LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, WAR JOTTINGS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIB,—Though past experience has fully demonstrated the folly of confident prophecy, one cannot help feeling that at the present rate of progress the guerilla war will not last many months more. The signs are everywhere favourable, the daily records of surrenders and captures most cheering. Column commanders have now to account for every Boer captured or surrendering, so that totals cannot be exaggerated. People noting the weekly tale are apt to wonder at the number apparently still in the field, but it must be remembered that by Boer admission their fighting strength was at one time from a hundred and five to a hundred and ten thousand. This allows for much reduction. Observers from Pretoria tell us that the long-absent smile has come to the face of the Commander-in-Chief,—Johannesburg, filling up rapidly, and, guided in the paths of law and order by the blue-frocked policeman of the London type, plus rifle and bandolier, is described as quite " cock-a-whoop." It is only to the un- sophisticated that negotiations or arrangement of terms seem possible. They are out of place with enemies who, sad to relate, are quite oblivious of the force of an oath. They will take an oath—aye, gladly and glibly —any oath you like to formulate, and keep it—just so long as it suits their purpose. They are born hucksters, and an oath is but a counter in the bargaining. Yet a solid folk these burghers, neither the savages which one party imagines, nor the saints which the other party delights to honour, and to be managed by that judicious mixture of the wisdom of the serpent and the gentleness of the dove which is only possible to certain unprejudiced, healthy- minded Englishmen. Piet Joubert goes down country a prisoner, quite contented if only he can be assured that he will find a school at his place of detention. There are friends of his, he says, who went to St. Helena quite ignorant of English and now can write "beautiful letters" in that language. Young Erasmus, released from Greenpoint, ex- presses the conviction that "it would do us all good to be prisoners for a time." He chuckles quietly over the story of Johann Lombart, brought before the commandant for refusing to wash, and sentenced to seven days' cells ; "after which," lie observes, "you couldn't keep him away from the water." They are not by any means so averse to the concentration camps as their sympathisers at home. "There are seven of us in the farms in that valley; the other six will all surrender if you will take in their women and children. They have sent me to say so." "I want to go to Middelburg," says a young guide ; "my wife is ill, and we have just lost our child.. Yes, our people are dying everywhere, it seems."—"Are they in the burgher camp ?"—" No, oh no ; in the house I have lived in for six years; most of the people I know are living comfortably in their houses in the towns. They die there just as much as in the camps." It is round Ermelo that the greatest contribu- tions are now Being made to the weekly "Boer casualty list." General Bruce, Hamilton and Major Wools-Sampson form a combination which is well nigh irresistible. Whatever hour of the day or night information reaches camp, it is acted upon without an instant's delay. It may locate only half-a-dozen in a farm, it may point out the 'eager of fifty or a hundred,— all is fish that comes to the net. The General's main task is to catch Botha; but while always intent on that great objective, he is not possessed with the lofty acorn of side-shows which some of Botha's pursuers have shown. So the list is made up, the twos and threes contributing to the tens, the tens to the hundreds. And often a small capture produces a larger one,—on the " snowball " principle familiar in certain advertisements. You "round up" a farm and catch two Boers,
no great feat that. But the two burghers are no sooner in your, hands than they are anxious for company. "If you will let us, we will show you where to find a lot more." Right 0! and away. Twenty or thirty miles' ride, and you have probably already done more than that distance since camp. The farm is pointed out and quietly surrounded It holds fifty Boers, who are taken sitting without a shot. Your two guides are well satisfied. "These are the people who have kept us frpm our farms and made us fight, and now we are even with them." The virtue of giving away your misguided friends is its own reward. To-day to thee, to-morrow to me ! The blockhouse line from Standerton to Ermelo follows the road, and so convoys can pass to and fro with scanty escort, camping for the night under cover of some "strong post." Thereby supplies and remounts pour into Ermelo in a steady stream, and the handy columns are fed and rehorsed without aid of trains of lumbering ox- waggons. It means great strain of men and horses, and horses are worked till they drop. But the end is justifying. One cavalry regiment returning from an expedition which kept them from camp thirty-six hours shot while returning as many exhausted mounts. Mounted troops and pom-poms will do the work,—the artillery are putting their guns in store, and going out as battery companies of mounted infantry. M. Jean de Bloch thought that cavalry had lost their import- ance. He should have seen the 18th Hussars at work. That gallant regiment—longer at war than any other, and no less gallant because not " crack " (how one comes to loathe that term)—has long since made up for its early misfortunes. And the other day it had the peculiar satisfaction of trapping the very Boer general who entrapped the squadron at Dundee. Progress is the prevailing note everywhere,—side by side with the military operations the civil settlement of the country proceeds apace, and the extension of railways which is now in hand will help almost as much as blockhouse lines to shorten the struggle. These last are refuting the old gibe that we only held the country along the railways. Said a prominent Boer when the cross-country blockhouse chains began to extend :—" You had the railway and we had the country ; that suited us well enough, for we are not fond of the railway; but now you are coming out into the country to stay, that will not suit us !" One great value of the block. house system is its evidence of our permanence here,—it is a sort of guarantee that we cannot change our minds. In con- clusion, if you would understand and realise this campaign, you must read "Words by an Eyewitness," written by "Linesman." It is worth volumes of ordinary war corre- spondent's slobber. " Good ! " said a Staff officer who has been through the whole business, "I can't tell you how good it is!"
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