Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

The establishment indeed made quite a village in itself. A fine block of buildings opposite the distillery contained the offices, store-rooms for material, carpenters’, blacksmiths’ and coopers’ shops, farm laborers’ houses and stables. More than this, the company had large tracts of land under cultivation, with oxen, cows, horses, and mules in numbers, farming being a branch of the business. After looking over the distillery I spent an agreeable half hour tasting the various liquors and liqueurs. These numbered at least forty, and were manufactured from four kinds of grain—mealies, rye, barley, and Kafir corn, and then flavored.

Mr. Stokes, the manager, was exceedingly kind, and invited Mr. Marks and myself to dinner in the evening, when I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with his charming and accomplished wife. I could have fancied myself at the West end of London, in the midst of civilization, not in the centre of the Transvaal. The appointments of the table, the English trained waitresses, and the cooking were perfection. After coffee and a delicious cigar, we retired for the night, but I felt it would take a long time to efface from my mind this unexpected little glimpse of refinement and culture. On my return to Pretoria next day, I asked Mr. Fox, formerly a large Imperial contractor during the Zulu war, who had invited me to dine with him, to advise me where I could get horses and a conveyance to take me as far as the battlefield of Bronkhorst Spruit, when he very kindly offered to drive me there himself if I would start early next day, as that happened to be the only day he could spare from his many business engagements. I jumped at the chance, and, making all arrangements to start in the morning, I went to bed early in order to get a good night’s rest before this little drive of eighty-four miles. Mr. Fox, however, had some difficulty in arranging his horses, and we did not get away until ten o’clock. Driving out of Pretoria we had an extensive view of the lovely town. It was the middle of summer, and the trees and fields looked so pretty and so green, and the rose hedges in full bloom so lovely, I was perfectly enraptured, and fancied myself in old England again. Nothing of particular interest presented itself as we went along. The country for miles undulated in grassy plains, here and there diversified by ranges of hills. We passed the Eerste Fabrieken on our left, Mr. Steuben’s beautiful place “The Willows” on our right, when pushing along the horses, only outspanning for an hour in the veldt about half-way, arrived on the scene, so memorable at least in South African history, at five o’clock in the afternoon. Crossing Bronkhorst Spruit, the ground gradually rises, and on the right-hand side of the road, dotted here and there with mimosa and thorn trees, a very gradual eminence is formed, which was the point of vantage taken by the Boers in intercepting our troops en route from Leydenburg, and about to concentrate in Pretoria.

I had thoroughly posted myself in the occurrences of that eventful day, which I will shortly relate. The 94th Regiment, together with camp followers, numbering 267 souls in all, forming a cavalcade a mile and a quarter in length, was slowly dragging its way to Pretoria, when on approaching Bronkhorst Spruit at about half-past two o’clock in the afternoon of the 20th of December, 1880, certain mounted Dutch scouts were seen galloping along the top of a ridge near by. These men brought a message, requesting Colonel Anstruther, who was in command, not to advance any further pending an answer from Sir Owen Lanyon to an ultimatum which had been sent him. This he refused, when, without further ado, the Boers, about 500 strong, opened at once a murderous fire upon our men, who were totally unprepared for so sudden an attack. Down the bullets rained like hail, and our men, who lay on the ground without a particle of shelter, were picked off with deadly precision, until Col. Anstruther himself, mortally wounded, and most of his officers hors de combat, seeing the day was lost, surrendered to the Boers, after a fight lasting just twenty minutes.

After inspecting the ground and the relative positions the Dutch and English occupied during this short but disastrous fight, we visited the two principal places where our fallen soldiers lie buried. The larger of these we found enclosed by a high stone wall about eighteen yards long by twelve yards broad, and shaded by two beautiful mimosa trees. Here lay the last remains of fifty-eight N. C. officers and men of the 94th Regiment, and one N. C. officer, and one private Army Service Com. killed, as the tombstone erected to their memory states, in action on December 20, 1880. In another and smaller graveyard, some 100 yards nearer Pretoria, the officers who fell are buried. The wall surrounding these graves had just lately been repaired by order of the English government, and, as if purposely planted to keep the sun’s scorching rays from burning up the green grass waving over them, another large wild mimosa tree threw out the protection of its flowering branches.

I have good reason to remember my visit. Wishing to see the graves and read the inscriptions on Col. Anstruther’s tomb and those of the various officers buried alongside him, I clambered to the top of the wall about four feet in height, when in my weak state I reeled over, fell inside, and, fenced in as it were, it was some half hour before my companion, who himself had lost the use of one leg, was able to get me out. Here lie buried together five out of the nine officers who were in charge of the 94th Regiment, which as I said before was proceeding from Lydenburg to Pretoria. I had leisure enough you may imagine to copy their names. Neat little crosses at the head of each grave showed the burial-places of Lieut. Col. P. K. Anstruther, Capt. T. McSweeney, Capt. N. McLeod Nairne, Lieut. H. A. C. Harrison and E. T. Shaen Carter, transport staff. The four officers who escaped with their lives were Capt. Elliott, for whose subsequent and bloody murder in crossing the Vaal River two Boers were tried in Pretoria but acquitted; Lieut. Hume, Dr. Ward, and conductor Egerton, who, it will be remembered, had the good fortune to reach Pretoria in safety, with the regimental colors wrapped round his waist, being allowed by the Boers after the fight to proceed there in order to obtain medical assistance. Surgeon Major Comerford and Dr. Harvey Crow, the latter now in practice in Pretoria, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, went out immediately on Mr. Egerton’s bringing in the disastrous news, and attended to the wounded.

Such was the precision of the Boer fire, as Dr. Crow told me, that the bullet wounds averaged five per man; truly “every bullet” in this case had “its billet.”

The Boers had evidently taken especial care to choose the ground and measure the distance before our wagon-train appeared in sight.

I was told on good authority that many of our soldiers’ rifles were found after the fight actually sighted at 800 yards, whereas 300 would have been nearer the mark, and that this accounted for the few disasters among the Boers, who only acknowledged, at all events, to one man having been killed outright, to one dying of his wounds, and to five who were wounded but recovered.

It was just the same at Majuba, the sighting of the rifles of our men picked up by the enemy being woefully incorrect; it is therefore not difficult to account for the smallness of the Boer losses there also.

Col. Anstruther, who was in command, lingered six days, until death put an end to his sufferings, dying in his tent, as Dr. Crow told me, in presence of Drs. Comerford, Ward, and himself. Even in his official dispatch, written on his deathbed, Col. Anstruther never accused the Boers of having acted unfairly in the fight, although a rumor to that effect was freely circulated.