nged a magnificent series
of entrenchments in the Biggarsberg mountains which made an advance of the
enemy practically impossible. Foreign military experts pronounced the
defence impregnable and expressed the greatest astonishment when they
learned that Meyer formulated the plans of the entrenchments without ever
having read a book on the subject or without having had the benefit of any
instruction. The entrenchments began at a point a few miles east of the
British outposts and continued for miles and miles north-east and
north-west to the very apex of the Biggarsberg. Spruits and rivers were
connected by means of trenches so that a large Boer force could travel
many miles without being observed by the enemy, and the series of
entrenchments was fashioned in such a manner that the Boers could retreat
to the highest point of the mountains and remain meanwhile in perfect
concealment. Near the top of the mountain long schanzes or walls were
built to offer a place of security for the burghers, while on the top were
miles of walls to attract and to inveigle the enemy to approach the lower
wall more closely. The plan was magnificent, but the British forces evaded
the Biggarsberg in their advance movements, and the entrenchments were
never bathed in human blood.

[Illustration: COMMANDANT-GENERAL CHRISTIAN H. DE WET]

When the Boers in the Free State were unable to stem the advance of the
British, General Meyer was compelled to retreat northward to ensure his
own safety, but he did it so slowly and systematically that he lost only a
few men and was able, now and then, to make bold dashes at the enemy's
flying columns with remarkable success. The retreat northward through the
Transvaal was fraught with many harassments, but General Meyer joined
forces with General Botha east of Pretoria and thereafter the teacher and
pupil again fought hand in hand in a common cause.

The Free State was not as prolific of generals as the Transvaal, but in
Christian De Wet she had one of the ablest as well as one of the most
fearless leaders in the Republican ranks. Before he was enlisted to fight
for his country De Wet was a farmer, who had a penchant for dealing in
potatoes, and his only military training was secured when he was one of
the sixty Boer volunteers who ascended the slopes of Majuba Hill in
1881. There was nothing of the military in his appearance; in fact,
Christian De Wet, Commandant-General of the Orange Free State in 1900, was