The darker the future may seem, the greater shall be my redemption.”
As each day drew to a close I was dreading what should happen on the next.
One day one of my friends came to tell me that the commandant wanted to have my daughter and myself out of the place, but that he could not find any pretext for sending us away. I used sometimes to go to my farm to see how things were getting on there, but so many “khakis” were about that I never knew how to come away quickly enough.
The village had been occupied for about two months when one day I saw to my dismay that the enemy were burning things wholesale. That same evening they withdrew from the village.
A few days after they had left, our people came back with big commandoes.
A week after the “khakis” had gone out of Lichtenburg General De la Rey came back to the village, but after spending only a day or two with us, he started again for the Rustenburg district.
Then General Douglas returned and occupied the village once more. He came to our farm and took away all our sheep. When the English had got all our cattle, they went off, and we could again breathe freely.
I went to the place where the cattle used to be kept, and there I found the shepherd waiting for me.[3] He had been able to recover one or two hundred of our sheep, so that I and my children still had something left to us to live upon.
[3] The shepherds are generally Kaffirs who live on the place. The following statement shows strikingly in its simplicity how their own Kaffirs remained attached to the Boers in spite of all the so-called “barbarous treatment.”
Shortly afterwards General De la Rey returned to Lichtenburg.