rghers under
General Philip Botha should occupy themselves in cutting the English
lines of communication between Kroonstad and Zand River. The Bothaville
burghers were to carry out similar operations in their own district.

On that same afternoon I rode with my staff to the Heilbron burghers,
who now had returned to their farms. (They had had permission to go home
after they had got back from Waterberg.) They had assembled in very
strong force.

The enemy also had arrived in this part of the country, and we were
therefore obliged at once to get ourselves ready to fight in case it
should be necessary, or to retreat if the enemy should be too strong for
us.

With the Heilbron, Harrismith and Vrede commandos, I had now a very
considerable force at my command.

When I met the burghers on the 25th of September I found that I must
send a force in the direction of Kroonstad, in order to oppose outposts
which the enemy had stationed some six miles from that town.

I at once sent orders to General Hattingh that he was to come over to me
with his burghers. But what did I hear? The burghers had not been able
to make up their minds to part with their waggons; most of the men from
Vrede and Harrismith had gone home with these waggons, although there
was a Kaffir driver and a leader for almost every one, and although I
had given express orders that these Kaffirs were to be the ones to take
back the waggons. How angry I was! At such moments as these one would be
well nigh driven mad were there not a Higher Power to hold one back.

And, to make the situation still more serious, the English now came on
from all sides, and I had no troops! The Kroonstad burghers were in
their own district. I allowed those from Bethlehem to leave me in order
to carry on operations in their part of the country; the same likewise
with the Winburgers and the valiant Commandant Hasebroek, while the
burghers of Vrede and Harrismith had gone home.

I had therefore with me only a small contingent from those districts, in
addition to the burghers from Heilbron.

The reader will understand that, under these circumstances, the forces
which now began to concentrate on us were too great for us to withstand;
and that no other course lay open to me than to go through
Schoemansdrift; and, in case I should be pursued, to Bothaville, in
order to enter the _zandveld_ (desert) through which it would be
difficult for the enemy to advance.

We continued in the dire