Commandant-General Botha now made his report.

In the districts of Vrijheid and Utrecht, he stated, the store of maize
was so small that it could not last for more than a short time; but
there was still a great number of slaughter-cattle. In the districts of
Wakkerstroom there was hardly sufficient grain for one month's
consumption. Two other districts had still a large enough number of
slaughter-cattle--enough, in fact, to last for two or three months. In
Ermelo, to the west and north-west of the blockhouses, and in Bethal,
Standerton, and Middelburg, there was grain for one month. But the
Heidelberg and Pretoria commandos had now, for the first time, no corn
remaining for food. In the neighbourhood of Boksburg the only grain left
was the old maize of the previous year, whilst there were no cattle at
all in the district. When he had visited Boksburg he had found that the
commandos had had no meat for three days. In the country between
Vereeniging and Ermelo there were only thirty-six goats, and no cattle
whatsoever. In the Wakkerstroom district, however, there were still a
few slaughter-cattle. The horses were everywhere worn out and exhausted.
They had been so constantly kept on the move, owing to the enemy's
increasing attacks, they could now only cover the shortest distances.

The Kaffir question was becoming from day to day more serious. At
Vrijheid, for instance, there was a Kaffir commando which had already
made several attacks upon the burghers. This attitude of the Kaffir
population was producing a very dispiriting effect upon the burghers.

The women were in a most pitiable state, now that the lines of
blockhouses had been extended in all directions over the country.
Sometimes the commandos had to break through the lines and leave the
women behind alone; and when the burghers later on returned they would
perhaps find that the women had been driven from their houses, and, in
some instances, treated with atrocious cruelty.

Referring to the numbers in the field, he said that there were, in the
whole of the Transvaal, ten thousand eight hundred and sixteen men, and
that three thousand two hundred and ninety-six of them had no horses.
The enemy during the summer had taken many of the burghers prisoner; and
since June, 1901, the commandos had diminished to the extent of six
thousand and eighty-four men. The burghers thus lost to them had either
been killed, or taken prisoner, or had surrendered their arms.

T