MONUMENT
ERECTED BY THE BOERS TO THEIR COMRADES (TWO) FALLEN AT MAJUBA, MICHAELSON’S, LAING’S
NEK, TRANSVAAL.
This village, with 300 regulars and 70 civilians, was invested by 700 Boers on December 24th, 1880, and for two months and a half, until the armistice was proclaimed, it was able to act on the defensive only.
Crossing the river, in a few hours we came to the residence and store of Mr. Michaelson, where we stopped the night. These had been used as hospitals by the Boers, from January 28th, 1880, to the close of the war. Here the road divides, one branch leading to Wakkerstroom, the other to Coldstream, and over Laing’s Nek into Natal.
Within forty yards of Mr. Michaelson’s house the Boers have erected a monument to their dead who fell at Majuba; on this every death which occurred on that day, so fatal to our arms and prestige in South Africa, is distinctly recorded.
The accompanying picture is from a sketch which I made on passing. When looking at this reminder of scenes gone by, I could not help thinking over our own dead, sleeping peacefully in the graveyard at Mount Prospect, just across the border, a few short miles away.
Mrs. Michaelson and her husband were very kind, invited me into their private house, gave me a good dinner and bed; but I had not long to rest, as Mr. Michaelson awoke me before daylight in the morning, the mail cart starting very early. Passing Coldstream, the sun was just rising as we came near on our left hand to the site of the Boer camp during the late war; and now, more vividly than on my former visit, seeing both sides of the situation, could I realize the fact that if the late Sir G. Pomeroy Colley had taken any rocket apparatus, or Gatling gun, with him on his ascent of Majuba, or even ordered a diversion to be made at Laing’s Nek, the Boer camp must have lain entirely at his mercy. The day would have been his own, Gladstone’s fit of repentance unnecessary, and the English flag would yet be flying over the Transvaal.
The morning, beautiful and clear after the night’s rain, enabled me, as the post-cart passed along the road winding at its base, distinctly to see every outline of Majuba once more, towering 3,000 feet above. It is one of the finest scenes in South Africa, and will well repay a visit, the more so as within a radius of ten miles the student can read three lessons in the history of his own time.
Away on our left we drove past the battlefield of Laing’s Nek, bid farewell to the resting-place of poor Colley at Mount Prospect, took a last look at the roadside inn, now alas! in ruins, where two and a half years before I had passed such pleasant hours, until arriving at the Ingogo drift, Vormstone gave me a splendid breakfast. An hour’s rest, off we went again, crossed the Ingogo and made the gradual ascent, which I have described before in another chapter, to the battlefield of Schuin’s Hooghte.
Here I got the post-cart driver to stay for a quarter of an hour, while I paid a second visit to the graveyard close to the road. I found everything just the same as when I was last there immediately after the war, except that close alongside a neat little monument had been erected in commemoration of those who fell on the field, and those who died, ignominiously deserted three short years before.
