The Transvaal WAR.

Evening Star, Issue 11682, 14 February 1902, Page 6

The Transvaal WAR.

DETAILS OF KITCHENER'S DRIVE. BRITISH CONVOY CAPTURED. HEAVY CASUALTIES. 600 BOERS CAPTURED IN TWO DAYS. Press Association—By Telegraph—Coypright. LONDON, February 13. Load Kitchener's broad front in the recent c'jrive was nightly secured by entrenchiig 200 men per mile. Troops patrolled outside the northern and southern Uockhonses' lines. Ck«nmandant Vandermsrve and 200 men, within the northerly end, oq the night of the 6th, attempted to traverse the line by bending low over their saddles and riding amongst cattle towards the trenches. There they encountered a hail of bullets. Thirty broke through the British cordon, forty-three were capture*}, and wounded.

BOERS' DESPERATE CHARGE. TWENTY-TWO BRITISH CASUALTIES. LONDON, February 13. Six hundred men, led by Commandant Malan, captured the Fraserburg corroy. The Boers feinted to the north, and then charted recklessly south npon the escort. The enemy lost heavily. Major Crofton is amongst thekißedi. The total British casualties were twenty-two. Some of the captured waggons have been recovered. THE BOER AND THE NATIVE. LONDON, February 13. Lord Kitchener's despatches give details of fifty-seven actional murders of natives by the Boers. IN THE TOILS. DESPAIRING EFFORTS TO ESCAPE. A RING OF FIRE AND STEEL. LONDON, February 13. (Received February 14, at 9.33 a.m.) The 'Daily Telegraph's' correspowjfeirt states that a five-hours' battle was fought on Friday night along the blockhouse fire from Heilbron onward. The Boers made frantic charges, seeking an outlet from the ring of fire and steel. Commandants Vaunee, Kirk, arid Vandermerve and many rebels were captured. The same correspondent estimates the Boor casualties in the recent drive at 100, and the total bag for two days at 600, including many colorjal rebels. Twenty-three Boers have surrendered at Middelbwrg.

[The scene of I<ord Kitchener's great movement is in the north-eastern portion of the Orange River Colony. The first estimates of the Boer losses were that 283 had been accounted for. The term * bag " is a code term. Its first employment gave great umbrage to Mr W. T. Stead and his sympathisers.]

WELL BONE, ANGLO-GERMANS. LONDON, February 13. (Received February 14, at 9.33 ajn.) The Germans resident in Durban have written to protest against the slanders on the British troops. - WHAT THE BLOCKHOUSES ARE LIKE. The Pretoria (correspondent, of the ' Daily Chronicle' writes: —"The railway line is now exceedingly well fenced, in some parts as many as twenty strands of barbed wire on either side having been employed. Any one of these strands being cut causes an alarm at the nearest blockhouse, and these are in telephonic communication with one another. Mounted men patrol the plains near; armored trains are continually running up and down the line, and are ready at any moment to answer the call of any one of these blockhouses, should occasion arise. T have lately made the journey from De Aar to Kimberiey, a.nd it is very noticeable that,'the Tommies in charge of the blockhouses up the line in this direction have taken great interest in their temporary residences. They have turned them into exceedingly attractive little cottages. Each seems to have vied with the other in making them as neat and smartlooking as possible. I noticed one particularly. It is called 'Nightingale Villa,' picturesquely situated and artistically built; gardens growing vegetables of all kinds surround it; there are neatly-gravelled paths, a tastefully-arranged summer-house a short distance away, where the men take their meals, the whole being surrounded by spotless white-washed stones, marking tbe limit of the camp ground, all being trim and dean and smart. Dogs, birds, and a few fowls gave animal life to tbe scene. The men, in their shirt-sleeves, watched the train passing; they looked the picture of health, brown as berries and hard as mills. A few hundred vards away a man, shouldering a rifle, is visible, ever on the alert to give the alarm should the enemy be seen. Passing'further up the line we notice others equally well cared for. tlie names of the regiments the inhabitants belong to being prominently displayed. The men have settled down to this monotonous life, intending to make the best of it, and they seem as cheerful and happy as possible under the circumstances."

" \ VERY BITTER SUBJECT WITH THE ARMY." Writing from AEwal North, an Edinburgh man at the front says:—"l read with very great interest your account of the pro-Boers and the harm they are doing in the Old Country. I can assure you &is a very bitter subject with the army out here. Personally. I. consider them to be cowards of the rankest type, without an atom of loyalty for the freedom of which they take such cowardly advantage of. Would that they could give up their nationality (save the name) and show their love for the Boers by taking up aims for them! By Jove! there would be no prisoners taken! If a Boer commandant can show his commando genuine cuttings from the British Press containing thesavings of these curs, to what extent may he" not go when he wants to deceive his men with other stories of British trouble? Surely the people at home have not the same conception of the harm those people are doing, or they would not surely countenance a heaiing given to the pro-Boer worthies, Merriman and Saner, in one of the most public buildings in the city,- and with the full consent of its principal magistrates."

A REMARKABLE BOER DOCUMENT.

It is the custom among pro-Boers to affect to regard the Boer as! the man of peace, who never really contemplated hostilities, who was forced into an impossible position, and who was the over-matched victim of astute British diplomacy. In this connection the London ' Daily Mail' prints a copy of a sworn translation of a Dutch letter found in the trenched outside Mafeking. It has never yet been' published. "J.S-," the writer, is one of the Snymans, who figured so prominently in the operations around Mafeking. The date is September 11, 1899, a month before the ultimatum was launched. "J. 5.," who wrote from Pre-

torn, rays?—-"On the stoep ifc is nothing bat war, bo* in the Raad everything is peace and quiet Those ore the . politics they talk I have nothing more to cay here, but I can tell yoa agood deaL Old Beitx say* Chamberlain will have a great emprise one of these days, and the burghers most sleep with oae eye open. It is rumored here that our military officers worked day and night to send old Victoria an ultimatum before she was ready. The old President says that the English will bring niggers from India against ps, but 'the whole of the Basotcs, Swazis, and Zulus are ready to help us, and also the Free State and colonial fellows. The old 'rooineks' will make a very sorry show against us."

Civilian fife in Kimberley (says a correspondent) has resumed its normal state. The existence of a big war is not evident in the town, and business goes forward in its usual way. It is seldom that you hear any news concerning the continuation of hostilities beyond the fact that, should anything out of the way occur, you see ifc chronicled in the local papers a week or ten days afterwards, probably in a cable from London. But you cannot go ten miles outside the town in any direction with safety, sniping being frequent. Looking eastward into the Orange River Colony from the northern outskirts of Kimberley, the ranges of hills are visible, and are known to contain numerous small bands of the enemy hiding in almost inaccessible caves.