The
Country Through Which He Passed Swarmed With Herds And Flocks, But,
With As Scrupulous A Regard For The Rights Of Property As
Wellington Showed In The South Of France, No Hungry Soldier Was
Allowed To Take So Much As A Chicken As He Passed.
The punishment
for looting was prompt and stern.
It is true that farms were burned
occasionally and the stock confiscated, but this was as a
punishment for some particular offence and not part of a system.
The limping Tommy looked askance at the fat geese which covered the
dam by the roadside, but it was as much as his life was worth to
allow his fingers to close round those tempting white necks. On
foul water and bully beef he tramped through a land of plenty.
Lord Roberts's eight days' halt was spent in consolidating the
general military situation. We have already shown how Buller had
crept upwards to the Natal Border. On the west Methuen reached
Hoopstad and Hunter Christiana, settling the country and collecting
arms as they went. Rundle in the south-east took possession of the
rich grain lands, and on May 21st entered Ladybrand. In front of
him lay that difficult hilly country about Senekal, Ficksburg, and
Bethlehem which was to delay him so long. Ian Hamilton was feeling
his way northwards to the right of the railway line, and for the
moment cleared the district between Lindley and Heilbron, passing
through both towns and causing Steyn to again change his capital,
which became Vrede, in the extreme north-east of the State.
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