Their Action Did Not Affect The Course Of The War, But They
Clung Like Bulldogs To A Most Difficult Task, And Eventually, When
Strengthened By The Relieving Column, Made Their Way To Mafeking.
The force was originally raised for the purpose of defending
Rhodesia, and it consisted of fine material pioneers, farmers, and
miners from the great new land which had been added through the
energy of Mr. Rhodes to the British Empire.
Many of the men were
veterans of the native wars, and all were imbued with a hardy and
adventurous spirit. On the other hand, the men of the northern and
western Transvaal, whom they were called upon to face the burghers
of Watersberg and Zoutpansberg, were tough frontiersmen living in a
land where a dinner was shot, not bought. Shaggy, hairy,
half-savage men, handling a rifle as a mediaeval Englishman handled
a bow, and skilled in every wile of veld craft, they were as
formidable opponents as the world could show.
On the war breaking out the first thought of the leaders in
Rhodesia was to save as much of the line which was their connection
through Mafeking with the south as was possible. For this purpose
an armoured train was despatched only three days after the
expiration of the ultimatum to the point four hundred miles south
of Bulawayo, where the frontiers of the Transvaal and of
Bechuanaland join. Colonel Holdsworth commanded the small British
force. The Boers, a thousand or so in number, had descended upon
the railway, and an action followed in which the train appears to
have had better luck than has usually attended these ill-fated
contrivances.
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