lf, but we succeeded,
notwithstanding their fierce onslaught, in turning them back each
time. All we could do, however, was to hold our own till dark. Then
orders were given to "inspan" all our carts and other conveyances as
the commandos would all have to retire.

I do not know the extent of the British losses in that engagement. My
friend Conan Doyle wisely says nothing about them, but we knew they
had suffered very severely indeed. Our losses were not heavy; but we
had to regret the death of brave Field-Cornet Roelf Jansen and some
other plucky burghers. Dr. Doyle, referring to the engagement, says:

"'The two days' prolonged struggle (Diamond Hill) showed that there
was still plenty of fight in the burghers. Lord Roberts had not routed
them," etc.

Thus ended the battle of Donkerhoek, and next day our commandos were
falling back to the north.

CHAPTER XVII.

I BECOME A GENERAL.

In our retreat northwards the English did not pursue us. They
contented themselves by fortifying the position we had evacuated
between Donkerhoek and Wonderboompoort. Meantime our commandos
proceeded along the Delagoa Bay Railway until we reached Balmoral
Station, while other little divisions of ours were at Rhenosterkop,
north of Bronkhorst Spruit.

I may state that this general retreat knocked the spirit out of some
of our weaker brethren. Hundreds of Boers rode into Pretoria with the
white flag suspended from their Mauser barrels. In Pretoria there were
many prominent burghers who had readily accepted the new conditions,
and these were employed by the British to induce other Boers within
reach, by manner of all sorts of specious promises, to lay down their
arms. Many more western district Boers quietly returned to their
homes. Luckily, the Boer loves his Mauser too well to part with it,
except on compulsion, and although the majority of these western Boers
handed in their weapons, some retained them.

They retained their weapons by burying them, pacifying the confiding
British officer in charge of the district by handing in rusty and
obsolete Martini-Henris or a venerable blunderbuss which nobody had
used since ancestral Boer shot lions with it in the mediaeval days of
the first great trek. The buried Mausers came in very useful
afterwards.

About this time General Buller entered the Republic from the Natal
side, and marched with his force through the southern districts of
Wakkerstroom, Standerton, and Ermelo. Hundred