ON THE ROAD TO STELLENBOSCH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7329, 15 February 1902, Page 1

ON THE ROAD TO STELLENBOSCH.

It is a Straight Boad that has (Pall Mall Gazette.) "This week some Boers surrendered to one of our posts, and asked permission to join the burgher corps." — Reuter's Message. SCENE I. A bleak wind-swept col in the Transvaal, facing at 2000 yards' a blockhouse. Very dark and misty, the lights from the blockhouse just visible. Dramatis Person©.— Two poorly-clad Burghers, sentries on the col, sitting very close together, under one tattered blanket, with their feet stuck into a British cavalry nose-bag for warmth. First Burgher : " Did you see Gert Steenkamp yesterday?" Second Burgher j " Yah 1" First Burgher (after a considerable pause) : " What did you think of his news?" Second Burgher : "It can't be true about Oom Andries Cronje !" First Burgher : " That is quite true. I had a letter from my wife, who is in Pretoria living with Mrs De Villiers, and' in her last letter she said that she had' seen old Andties dressed' up like a Karki having tea on the stoep with Lord Kitchener." Second Burgher: "What is he getting for that? Andtries must want to get something." 'First Burgher: "That is what I was thinking. I was also thinking that it is very cold on this nek— the Karkis keep much warmer than we do." Second Burgher : " That is true." First Burgher : " Also, I don't believe all that the State Secretary says. Now, I saw Piet Bester the day after we took the cannon at Minnie Kloof, and he had just come up from the Colony. He had 1 three passes, and he came up the whole way by train — went as a butcher on the cold storage meat van — and he said it was not true what the State Secretary had' said about the Colony. The Afrikanders would always help with food if the commando was not too big, but they would not fight, and he also said that there were more Karkis in the Colony than in the Transvaal, that there were Karkis all along the line, and i that the commandos in the Colony, instead of killing Karkis, were living like antbears, only daring to move at night. Now Piet Bester is no fool." Second' Burg-her : " Well !" First Burgher: "Piet Bester said that he liked the orlog, that he had been better off during the orlog than he had ever been . before, but he did) not see why he should lose by the orlog, and that we should lose if we stayed on the losing side !" Second Burgher (very interested) : "Well!" : . First Burgher : "He said that he was : going to join the Karkis, as all who now ; joined the Karkis, besides getting good < food and clothes, would also get land. You ( know how he lost possession of his farm just before the war,. and that Hendrlk Bes- . ; ter, his cousin, got it. Well, Piet says that . Hendrik is still in Ceylon, he will not be back for years, if he ever comes back, and i by joining the Karkis now, he (Piet) will < be able to get the farm and keep it!" ; Second Burgher: "Well!" i First Burgher : " I was thinking that as : it .s very cold' out here, and this orlog is '. not what it was, and is getting dangerous, ' and I should like to have Jan Van de < Menve's farm, which you know ought to be : mine, an d Jan is now in St Helena— that I - think I shall join Andries' new Karki com- 1 as my wife says that all the burgh-^

ers who join Karki commandos are to have the farms they like !" Second Burgher, (shivering) : " Yes, .it is very cold on this nek. Do you think that I would get my brother's farm? — he Is in India !" First Burgher : "Of course you will. Yes, it is cold, those Karkis in that blockhouse over there seem to teep themselves warm !" SCENE ll.' British Sentry: "Halt! who goes there?" First Burgher: "Friend!" Sentry : " Advance one friend — and' give the countersign. And keep yer 'ands above yer 'cad or I'll biff yeT >"