e had covered three thousand
paces, he halted, and turning the Krupp on the enemy, he shelled them
with good effect.

At about ten o'clock, General Froneman succeeded in forcing the English
troops which he had attacked to surrender. I therefore ordered the two
Krupps which he had with him to be brought up with the utmost despatch.
At half-past seven they arrived, and immediately opened fire on the
English.

When the enemy had been under the fire of three guns and eighty Mausers
for an hour, they thought it best to hoist the white flag. We
accordingly ceased firing, and I rode out towards the station. Before I
had reached it, I was met by two of the officers. They told me that they
were willing to surrender, on condition that they were allowed to retain
their private property and the mail bags, for it appeared that there
were two English mails under their charge.

I replied that so far as their private belongings were concerned, they
were welcome to keep them, as I never allowed the personal property of
my prisoners to be tampered with in my presence.[47] But I told them
that the letters were a different matter, and that I could not allow
them to reach their destination--unless they were directed to a bonfire!

There was nothing left for the officers to do, except to agree to my
terms then and there; for had they hesitated even for a moment, I should
certainly have stormed the station.

But they wisely surrendered.

On our arrival at the station, we were all filled with wonder at the
splendid entrenchments the English had constructed from bales of cotton,
blankets and post-bags. These entrenchments had been so effectual that
the enemy's loss was only twenty-seven killed and wounded--a remarkably
small number, when it is remembered that we took two hundred of them
prisoners.

I had expected that our booty would be large, and my expectations were
more than realized. To begin with, there were the bales of clothing that
the English had used as entrenchments. Then there were hundreds of cases
of necessaries of every description. Of ammunition, also, there was no
lack, and amongst it there were projectiles for the Naval guns, with
which Lord Roberts had intended to bombard Pretoria.

Some of the burghers attempted to lift these gigantic shells, but it
took more than one man to move them.

I read in the newspapers afterwards that I had inflicted a loss of three
quarters of a million sterling on the English Government