ny, one of the
oldest estates in the capital.

This historical place consisted of a simple, comfortable farm-house,
with a rambling garden--a romantic spot, and an ideal setting for the
adventures and enterprises here recorded.

At the time our story opens, the owner, Mrs. van Warmelo, was living
alone on it with her daughter, Hansie, a girl of twenty-two, the
diarist referred to in the Introduction.

The other members of the family, though they took no part in those
events of the war which took place within the capital, were so closely
connected with the principal figures in this book that their
introduction will be necessary here.

The family consisted of five, two daughters and three sons. The elder
daughter was married and was living at Wynberg near Cape Town, the
younger, as we have seen, was with her mother in Pretoria during the
war, while of the sons, two, the eldest and the youngest, Dietlof and
Fritz, were on commando, having left the capital with the first
contingent of volunteers on September 28th.

The third brother, Willem, who had been studying in Holland when the
war broke out, had, with his mother's knowledge and permission, given
up his nearly completed studies and had come to South Africa, to take
part in the deadly struggle in which his fellow-countrymen were
engaged.

In order to achieve his purpose, he had taken the only route open to
him, the eastern route through Delagoa Bay, and had joined his
brothers in the field, after a brief sojourn with his mother and
sister at Harmony.

Considering the circumstances under which he had joined the Boer
forces and the sacrifice he had made for love of fatherland, it was
particularly sad that he should have been made a prisoner at the last
great fight at the Tugela, the battle of Pieter's Height in Natal, on
February 27th, after a very short experience of commando life.

He was lodged in the Maritzburg jail at this time, where things would
have gone hard with him, but for the loving-kindness of his cousin,
Miss Berning, now Lady Bale, who frequently visited him with her
sister, and provided him with baskets of fruit and other delicacies,
which helped greatly to brighten the long months of his imprisonment.

Later on, through the influence of his brother-in-law, Mr. Henry
Cloete, of "Alphen," Wynberg, he was released on parole, and allowed
to return to Holland to complete his studies. His name therefore will
no more appear in these pages.

He was