The Wagons Were
Destroyed, But The Boers Were Driven Off By The Arrival Of Crabbe's
Column, Followed By Those Of Capper And Lund.
The total losses of
the British in these two actions amounted to twenty-three killed
and sixty-five wounded.
The re-establishment of settled law and order was becoming more
marked every week in those south-western districts, which had long
been most disturbed. Colonel Crewe in this region, and Colonel
Lukin upon the other side of the line, acting entirely with
Colonial troops, were pushing back the rebels, and holding, by a
well-devised system of district defence, all that they had gained.
By the end of February there were none of the enemy south of the
Beaufort West and Clanwilliam line. These results were not obtained
without much hard marching and a little hard fighting. Small
columns under Crabbe, Capper, Wyndham, Nickall, and Lund, were
continually on the move, with little to show for it save an
ever-widening area of settled country in their rear. In a skirmish
on February 20th Judge Hugo, a well-known Boer leader, was killed,
and Vanheerden, a notorious rebel, was captured. At the end of this
month Fouche's tranquil occupation of the north-east was at last
disturbed, and he was driven out of it into the midlands, where he
took refuge with the remains of his commando in the Camdeboo
Mountains. Malan's men had already sought shelter in the same
natural fortress. Malan was wounded and taken in a skirmish near
Somerset East a few days before the general Boer surrender. Fouche
gave himself up at Cradock on June 2nd.
The last incident of this scattered, scrambling, unsatisfactory
campaign in the Cape peninsula was the raid made by Smuts, the
Transvaal leader, into the Port Nolloth district of Namaqualand,
best known for its copper mines. A small railroad has been
constructed from the coast at this point, the terminus being the
township of Ookiep. The length of the line is about seventy miles.
It is difficult to imagine what the Boers expected to gain in this
remote corner of the seat of war, unless they had conceived the
idea that they might actually obtain possession of Port Nolloth
itself, and so restore the communications with their sympathisers
and allies. At the end of March the Boer horsemen appeared suddenly
out of the desert, drove in the British outposts, and summoned
Ookiep to surrender. Colonel Shelton, who commanded the small
garrison, sent an uncompromising reply, but he was unable to
protect the railway in his rear, which was wrecked, together with
some of the blockhouses which had been erected to guard it. The
loyal population of the surrounding country had flocked into
Ookiep, and the Commandant found himself burdened with the care of
six thousand people. The enemy had succeeded in taking the small
post of Springbok, and Concordia, the mining centre, was
surrendered into their hands without resistance, giving them
welcome supplies of arms, ammunition, and dynamite.
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