In the south and west were settling down, and for the time
it looked as if a large district was finally pacified. The mild
taxation was cheerfully paid, schools were reopened, and a peace
party made itself apparent, with Fraser and Piet de Wet, the
brother of Christian, among its strongest advocates.
Apart from the operations of De Wet there appeared to be no large
force in the field in the Orange River Colony, but early in October
of 1900 a small but very mobile and efficient Boer force skirted
the eastern outposts of the British, struck the southern line of
communications, and then came up the western flank, attacking,
where an attack was possible, each of the isolated and weakly
garrisoned townlets to which it came, and recruiting its strength
from a district which had been hardly touched by the ravages of
war, and which by its prosperity alone might have proved the
amenity of British military rule. This force seems to have skirted
Wepener without attacking a place of such evil omen to their cause.
Their subsequent movements are readily traced by a sequence of
military events.
On October 1st Rouxville was threatened. On the 9th an outpost of
the Cheshire Militia was taken and the railway cut for a few hours
in the neighbourhood of Bethulie.
