But as our men had no wish to remain under fire, they would then quietly withdraw out of sight.

But the English would continue bombarding the hill, and would send flanking parties to the right and left.

Sometimes it would take the English several hours before they could make sure that there were no Boers behind the rise.
It was tactics such as the above that gave my burghers who were handicapped by the condition of their horses, time to retreat.
It sometimes happened, in these rearguard actions, when the position was favourable, that the enemy were led into an ambush, and then they were either captured or sent racing back under our fire to bring up their guns and main force.

Had we not acted in some such way as this, all my men would have been taken prisoner in this and in many other marches.
The large forces which the English on all occasions concentrated round me deprived me of any chance of fighting a great battle; and I could only act in the way I did.
If the reader is eager to know how it was that I kept out of the enemy's hands until the end of the war, I can only answer, although I may not be understood, that I ascribed it to nothing else than this:--It was not God's will that I should fall into their hands.
Let those who rejoice at my miraculous escapes give all the praise to God.
[Footnote 81: Our forethought proved later on to have been of little avail.

For notwithstanding the bountiful rains which had fallen at the end of November and the beginning of January in the southern and western parts of the State we found, when we arrived there, that the grass had been entirely destroyed by the locusts.