HOW CRONJE CAME TO THE MODDER RIVER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11368, 10 May 1900, Page 6

HOW CRONJE CAME TO THE MODDER RIVER.

The London Times publishes the following interesting acount from a correspondent, of Cronje's arrival at the Modder River Camp:— At half-past twelve p.m. on February 28 the cry went through tho camp, " Cronje is coming," and all hands turned out to got a glimpso of tho redoubtable guerilla general who had held our force at bay for so long. Hastily mounting a horse, I galloped off after tho rest in the direction of Guards' Drift, over which he was bound to cross. Halfway there the crowd was tliickest, and loud cheering told me that the prisonors wero near. Then a Dutch cart with a square white top came into sight drawn by a team ot six artillery horses with their drivers. On the front seat sat a thin, fair-haired man in a grey suit with gaiters and gold-rimmed spectacles. This was Cronje's interpreter. Beside him was a man I could not see, but who, I was told, was one of the general's staff. On the seat behind sat CRONJE AND HIS WIFE, ho stern and sullen, she weeping. The general woro a brownish suit, with soft, brown felt hat, and sat looking straight in front of him as if in supreme contempt of the crowds of soldiers that cheered themselves hoarse in their delight at the success that had turned the tide of fortune in our favour. Mrs. Cronjo had a very old black dress much bodraggled and an older black hat that in her emotion she had allowed to slip on one side of her head. The poor lady looked very thin and worn, and showed signs of the fearful timo she had just gone through. Her husband, on tho other hand, was sleek and fat, and appeared to bo in robust health—a fact which, as we remarked at the timo, reflected great credit on Mrs. Cronje. He has a cruel, contemptuous face, but a very strong one. Amongst his troops his will is law, oven though ho be obliged at times to use strong measures to enforce it. In a small buggy behind him camo his grandson, a rather awkward, fair-haired youth of about 20,,wh0 appeared unconcerned in what was going on around him, and naturally did not attract as much attention as his grandfather. Riding alongside the first carriage wero General Pretyman, R.A., and Lieutenant Maxwell, 6th Bengal Cavalry, both mombers of Lord Roberts' staff. These two officers subsequently accompanied the prisoners to Capetown. On cither sido of the carriages rodo tho escort, consisting of 100 City Imperial Volunteers, whose picturesque and workmanlike kit lent artistic effect to a scene which was already sufficiently imposing. As tho cavalcade came through tho camp it passed a huge forest of tents surrounded by a wiro fence, destined to hold the 4000 prisoners next day. Crossing the railway below tho station the party wheeled to the right and came up the centre road to the Crown Hotel, formerly Lord Methuen's headquarters, where Cronje was to rest until tho train was ready to carry him south. As the first carriage drew up to the hotel entrance the escort carried arms and filed away to tho front, leaving tho road, which had previously been cleared by the military police, free for the proper

RECEPTION OF THE CAPTIVE GENERAL. I The G.O.C.'s guard turned out and presented I arms while the bugler sounded the "general salute." General Pretyman handed the priI soner over to General Douglas, who com- | mands the station. General Douglas received Cronje with a military salute, of which the | latter took not the faintest notice. Asked if I he would have lunch, ho gruffly answered, ; "Yes." "When?" "Now." No word of . thanks or acknowledgment of the courtesy I with which he was being received. He passed : along tho verandah of the hotel through tho 1 garden to a wing of the houso lying back I from the road, where his lunch had been ! prepared. Drawn up in front of the door was | a second guard ot 18 N.C.O.'s and men of the | 37th Field Battery, under Lieutenant Wade, ! R.F.A. Theso presented arms, the officer ] 'saluting and the trumpets sounding a flourish. I This compliment was again unacknowledged, i and the general passed from sight into the ; hotel, where, I understand, he and his party I wero refreshed with an elaborate champagne lunch. At four p.m. he left Modder River I for Capetown in a special train in charge of | General Pretyman and an armed guard. J At half-past nine next morning a large cloud | of dust on the far side of Modder River >vas I the first indication of iihe

ARRIVAL OF THE PRISONERS. Onco moro I hurried down to the pontoon, and was in lime to see them pass. The first thing that caught my eye as I came up was a couple of guns of the 38th Field Battery, with teams and detachments, loaded with case, covering the pontoon by which the prisoners had to cross. Two long lines of the 3rd Grenadier Guards crossed'first, opened out, and gradually closed round the prisoners as they came over, the remainder staying tho other side of the river till all had crossed. Then came the first instalment of prisoners, the commandants, adjutants, field cornets, and other senior officers. These all rode on ponies or were driving in Capo carts. Big, burly-looking men these were in ordinary plain clothes with the inevitable soft felt hats and large, bushy beards: their faces tanned brown, and almost black by exposure to the ran, their carts or ponies loaded with as much kit as they could carry, and their native servants following with more baggage. Behind these, driving a pair of white ponies, came Albrecht, their famous artillery colonel, who has been serving with them for 20 years. He appeared a tall, thin, dark man with a sqmre, dark beard and a keen soldierly face. He had more tho bearing of a soldier than the rest, and was dressed in a white doublebreasted cotton coat with brass buttons and blue pantaloons. Guarding these was an escort of the 0.1. and a troop of Ist Life Guards. Then began the almost unending string of prisoners, and a more

MOTLEY RABBLE it has never been my lot to see. Old, greybearded men with bent backs, sturdy youths, boys of about 16, black men, white men, Free Staters, Scandinavians, Transvaalors, Germans, Kaffirs. Some with boots, some walking in thoir socks carrying their boots, some with no boots at all all with particoloured blankets which helped to make up ft picturesque scene. One man passed mo wearing a pair of Stowasscr gaiters— dently loot. Another had a particoloured umbrella which ho put up when a heavy thundershowcr came on. Two or three had a fawn-coloured sort of uniform with blue facings, but most wero clad in the oldest imaginable clothes. Then several tiny Kaffir boys went by, the youngest about 10 years old. Some others, evidently officers, had ponies which they had loaded up with their kit and were leading along. All appeared to bo carrying as much as they could stagger under, blankets, bags, pannikins, cooking pots, water bags, umbrellas, whilst some had oven collected bits of stick or. the way to make a fire when they halted. Amongst tho older men I noticed several very kindly faces, more like Devonshire farmers than Boors, and one old m'.n touched his hat to me as he wont by and said " Good morrning." The younger men were a harder-looking lot, many with sullen faces and a few positively ruffianly. I must confess to feeling very sorry for some of tho very old men, several of whom wore struggling lamely along under heavy loads. The prisoners passed silently along, each man looking after himself and his lot, but few sithor talking to or helping another. Amongst the thousands that slouched by me I do not think I saw one with any pretonce at soldierly bearing, except one tall, fair man in a green suit and three-cornered hat, who turned out to be an officer. As the rabble, for I can give it no other name, went by, I could not help comparing the appoarancc of the cage, as we call it, with no less than six THE SOLDIERS OF THE TWO ARMIES and marvelling how the Boers had managed. to withstand us so long. The more I think of it the more convinced I am of the great strength of their leaders, who with tho scantiest amount of discipline have hitherto managed to handle and control their troops in tho field with such success. In rear of the prisoners came the women and children

who had been found in the laager and sent in here for their own safety, •_ as all their menkind were prisoners and their homes destitute. These, I need hardly say, have been most; kindly treated, and wore to-day supplied with milk and fruit. A strong rearguard" formed the fourth side of a hollow square, : with prisoners lin the centre. Tne square moved on to tho back of the pent prisoners'. camp, which- was now guarded all round by a double lino of sentries with toa bayonets and loaded rifles. Most of this guard was appropriately formed of halt a battalion of the Loyal North . Lancashire, who had been shut up so long m Kimberley by some of these very men. The square halted, and tho escort of Grenad.ers, the work now over, proceeded to uncharge magazines., a proceeding which I think was watched with a sigh of relief by not a lew of the prisoners.

THE CAMP GUARD now took charge of them, an<T'the work of telling them off in batches to their tents lean. Fifteen men were told off to a tent, an officer standing at the entrance of the camp to count them as they went through. They passed on to a sergeant, who in turn handed the batch over to a private to point out their tent. The officers who were performing this duty were particularly kind to the prisoners, and allowed them to make up parties for their tent, so that men ol oi.e commando wero together and Transvallers were not mixed with Free Staters or Ivaffirs with Scandinavians. Brothers wore in every case allowed to go in together, and lathers with their sons. I saw one old man go into sens, the oldest not more than 30; .he youngest about W. Several watcrcarts were ready filled in their camp, and as soon as they got in buck-waggons came round with bread and tinned meat. This brightened them up considerably, and they were soon laughing and chatting once more. < About 600 that wore to be sent down by train the same day were seated in lines on the ground outside tho camo, under their own officers, and, of course, a guard. These also were supplied with rations, and I saw each man get a big loaf of bread and a. lib tin of corned beef. At night several "Wells' lights," stationed at intervals round the Cramp, .illuminate tho whole place, and tho searchlight, lately used to signal to beleaguered Kimberley, now plays the whole night long over the camp, to prevent tho chance of any disturbance. Hie prisoners are being sent away every day by train-loads to Capetown, and most of them now seem fairly cheery and not sorry to have a rest from the horrors of war, of which they had as much as over they wanted in their shell-swept lines at Paardeberg.

STEYN ON THE WAR.

WHY IT WAS STARTED AND HOW HE

HOPES IT WILL END.

Pretoria, April 2. Tho Free State Volksraad was openod today at Kroonstad. In his speech, President Steyn said that despite tho surrender of Bloemfontein he had not lost hope of tho ultimate triumph o the Republicans' cause. Tho war had been forced upon the Transvaal, and nothing remained for tho Freo State but to throw in its lot with the sister Republic in the terms of the treaty. The war had been commenced for the purpose of securing tho independence which had been bought by the blood of their forefathers. Their arms had been successful, to tho immense wonder of tho world and even of the Boers themselves. After paying a tribute to tho memory of General Joubcrt, the President stated that, notwithstanding their overwhelming numbers, the British had been guilty of violating tho privileges given by the flag of truce and tho Red Cross, and he had been compelled to report tho matter to the neutral Powers. Tho attempt to sow dissension among tho Freo Staters by means of Lord Roberts' proclamation had failed.

Mr. Steyn next referred to the correspondence which had passed betwoon Lord Salisbury and the Presidents of the two Republics, and stated that not only had these efforts been mado in behalf of peace, but the Republics had despatched a deputation to Europe and the United States, in order to exercise influence upon the neutral Powers, and secure the cessation of bloodshed. His (Mr. Steyn's) earnest desire was that these efforts would be crowned with success.

The speech stated that the Free State Government had raised a temporary loan in tho Transvaal, and in conclusion the President uttered an earnest hope that the Free Stato would be preserved from surrendering lightly what it had so dearly bought. ,

THE WAR AND THE BOERS.

A SCATHING INDICTMENT.

Mr. Julian Ralph, tha London Daily Mail's war correspondent, writes to that journal on the war and the Boers as follows: —

" It is a war steadily and stealthily planned by the Queen's Dutch subjects and the Dutch Republics for fully 20 years. For between four and six years they have been equipped for it. They began purchasing arms and planning defences before the Jameson raid. " President Kruger begged President Steyn to declare war three weeks before President Steyn consented.

" Rid your mind of the notion that you are crushing out two farmer Republics. There is not a farmer in the two countries, and only one, tho Free State, was a Republic in any way except misnaming. These people nro herders of cattle, sheep, and goats, liko the Israelites of old and the Afridis, Turks, and Balkan peoples of to-day. His (the Boer's) so-called farms are as nature made them, merely roaches of veldt, whereon his cattlo graze. On each one he has put up a home, but its surroundings are almost invariably more repellant and disorderly than any houses I ever saw, except the cabins of the frocd slaves in the United States.

" Their camps and strongholds from which we have routed them are tho filthiest places 1 havo known men of any sort to live in, and I have seen Red Indian, Chinese, and Turkish camps and the camps of many sorts of black men.

" As to their brnverv and honour, I havo seen and heard sufficient to fill a page of the Daily Mail with accounts of their cowardly and dastardly behaviour before I came to Kimberley. But here I find they have been guilty of different and original enormities. Here they killed our wounded and laid their bodies in a row after one of tho forays out of town. Here tAcy armed many blacks to fight against us, showing all the world how scandalously fraudulent were thoir exclamations of horror at the idea of our omploying native Indian troops. " There has hardly been a battle in which tho Boeis have not abused either the white flag or the Geneva Cross, or both. _ "At Spionkop our people saw them loading Maxims in ambulances in order to got them safely away. This we sow them do nt the Moddor River also, and Kimberley is whore the Boers shelled the funeral cortege oKJcorge L. Abrnm, an American. " At many places they fired on our ambulances. I saw them do it at the Modder River, and saw them fire on our stretcheru?m In that batt,e ti,no and timo again. When wo entered Jncobsdal it looked like a city of doctors. Every man in the sheets wore the Red Cross bandage on his arm. Theso wore tho men who had just been "hooting us from behind garden walls. 'There was nothing novel or original about their teokmg their cowardly shelter of tho doctor s badge. We have become quite accustomed to it. Wo once entered a Boor anger after a victory and found 27 of these bogus doctors and seven or eight wounded for their patients. "They have not been content with looting the houses of the loyalists in the British colonies, but in Natal in scores of instances they have smashed into kindlings and lorn into ribbons whatever they did not want or could not carry off. Worse yet, they havo fouled the walls of the homes of defenceless women with obscene writings. " They never know the valuo of an oath or promise and havo not learned it since tho war began.