The Boer pig–sty is a simple one. A round hole in the ground, eight feet across, four feet deep; the pig, once in, can’t get out. A dry ox–hide, laid over one side of the hole, serves as a shelter from sun or rain.
Leaving our waggons (except two with rations, etc.) at Enkeldoorn that evening, we marched a few miles in the direction of Taba Insimba, and bivouacked at nightfall. Taba Insimba (Mountain of Iron) is a long wall–like range, with a slice cut through it at one point, looking much like the canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. In this cutting or pass, or, as the Dutch call it, “poort,” the rebels are said to be living in caves in the cliffs, strongly barricaded with stone walls—about eight hundred of them—very defiant. Soon after our reaching Enkeldoorn they had signalled our arrival with smoke–fires. The place is twenty–five miles from Enkeldoorn, but our horses and mules are not up to dashing to the place, so we have come as light as possible, carrying two days’ rations on our saddles, and leaving the waggons to follow.
Twenty Boers from the Enkeldoorn laager are with us, and also about a hundred friendly natives with Taylor, the N.C.
11th November.—Marched all morning, rested all the day, and marched on again after dark, across the wide, perfectly–open flats, till, by 10 p. m., we were within a mile of the place, and then we off–saddled and bivouacked—no talking nor smoking allowed. At 2.30 we were roused up, and formed into our places for the attack. I like the weird, subdued impatience of all the preliminaries for a night surprise.
Colonel Paget was to take the mounted infantry and small portable Maxim on to the top of one cliff overlooking the gorge, so as to fire into the caves in the opposite cliff; another party were to be below at the foot of the gorge, to attack these caves under cover of the fire from above. I was ordered to go with Carew’s squadron of 7th Hussars, taking our horses (the remainder of the troop were dismounted), over the ridge, and round to the back of the gorge, to cut off the enemy’s line of retreat.
We reached the ridge just when it was getting sufficiently light,—as the Dutchman would say, “to see the horns of an ox,”—clambered up the steep, stony hill through the bush, then down the other side, where there lay before us, in the early light, a panorama of bush and tree–tops.
Our guide was one Bester, a Boer, whose farm was here. At the outbreak of the rebellion his father had been wounded, his mother killed, and he and his brother only escaped after killing a number of the rebels, and being nearly killed themselves. We passed through the ashes of their home on our way. His uncle I remembered well as field cornet on the Transvaal border, in our operations against Dinizulu, in Zululand, in 1888.
The Magneze Poort, in which the rebels were (for we soon knew that they were there, by the barking of dogs, the talking of men, and calling of women, etc.), was a huge cleft, with rocky sides, and a bubbling torrent roaring through. On arriving in rear of the place, we found ourselves in a valley between numerous bush–covered hills. The line of retreat open to the defenders of the stronghold in the gorge was across an open glade of long white grass, along the foot of the steep mountain–side.
It was broad daylight by the time we had got to our position, and we had not long been waiting there before we heard excited shouting from the natives on the top of the opposite cliffs, answered by those in the gorge below; then pop—bom—pop—pop, as the firing began; rifles cracking, and blunderbores roaring back their muffled reply from caves; soon the “isiqwakwa” (Maxim) joined in with its sharp “rat–tat–tat–tat–tat,” from the top of the ridge. Ere long, a party of the enemy were seen hastily making their way across the open grass in front of us; a moment later, and a troop of the hussars had burst from their hidden station in the bush, and were galloping, swords drawn and gleaming, straight for the astonished rebels. But the charge was not to be; the rocky stream, with boggy banks, was the slip that lay between the cup and the lip, and baulked the sabreurs of their wish; but they did not wait to lament. In a trice they were off their horses, carbine in hand, and soon were popping merrily at the foes they could not get at hand–to–hand. While thus engaged, Carew sent round another troop to cut off any rebels who might succeed in running the gauntlet of fire.
Finding themselves stopped, some ran back among the rocks, and contented themselves with wasting ammunition in long shots at us, while others lay among the tall white grass—to wait until the clouds rolled by. But these latter were soon moved by the clouds, in the shape of Lieutenant Holford and a few dismounted men, moving on them through the grass, and thus compelling their retreat at point–blank range, or their surrender. This party counted fifteen dead bodies, and found a few women and children, whom they brought back. Among these were, unfortunately, four wounded—three children and one woman, hit by stray bullets as they were lying hid in the grass.