THE TRANSVAAL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 7693, 9 December 1899, Page 2

THE TRANSVAAL.

By Electric Telegraph Copyright.

PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.

Received December 9, at 9.23 a.m. Capetown, December 8.

Kimberley has 40 days' provisions and plenty of water. Mr Robertson, a friend of Mr Cecil Rhodes, arrested in October on a charge of recruiting, waa tried at Pretoria and acquitted. London, December 8. A heavy siege train with an enormous quantity of ammunition has been despatched to South Africa by the steamer Tantallon Castle.

Another brigade of cavalry is being organised.

Mr Powell Williams, Financial Secretary of the War Department, states that the local South African forces and Imperial troops who have gone to the seat of war, and those being organised for service, total together 105,770. Lord Loch, in the course of a speech at the Imperial Institute, said that President Kruger often desired independence, and aspired to the possession of a navy. A settlement must mean the absorption of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Received December 9, at 10 a.m. Adelaide, December 9.

In a letter date! from Simmons Bay, where he is a prisoner aboard the warship Penelope, Lieutenant-Colonel Schiel complains to Sir R. Buller that although he gave parole to General White he has not been treated according to military etiquette. Though wounded he was locked in the cells at Maritzburg and strictly guarded, as also at Simmons Bay. Sir R. Buller, replying, regrets the inconvenience but cannot admit) a breach of etiquette. General White's authority is limited to Ladysmith and the officer commanding Natal is empowered to make any arrangements he pleases for the safety of prisoners. The smallness of the British force does not allow of any elaborate measures for the safe-keeping of prisoners, who have to be subject to closer restraint than would be necessary after the arrival of reinforcements.

The Standard and Diggers' News reports the discovery of a case of interesting documents down a shaft of one of the East Rand mines. Many papers relate to the reform conspiracy at the time of the raid. The same paper contradicts a rumor as to the smashing of the mines and says that the Government, instead of raining the mines, is working them, and utilising the gold for the purpose of defending the independence of the country.

Received December 9, at 10.1S a.m.| Durban, December S.

General White reports that dissensions exist between the Transvaalers and Free Staters besieging Ladysmith: also that their supply of provisions is short. Capetown, December 8.

The Boers at Spytfontein number 11.C00, reinforcements having arrived from the Natal frontier.

The West Australian contingent, who have been doing night picketing on the Orange Rivsr station, have joined General Gatacre with two batteries of artillery and other reinforcements. General Gatacre reports that the spread of thp rebellion in North Cape Colony hampers the movements of his force. The Aberdeen will come on to Capetown and land her troops. AMBULANCES IX WAR. The London correspondent of the Lyitelton Times, writing on October 27, says : The promptitude with which the Australasian colonies (New Zealand in particular) have despatched their contingents to South Africa, has excited universal commendation. It only remains for your boys to show that, like Fuzzy-Wuzzy, they are ' first-rate fighting men,' and that their ambu'ance and commissariat arrangements will stand pressure. There are already sad private growls from private sources anent the Imperial Ambulance Corps. They seem to have been hopelessly demoralised by the unexpected number of wounded at Glencoe, and, owing to their dilatorinefs at Elandßlaagte, numbers of poor, writhing wretches, British as well as Boers, lay ont on the wind-swept veldt in icy rain all night. Captain Peyton, of the iJancbesters, relates that one faithful trooper of his regiment " remained throughout the bitterly cold night with hi 3 arms round him, to give him such warmth as possible from his own body, both having been drenched by the heavy rain just before assaulting the position, with no better covering than their wet kharkee uniforms," Another poor wretch, hidden in the darkness behind a rock, let oft his rifle fruitlessly again and again to attract attention of bis comrades to his whereabouts. But he, too, had to lie where he was till dawn. Doctors appear to be badly wantjd at all the points of active fighting, and if you wish to back np your corps even more effectively than at present, you cannot do better than send a few wellsupplied >vith medical stores. I can never forget Burleigh's account of the hospital in the Soudan aftsr Tel-el-Kebir (I think it was), when the mortally wounded had to die in nntold torments because, through someone's blundering, there was no morphia. It had been sent to the front, and cartridges to the hospital.