of Legolani was broken up. Her cattle, with about 140 women, children, and old men, fell into the hands of the Government; while the chieftainess herself, with the best of her warriors, fell back on Secocoeni, and safely effected a junction with him.

The war now languished for a while, Clarke awaiting reinforcements, and enjoying an occasional skirmish. He pushed on his outpost a distance of eighteen miles nearer to the chief, Secocoeni, and built another fort opposite Mamalube. The most remarkable phase of the war, if war it can be called, now ensued. Volunteers began to reach Captain Clarke in daily increasing numbers. The provisional police, both mounted and dismounted, were drafted

to him, and much suffering and grumbling were occasioned in his two forts by the want, not only of luxuries, but too often of necessaries. In fact, the supply department, as usual, broke down. Everybody was more or less discontented. The inhabitants of Lydenberg district complained of the long and exposed border-line being left, by the removal of the provisional police to Fort Weeber, utterly undefended; while the field force was kept in an out-of-the-way corner, irritating and pinching Secocoeni.1 The volunteers complained because their horses died and they were not provided with remounts, whilst having to pay out of their scanty wages for 80 per cent of the steeds they brought with them to the front. The merchants complained that trade was languishing, and property had lost all value; whilst the inhabitants of Lydenberg objected to doing eternal guards-Pretoria, where there was no war, being full of soldiers. This was, to a certain extent, remedied by the despatch to Lydenberg and Middleburg of several companies of her Majesty's 13th P.A. Light Infantry. More volunteers were summoned from the Diamond Fields; and 100, after some difficulty and delay, reached Pretoria by the 2d of June 1878.

1 The Kafirs said “Clarke was pinching their ears to make them fight."

CHAPTER XVIII.

FIGHTS AND FAILURES.

Fatal affray at Magnet Heights-Mutiny of Zulu police-Advance of her Majesty's troops.

EXERTIONS were made all over the country to get together mounted volunteer forces sufficient to end the campaign during the winter months, the only healthy season. It is not for me to inquire why the 13th, with a powerful artillery train, were not advanced from the towns to the enemy. I only know that this brave and excellent regiment was most eager to have its share in the fighting; and it was pointed out to Government that infantry forces, however spirited or highly disciplined, could not be made available for the protection of houses, stock, or other property at any distance from their camp, and that their great value was for direct attack and the holding of advanced positions, so as to leave the country clear behind. That this view was correct, has since been proved by the Kafirs having, on June 13th, and many subsequent occasions, successfully raided on the main road between Lydenberg and the Gold Fields. The war has outlasted the winter. Captain Clarke intended to effect a forward movement over the Magnet Heights towards the Waterfall, where he expected to co-operate with Mr Eckersley's force, increased by the addition of some tame Kafirs. In doing so, he met with a check in which more men were lost than fell in almost any fight during the late war in the Cape Colony, where vastly superior forces were employed on both sides. In the Cape Colony war, which lasted ten months, and engaged, on our side, an average of not less