CAPE COLONY
In the Cape Colony Major-General Sir H. H. Settle assumed command in succession to Major-General Wynne, who returned to England. Affairs otherwise remained as before, though the bands of Fouché and Myburg were disorganised and broken up by the excellent and continuous work of Colonel Munro and Scobell, and Lovat’s invaluable Scouts. The guerillas were now fewer and farther between, spending their time lurking in the hills around Dordrecht, Jamestown, and Ladygrey, and indulging in acts of brigandage according to the state of their appetites. The great incident of the month was the capture of Kruitzinger. This was effected on the 16th of December. The raider, returning to the Cape Colony with an escort of one hundred men, came into contact near Hanover with the blockhouses held by the Grenadier Guards on the Naauwpoort-De Aar line of railway. The collision was sharp and short, and the commander and twelve of his men were wounded and finally captured. The rest of the escort escaped to the south, and were pursued into the Aberdeen district by troops under Colonel B. Doran and Major Lord W. Cavendish Bentinck.
A gradually widening line of blockhouses running 200 miles (from Lambert’s Bay to Calvinia and Victoria West) threatened shortly to limit the raiders’ sphere of operation, but till this was complete the chases continued. Colonel Doran, on the 9th, surprised and buffeted Nesser’s rebels near Brandwagt, thirty miles east-north-east of Calvinia. One Boer was killed and eight were captured. The rest scuttled in small parties to the Clanwilliam district, in hope to reassemble and pounce on the next convoy coming their way. This much-desired prize at last appeared, and was attacked with intense energy at dawn on the 22nd. It was escorted by columns under Colonels Crabbe and Wyndham, who, despite the strength and desperate determination of the foe, managed to repulse them. But the next day the enemy, hungering after the tantalising supplies, betook themselves to a high ridge commanding the line of advance and there lay ensconced awaiting the precious convoy. But after all they went empty away, for the 16th Lancers, with tremendous dash, rushed the entrenchments and drove them at full gallop into space.