red he will have to
undergo heavy punishment. Unmounted men cannot fight in the Cape
Colony. You can operate only with mounted commandos, and as we have no
horses we cannot accept a tenth of those who are willing to join us.
On account of this deficiency of horses, we cannot expect a general
rising. Another great difficulty is the absence of grass. The veld
over the entire Cape Colony is overgrown with bushes (scrub). There is
no grass as in the Republics. Where you have no forage, therefore, the
horses cannot exist. Where I have been latterly there is wheat, and I
fed my horses on that, but now the wheat is becoming scarce, and there
is no prospect of obtaining any more on account of the proclamations
of the British, which prohibit all sowing. We have, indeed, issued a
counter proclamation, but that has not helped. The question of horses
and forage is thus a great stumbling-block for our cause in the Cape.
In my opinion, the small commandos in the Cape Colony have done their
best. Three British camps were lately taken by them.

The question now arose whether commandos from the Republics could
proceed to the Cape Colony, and whether there was an opening for them
there.--Yes, there was an opening, but the difficulty was how to get
there. More of our commandos from the Republics would be able to exist
in the Cape Colony if food became too scarce here, but the great
trouble was how to get there. The British have now about 50,000
English and Dutch Africanders under arms.--These conditions have led
me to the conclusion that there will be no general rising in the Cape
Colony, and that the continuance of the war will depend more on the
Republics than upon the Cape Colony."

The meeting was then adjourned till the evening.

On re-assembling, the first speaker was Commandant P. L. Uys
(district Pretoria), who said that in his commando there were only 153
mounted men; the other 128 burghers were unmounted. There were still
about 2,000 head of cattle, and grain enough to last them for a month.
All the Kaffirs in his district were hostile, with the exception of
the captain Matello. In the portion of Middelburg under him there were
26 mounted men and 38 burghers on foot.

Commandant H. S. Grobler (Bethal) stated that during all the summer he
had had no rest. He still had a commando of 150 men, but no food, and
he could trek nowhere, because his horses were too poor. Only recently
he had to break through a cordon (kraal), and man