Met death as should an Englishman
Upon Majuba’s Height.
Whether foolishly or not cannot be discussed here, the British Government instructed Sir Evelyn Wood to come to terms at all costs, and the truce that resulted gave the Transvaal into Boer hands, with Mr. Kruger as President. We see now how unwise it was to permit this disgrace and humiliation to the British arms and the British name. Long years of quarrelling between the Boer colonists and those who acknowledged the sovereignty of England, were to make South Africa a place of miserable dissension. The easy success over a few hundred trapped British soldiers was magnified, in the eyes of the more ignorant Boers, into a victory over the whole English race, and until the Great War of 1899-1902 no occasion was ever let slip on which the name of ‘Majuba’ could be recalled and emphasised.
CHAPTER XXI
WITH THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE AT TEL-EL-KEBIR
(1882)
Where ha’e ye been a’ the day,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
Saw ye him that’s far away,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
On his head a bonnet blue,