"We shall continue the war to the bloody end. You will assist us. Our God, who has so often helped us, will not forsake us."
What effect this may have is yet doubtful, but it is certain that any rising of the Colonial Dutch would send the Colonial British into the field in full strength.
Burghersdorp, through which I passed yesterday, is a village of 2000 inhabitants, and, as I have already put on record, the centre of the most disaffected district in the colony. If there be any Dutch rising in sympathy with the Free State it will begin here.
Later.
And so there's warlike news at last.
A Boer force, reported to be 350 strong, shifted camp to-day to within three miles of the bridge across the Orange river. Well-informed Dutch inhabitants assert that these are to be reinforced, and will march through Aliwal North to-night on their way to attack Stormberg Junction, sixty miles south.
The bridge is defended by two Cape policemen with four others in reserve.
The loyal inhabitants are boiling with indignation, declaring themselves sacrificed, as usual, by the dilatoriness of the Government.
Besides the Boer force near here, there is another, reported to be 450 strong, at Greatheads Drift, forty miles up the river.
The Boers at Bethulie, in the Free State, are believed to be pulling up the railway on their side of the frontier, and to be marching to Norvals Pont, which is the ferry over the Orange river on the way to Colesberg, with the intention of attacking Naauwpoort Junction, on the Capetown-Kimberley line; but as there are no trains now running to Bethulie it is difficult to verify these reports, and, indeed, all reports must be received with caution.