French, Moving On A More Northerly Route,
Entered Watervalonder With His Cavalry Upon The Same Date, Driving
A Small Boer Force Before Him.
Amid rain and mist the British
columns were pushing rapidly forwards, but still the burghers held
together, and still their artillery was uncaptured.
The retirement
was swift, but it was not yet a rout.
On the 30th the British cavalry were within touch of Nooitgedacht,
and saw a glad sight in a long trail of ragged men who were
hurrying in their direction along the railway line. They were the
British prisoners, eighteen hundred in number, half of whom had
been brought from Waterval when Pretoria was captured, while the
other half represented the men who had been sent from the south by
De Wet, or from the west by De la Rey. Much allowance must be made
for the treatment of prisoners by a belligerent who is himself
short of food, but nothing can excuse the harshness which the Boers
showed to the Colonials who fell into their power, or the callous
neglect of the sick prisoners at Waterval. It is a humiliating but
an interesting fact that from first to last no fewer than seven
thousand of our men passed into their power, all of whom were now
recovered save some sixty officers, who had been carried off by
them in their flight.
On September 1st Lord Roberts showed his sense of the decisive
nature of these recent operations by publishing the proclamation
which had been issued as early as July 4th, by which the Transvaal
became a portion of the British Empire.
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