Native Life in South Africa [122]
it is doubtful if so little ammunition was ever more economically used, and used to greater advantage.
The investment of Mafeking was so effective that only certain Natives could crawl through the Boer lines at night. Throughout the seven months of the siege only one white man managed, under the guidance of two Natives, to pass into the village. All the dispatches which came into and out of Mafeking were carried by Barolong runners. Before the Boers moved their stock into the far interior of the Transvaal, the Barolongs continually went out and raided Boer cattle and brought them into the besieged garrison. Often the raiders had to fight their way back, but sometimes as they returned with the cattle in the night the Dutch sentries preferred to leave them alone. The result was that General Snyman, who commanded the besiegers after General Cronje went south, issued a general order authorizing the shooting dead of "any one coming in or out of Mafeking", armed or unarmed.
At his village called Modimola, ten miles outside the beleaguered garrison, there lived Chief Saane, uncle of the Mafeking chief. Being apparently harmless he was not for some months molested by the Boers. Later, however, they rightly suspected him of supplying the garrison with information. They then took him and his followers to Rietfontein, where they placed him under surveillance, but Chief Saane proved even more useful in captivity than in liberty. He used the seemingly inoffensive young men of Rietfontein, to glean all first-hand information from the Boers, who still had command of the lines of communication. Then he sent the news in verbal messages to his nephew, the paramount chief in the siege, who in turn communicated it to Her Majesty's officers in command. By means of this self-constituted intelligence bureau the garrison learnt of the surrender of Cronje -- a happy consummation of the battle of Paardeberg -- shortly after the good news reached their besiegers; and when official confirmation came from the Cape, more than a week later, Chief Saane's messengers were there again with fresh news of the surrender of Bloemfontein. This news, as might be well supposed, was glad tidings to the besieged people. They were in fact the truths that King Solomon thus sets forth: "As cold water is to the weary soul, so is good news from a far country," for, in those days, before the invention of aeroplanes and Marconigrams, no country in this wide world was further than a besieged garrison.
Among the first civilian bodies raised in Mafeking for purposes of garrison defence was the "Cape Boy Contingent", a company of mixed classes in varying degrees of complexions. Sergt.-Major Taylor, a coloured bricklayer, who led the contingent and directed the crack snipers of that company, was killed during the fourth month of the siege, by a fragment of a huge shell in the outer trenches.
His funeral was attended by General Baden-Powell and other staff officers, and was probably the only funeral of a coloured person in the South African war that was accorded such distinguished military attendance.
The language of the Cape coloured or mixed people is the same as that of the Boers, viz., the Cape Dutch. At times during the siege our advance lines and those of the Boers used to be less than 100 yards apart, and when the wily snipers of both sides saw nothing to snipe at, they used to exchange pleasantries at the expense of one another, from the safety of their entrenchments. Sometimes these wordy compliments made the opponents decidedly "chummy", to borrow a trench phrase. In that mood, they would now and again wax derisive or become amusing, bespeaking the fates of one another or the eventual outcome of the war. Whoever got the worst of the argument used to cut off communication with an unpleasant remark; but when it was mutually amusing, both sides enjoyed an advantage and each joined heartily in the resulting merriment. On more than one occasion a convivial Dutchman momentarily forgot the martial aspect of the mutual hilarity and complied with an equally
The investment of Mafeking was so effective that only certain Natives could crawl through the Boer lines at night. Throughout the seven months of the siege only one white man managed, under the guidance of two Natives, to pass into the village. All the dispatches which came into and out of Mafeking were carried by Barolong runners. Before the Boers moved their stock into the far interior of the Transvaal, the Barolongs continually went out and raided Boer cattle and brought them into the besieged garrison. Often the raiders had to fight their way back, but sometimes as they returned with the cattle in the night the Dutch sentries preferred to leave them alone. The result was that General Snyman, who commanded the besiegers after General Cronje went south, issued a general order authorizing the shooting dead of "any one coming in or out of Mafeking", armed or unarmed.
At his village called Modimola, ten miles outside the beleaguered garrison, there lived Chief Saane, uncle of the Mafeking chief. Being apparently harmless he was not for some months molested by the Boers. Later, however, they rightly suspected him of supplying the garrison with information. They then took him and his followers to Rietfontein, where they placed him under surveillance, but Chief Saane proved even more useful in captivity than in liberty. He used the seemingly inoffensive young men of Rietfontein, to glean all first-hand information from the Boers, who still had command of the lines of communication. Then he sent the news in verbal messages to his nephew, the paramount chief in the siege, who in turn communicated it to Her Majesty's officers in command. By means of this self-constituted intelligence bureau the garrison learnt of the surrender of Cronje -- a happy consummation of the battle of Paardeberg -- shortly after the good news reached their besiegers; and when official confirmation came from the Cape, more than a week later, Chief Saane's messengers were there again with fresh news of the surrender of Bloemfontein. This news, as might be well supposed, was glad tidings to the besieged people. They were in fact the truths that King Solomon thus sets forth: "As cold water is to the weary soul, so is good news from a far country," for, in those days, before the invention of aeroplanes and Marconigrams, no country in this wide world was further than a besieged garrison.
Among the first civilian bodies raised in Mafeking for purposes of garrison defence was the "Cape Boy Contingent", a company of mixed classes in varying degrees of complexions. Sergt.-Major Taylor, a coloured bricklayer, who led the contingent and directed the crack snipers of that company, was killed during the fourth month of the siege, by a fragment of a huge shell in the outer trenches.
His funeral was attended by General Baden-Powell and other staff officers, and was probably the only funeral of a coloured person in the South African war that was accorded such distinguished military attendance.
The language of the Cape coloured or mixed people is the same as that of the Boers, viz., the Cape Dutch. At times during the siege our advance lines and those of the Boers used to be less than 100 yards apart, and when the wily snipers of both sides saw nothing to snipe at, they used to exchange pleasantries at the expense of one another, from the safety of their entrenchments. Sometimes these wordy compliments made the opponents decidedly "chummy", to borrow a trench phrase. In that mood, they would now and again wax derisive or become amusing, bespeaking the fates of one another or the eventual outcome of the war. Whoever got the worst of the argument used to cut off communication with an unpleasant remark; but when it was mutually amusing, both sides enjoyed an advantage and each joined heartily in the resulting merriment. On more than one occasion a convivial Dutchman momentarily forgot the martial aspect of the mutual hilarity and complied with an equally