Before we had had time to get the captured Yeo-
manry through into the Transvaal, Sir Redvers Buller
had forced his way over the Natal frontier, crossing
the Drakensberg between Botha's Pass and Laing's
Nek. This event, which happened on June the 17th,
caused yet another panic among our commandos.

"We are now," they said, "surrounded on all sides.
Resistance and escape are equally impossible for us."

Never during the whole course of the war were
President Steyn and I so full of care and anxiety as
at this time. With Buller across our frontier, and the
enemy within the walls of Johannesburg and Pretoria,
it was as much as we could do to continue the contest
at all. However brave and determined many of our
burghers and officers might be, and, in fact, were, our
numerical weakness was a fact that was not to be
got over, and might prove an insuperable obstacle to
our success. Moreover, the same thing was now go-
ing on in the Transvaal after the capture of Pretoria,
as we had witnessed in the Free State after the fall of
Bloemfontein--nearly all the burghers were leaving
their commandos and going back to their farms.
Plenty of officers, but no troops! This was the pass
to which we were come.

It was only the remembrance of how the tide had
turned in the Free State that gave us the strength to
hold out any longer.

President Steyn and I sent telegram after telegram
to the Government and to the chief officers, encour-
aging them to stand fast. Meanwhile the two Gen-
erals, De la Rey and Louis Botha, were giving us all
a splendid example of fortitude. Gazing into the
future unmoved, and facing it as it were with clenched
teeth, they prosecuted the war with invincible deter-
mination.

* * * * *

That the reader may the better appreciate the actual
condition of our affairs at this time, I think it well
to make a short statement as to the various districts

-93-