g from behind our hurriedly erected
entrenchment, and occasionally firing a few shots, I discovered four or
five brave khakies busy dragging along an ammunition waggon, or a gun;
from such a distance we could not distinguish which. We fired at them
with a sight of 800 paces, but did not hit them, as the horizontal
distance to the camp was not more than 400 paces, and we should have
used a sight of 600 paces, but the height of the mountain was very
misleading. Immediately afterwards a span of mules came in the direction
of the supposed gun, so Malherbe and I retreated as fast as we could, to
find a better cover more to the left. It is strange how in a battle one
always has an idea that all the threatened danger is aimed specially at
one's self.

We had to be on the look-out not to fire at our own people, some of whom
were already in the camp. My brother, Malherbe, and I went to the narrow
kloof that I have already mentioned, after a fruitless search for our
horses, which had meanwhile been taken to the entrance of the kloof, and
I heard from my brother that our brave General had been wounded in the
leg by a shell. During the search for our horses we had noticed a long
dust-cloud at the end of Kromriverskloof, near Buffelspoort, moving from
Rustenburg in the direction of Commandonek--in all probability
reinforcements for the enemy, arriving too late.

The Waterbergers and Zoutpansbergers, who were most undisciplined, had
descended through the kloof in quest of booty. But the Krugersdorpers,
formerly notorious for their rough behaviour, were now the most orderly,
and did not descend before all the men were collected. The kloof was
strewn with bodies of khakies, who were sent up as reinforcement and
pitilessly shot down by the burghers. The little stream of water was red
with blood, so that we could not even quench our thirst. Some of the
khakies had fallen from the high cliffs, where they had to lie
unburied--like the soldiers on Amajuba in 1881.

We led our horses to the opening of the kloof, and then galloped into
camp under the thundering noise of the shells that the enemy were
firing at us from the distance. There was no control possible among the
burghers. Each one loaded his horse with whatever he could lay his hands
on, and there was no thought of following up the retreating enemy. They
did not leave us undisturbed in our glory, but aimed lyddite at us,
which had the desired effect, that we in our disorder did not