Already Wild
Figures, Stained And Tattered After Nearly A Year Of Warfare, Were
Walking The Streets Of Lourenco Marques, Gazed At With Wonder And
Some Distrust By The Portuguese Inhabitants.
The exiled burghers
moodily pacing the streets saw their exiled President seated in his
corner of the Governor's verandah, the well-known curved pipe still
dangling from his mouth, the Bible by his chair.
Day by day the
number of these refugees increased. On September 17th special
trains were arriving crammed with the homeless burghers, and with
the mercenaries of many nations - French, German, Irish-American,
and Russian - all anxious to make their way home. By the 19th no
fewer than seven hundred had passed over.
At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the
commando of Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was
beaten back by the garrison. While it was going on Paget fell upon
the camp which Erasmus had left behind him, and captured his
stores. From all over the country, from Plumer's Bushmen, from
Barton at Krugersdorp, from the Colonials at Heilbron, from
Clements on the west, came the same reports of dwindling resistance
and of the abandoning of cattle, arms, and ammunition.
On September 24th came the last chapter in this phase of the
campaign in the Eastern Transvaal, when at eight in the morning
Pole-Carew and his Guardsmen occupied Komatipoort. They had made
desperate marches, one of them through thick bush, where they went
for nineteen miles without water, but nothing could shake the
cheery gallantry of the men.
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