Chapter 5 - Page 2

the
finest natural warriors upon earth, marksmen, hunters, accustomed to
hard fare and a harder couch. They were rough in their ways and
speech, but, in spite of many calumnies and some few unpleasant
truths, they might compare with most disciplined armies in their
humanity and their desire to observe the usages of war.

A few words here as to the man who led this singular host. Piet
Joubert was a Cape Colonist by birth -- a fellow countryman, like
Kruger himself, of those whom the narrow laws of his new country
persisted in regarding as outside the pale. He came from that French
Huguenot blood which has strengthened and refined every race which it
has touched, and from it he derived a chivalry and generosity which
made him respected and liked even by his opponents. In many native
broils and in the British campaign of 1881 he had shown himself a
capable leader. His record in standing out for the independence of
the Transvaal was a very consistent one, for he had not accepted
office under the British, as Kruger had done, but had remained always
an irreconcilable. Tall and burly, with hard grey eyes and a grim
mouth half hidden by his bushy beard, he was a fine type of the men
whom he led. He was now in his sixty-fifth year, and the fire of his
youth had, as some of the burghers urged, died down within him; but he
was experienced, crafty, and warwise, never dashing and never
brilliant, but slow, steady, solid, and inexorable.

Besides this northern army there were two other bodies of burghers
converging upon Natal. One, consisting of the commandoes from Utrecht
and the Swaziland districts, had gathered at Vryheid on the flank of
the British position at Dundee. The other, much larger, not less
probably than six or seven thousand men, were the contingent from the
Free State and a Transvaal corps, together with Schiel's Germans, who
were making their way through the various passes, the Tintwa Pass, and
Van Reenen's Pass, which lead through the grim range of the
Drakensberg and open out upon the more fertile plains of Western
Natal. The total force may have been something between twenty and
thirty thousand men. By all accounts they were of an astonishingly
high heart, convinced that a path of easy victory lay before them, and
that nothing could bar their way to the sea. If the British
commanders underrated their opponents, there is ample evidence that
the mistake was reciprocal.

A few words now as to the disposition of the British forces,
concerning which it must be borne in mind that Sir George White,
though in actual command, had only been a few days in the country
before war was declared, so that the arrangements fell to General Penn
Symons, aided or hampered by the advice of the local