[[188]] Called in Sir Harry Smith’s dispatch “Kroom Alem Boh,” by Theal “Kromme-Elleboog.”
[[189]] “Up to this moment he was confident that no European in South Africa would point a weapon against his person. In this confidence he had dressed himself that morning in blue jacket, white cord trousers, and drab felt hat, the same clothing which he had worn when he met Mr. Pretorius in the emigrant camp on the Tugela seven months before. He was exceedingly anxious to avoid a collision.”—Theal, iv. p. 437.
[[190]] A picture of the sharp skirmish of Boomplaats (from a drawing by the late Lieut.-Col. Evelyn) appeared in the Graphic, 17th Feb., 1900, with some comments by Major-General C. E. Webber.
[[191]] “It was remarkable how his Excellency came out unhurt, for from the beginning to the end he was in the thickest of the fire.”—Noble, p. 135.
[[192]] It appeared afterwards that only nine Boers were killed.
[[193]] In connexion with this, I may quote a story told to my sister, Miss Moore Smith of Durban, by the late Sir Theophilus Shepstone. “Sir Harry always read part of the service on Sunday morning at Grahamstown [? in 1835], and was so particular that all should come that he imposed a fine of half a crown on every absentee. He read extremely well, and was very proud of it. One Sunday a dog came into the room when service was going on, and began to create a disturbance. Sir Harry stood it for a little time, then in the middle of a prayer said suddenly, ‘Take that d——d dog away,’ after which he continued his prayer in the same tone as before.”
[[194]] The execution of Dreyer as a rebel was long bitterly resented by the Boers.
[[195]] Here, or near here, on 12th May, 1849, the town of Aliwal North was founded by Mr. Chase, the Civil Commissioner.—Wilmot and Chase, p. 417.
[[196]] Under Sir Henry Pottinger’s rule the Eastern Province had had an able Lieutenant-Governor in Sir Henry Young, and there was a strong feeling during Sir Harry’s governorship that the interests of the Eastern Province could not be ensured by a government at Cape Town. Sir Harry himself finally gave in to this view, and on 14th June, 1851, recommended “a separate and distinct government for the Eastern Province.”
[[197]] In May and June, 1849, Sir Harry was seriously ill from a carbuncle on his neck. On 20th June he gave a ball at Government House, which many refused to attend owing to the agitation against the Government. Sir Harry, with soldierly punctiliousness, appeared among his guests for half an hour, but his appearance was so ghastly, and made the more so by his dark green Rifle uniform, that it was said “one might have imagined that he had just stepped out of his coffin.”