May It Wave There So Long As It Covers Just Laws,
Honest Officials, And Clean-Handed Administrators - So Long And No
Longer!
And now the last stage of the great journey had been reached.
Two
days were spent at Johannesburg while supplies were brought up, and
then a move was made upon Pretoria thirty miles to the north. Here
was the Boer capital, the seat of government, the home of Kruger,
the centre of all that was anti-British, crouching amid its hills,
with costly forts guarding every face of it. Surely at last the
place had been found where that great battle should be fought which
should decide for all time whether it was with the Briton or with
the Dutchman that the future of South Africa lay.
On the last day of May two hundred Lancers under the command of
Major Hunter Weston, with Charles of the Sappers and Burnham the
scout, a man who has played the part of a hero throughout the
campaign, struck off from the main army and endeavoured to descend
upon the Pretoria to Delagoa railway line with the intention of
blowing up a bridge and cutting the Boer line of retreat. It was a
most dashing attempt; but the small party had the misfortune to
come into contact with a strong Boer commando, who headed them off.
After a skirmish they were compelled to make their way back with a
loss of five killed and fourteen wounded.
The cavalry under French had waited for the issue of this
enterprise at a point nine miles north of Johannesburg.
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