not a whit unlike Christian De Wet, butcher of Barberton of 1879, and men
who knew him in the gold-rush days of that mining town declared that he
was more martial in appearance then as a licensed slayer of oxen than
later as a licensed slayer of men. He himself prided himself on his
unmilitary exterior, and it was not a little source of satisfaction to him
to say that his fighting regalia was the same suit of clothing which he
wore on his farm on the day that he left it to fight as a soldier in his
country's army.

Before the war, De Wet's chief claim to notoriety lay in the fact that he
attempted to purchase the entire supply of potatoes in South Africa for
the purpose of effecting a "corner" of that product on the Johannesburg
market. Unfortunately for himself, he held his potatoes until the new crop
was harvested, and he became a bankrupt in consequence. Later he appeared
as a potato farmer near Kroonstad, and still later, at Nicholson's Nek in
Natal, he captured twelve hundred British prisoners and, incidentally, a
large stock of British potatoes, which seemed to please him almost as
greatly as the human captives. Although the vegetable strain was
frequently predominant in De Wet's constitution, he was not over-zealous
to return to his former pastoral pursuits, and continued to lead his
commandos over the hills of the eastern Free State long after that
territory was christened the Orange River Colony.

[Illustration: GENERAL PETER DE WET]

General De Wet was at the head of a number of the Free State commandos
which crossed into Natal at the outbreak of the war, and he took part in
several of the battles around Ladysmith; but his services were soon
required in the vicinity of Kimberley, and there he made an heroic effort
to effect a junction with the besieged Cronje. It was not until after the
British occupation of Bloemfontein that De Wet really began his brilliant
career as a daring commander, but thereafter he was continually harassing
the enemy. He led with three big battles in one week, with a total result
of a thousand prisoners of war, seven cannon, and almost half a million
pounds' worth of supplies. At Sannaspost, on March 31st, he swept down
upon Colonel Broadwood's column and captured one-fourth of the men and all
their vast supplies almost before the British officer was aware of the
presence of the enemy. The echoes of that battle had hardly subsided when
he fell upon another British column at Moester's