Narrower and narrower did the circle become, hemming us in more closely at every moment. The result was that they "bagged" an enormous number of men and cattle, without a solitary burgher (or, for the matter of that, a solitary ox) having been captured by means of their famous blockhouse system.
The English have been constantly boasting in the newspapers about the advantages of their blockhouses, but they have never been able to give an instance of a capture effected by them. On the contrary, when during the last stages of the war it happened, as it often did, that they drove some of our men against one or other of the great blockhouse lines which then intersected the country, and it became necessary for us to fight our way through, we generally succeeded in doing so. And that, with fewer casualties than when, as in the instance I have just given, they concentrated their forces, and formed a circle around us.
The English then were busy when I returned from the south in building a blockhouse line from Heilbron to Frankfort. They accomplished this speedily, and then proceeded to the construction of other similar lines, not being contented until they had "pegged out" the country as follows:—
On the Natal frontier there was a line from Vrede to Bothaspas, continued westward by a series of forts to Harrismith, whence the line went on, still westward, to Bethlehem, and thence down to the Basutoland border at Fouriesburg.
Kroonstad was made, so to speak, the "axle," whence a series of "spokes" proceeded; one to the north-east, to Vrede; a second to the north-west, through Driekopjes Diamond Mine, to Winkledrift, and thence down the Rhenoster River to its confluence with the Vaal; a third, to the south-east, to Lindley; and a fourth, to the south-west, along the railway line, to the frontier of Cape Colony.
In the western districts there was a line along the left bank of the Valsch River to the point where it joins the Vaal, and another (also terminating at the Vaal River) starting from Zand River railway bridge, and running parallel to the Zand River. There was also a line from Boshof, across the Cape Colony frontier, to Kimberley.
Last, but not least, came the "White Elephant" with which the reader is already acquainted—the line from Bloemfontein to Ladybrand, through Thaba'Nchu.
All these lines were in the Free State. I make no mention here of the thousands of miles of similar blockhouse lines, which made a sort of spider's web of the South African Republic.
The blockhouses themselves were sometimes round, sometimes angular, erections. The roofs were always of iron. The walls were pierced with loop-holes four feet from the ground, and from four to six feet from one another. Sometimes stone was used in the construction of these walls, at other times iron. In the latter case the wall is double, the space of from six to nine inches between the inner and the outer wall being filled with earth.
These buildings stood at a distance of from a hundred to a thousand paces from one another; everything depended upon the lie of the ground, and the means at the enemy's disposal; a greater distance than a thousand paces was exceptional. They were always so placed that each of them could be seen by its neighbours on both sides, the line which they followed being a zigzag.