THE BOER CAPITAL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIII, Issue 15000, 21 November 1899, Page 2

THE BOER CAPITAL.

PRETORIA AN IMMENSE BARRACKS. Mr A. W. Lamont, of Ballarat, who has recently returned to that city from the Transvaal, has a good .know 1 edge of the Boer capital (says the local Star), as well as of the long ami systematic preparations made by the Transvaal Government for the war, which the latter regarded as inevitable. From October, 1896, to October, 1898, he was a resident of Pretoria, and for sixteen months of the time was in tho great camp constructed on the northwest corner of the city, and then had the opportunity of seeing what the Boers, largely under the supervision! of old German military officers, were, doing in anticipation of that "last great' battle" which they hoped would enable them to throw off- the British suzerainty, and. either drive the British from the Transvaal or put them on the same plane as Kaffirs. ; When Mr Lamont reached Pretoria he joined Mr Kirkness, a Scottish contractor, who had been eighteen years in the country, and who at that time held several contrasts totalling nearly half a million stei'.ing to erect stables, gun sheds, and officers' houses -in the camp, which, by-tke-bye, is oh the site of that occupied by English troops before the Kruger era. The work undertaken by Mr Kirkness was of a first-class, character. Everything was in brick uud stone, and each officer's house, of whih there were fifteen, was worth £2000. The stables, when finished, gave accommodation to 1200 horses, and in the centre as ithe veterinary hospital. This camp is immediately below the principal fort, one of three which command the city, nnd which were being built at a cost of several millions at the . same time. No foreigners, other, than Dutch or Germans, were allowed to work at the forts, and one of the chief of the superintending officers was General .Kock (captured at Elandslaagte, and has since died from the wounds he received at that engagement). Kruger took a keen interest hj-the construction of the forts, and often visited them. Indeed, the active part he took in tboso matters gave much colour *o the statement — since denied by him — that he said at his great birthday gathering in May, 1898, that he would rather <lraw the sword than submit to the British suzerainty. Coincident with the construction of the forts and camp other military works were undertaken, notably the bnilding of barracks and a magazine. The latter is a large chamber carved out of the hill above the camp and approached by a gallery or tunnel. Ifc was a heavy iwork^-nearly all blasting — and every endeavour was made to push it on. After firing forty and fifty shots daily for nine months, it was, ready for the* ammunition, which. the/fJovernmeut had bee:i steadily importing arfd manufacturing. A Franco-Italian firm commenced the barracks, which was entirely of stone, but failing to complete the work, it had to be continued by the French Bank, which had guaranteed the contractors. ' The Government, for more reasons than one, wanted all the works finished quickly, and as each sectidn of the stables was ready it was taken out of. the contractor's hand? and occupied — horses, in the stalls and men in the loft" ahove". ihe gun sheds, too, were used, partly as barracks and partly as ammunition stores. Up to the time these places were available, the Boei soldiers have been living in tents and the old camp buildings, and their condition was deplorable. The sanitary arrangements were hfii riblej' and pigs ran in and out of the mess kitchens. Little wondei that typhoid was' 'rampanf, ' and that it spread to' the contractors' workmen and native servants.- So it was perhaps quite as much from a desire for better hygienic airangements for the men, as from a hoy« to be ready for thp English, that the Government hurried on the camp works an ; barracks. The discipine was very lax, though il improved a little- when the men got intc barracks, and Mr Lament's . experience o the Boer soiuiers-ran authoritative one as he saw them daily' for sixteen months and had been a, commissioned officer o volunteers in the Old Country, and wa: naturally interested in the drill and mill tary bearing of the men— is that they an ill-disciplined, careless, reserved, 'lazy, an; as a rule cruel to the Kaffirs. In carryinj shells into, store they invariably showei reckless carelessness, dumping the mun tions about as if explosion were impossible On one occasion a curious fellow lib a fir round a shell and retired to a distance t( await elevelopments. Fortunately, beyom a big hole un the ground, these umountei to nothing. The daily gun-fire at noon wa invariably nothing more than a huge prac tical joke— with serious possibilities — fo the men.-, used toe amuse themselves bi putting an old tin, as well as. blank cart ridge, into the weapon,, and were not a all particular about firing punctually nnoon if their usual mark, a passing bui lock waggon, was... not within range Once they loaded the gun with a stone which lodged near Kruger's house. Thi; was .carrying the joki? too far, and it wai never repeated in that form. The soldier: wero usually kept in camp for three oi four months, and after that period o; training— if anything with such lax disci pline can be so regarded— were drafted of to the forts and other positions", and theii places taken by a new batch of recruits. Being so frequently about the camp, Mi Lamont had . ample opportunity of seeing the guns, chiefly from French and German foundries, which- we're brought in preparatory to' mounting in' the forts. The trophies won in' the Jameson raid formed the nucleus of the Boei 5 "aritllery, and at first they used only the horses then taken. These were presently sent away and replaced by South African animals, which proved very much inferior and difficult to train. A magnificnt black stallion, ridden by the camp doctor, an Irishman named Laxton, is said to be the horse Jameson rode in his famous raid on the Rand. Regarding the alleged disloyalty of Irishmen in the Transvaal, Mr Lamont has no doubt that very many are as loyal to Britain as any of the. component races of the nation, but -thinks jbssiMy some may lean a little towards the Transvaa?, because of the personal influence of a. fellow-country-man who is a neighbour and a great friend of Kniger's, and- who holds a lucrative contract to supply the'' Pretoria camp and forts with bread. ,