These Results Were Not Obtained
Without Much Hard Marching And A Little Hard Fighting.
Small
columns under Crabbe, Capper, Wyndham, Nickall, and Lund, were
continually on the move, with little to show for it save an
ever-widening area of settled country in their rear.
In a skirmish
on February 20th Judge Hugo, a well-known Boer leader, was killed,
and Vanheerden, a notorious rebel, was captured. At the end of this
month Fouche's tranquil occupation of the north-east was at last
disturbed, and he was driven out of it into the midlands, where he
took refuge with the remains of his commando in the Camdeboo
Mountains. Malan's men had already sought shelter in the same
natural fortress. Malan was wounded and taken in a skirmish near
Somerset East a few days before the general Boer surrender. Fouche
gave himself up at Cradock on June 2nd.
The last incident of this scattered, scrambling, unsatisfactory
campaign in the Cape peninsula was the raid made by Smuts, the
Transvaal leader, into the Port Nolloth district of Namaqualand,
best known for its copper mines. A small railroad has been
constructed from the coast at this point, the terminus being the
township of Ookiep. The length of the line is about seventy miles.
It is difficult to imagine what the Boers expected to gain in this
remote corner of the seat of war, unless they had conceived the
idea that they might actually obtain possession of Port Nolloth
itself, and so restore the communications with their sympathisers
and allies.
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