This disease had never before been known in the Republics.
When I was at Lindley I sent Commandant Johannes Meijer, one of my staff, with forty men, to Cape Colony.

With him went that brave soldier, Captain Willem Pretorius, of whom I have made mention previously.

If Commandant Meijer had had sufficient time to collect a commando in the Colony, I am sure that he would have proved that the younger generation of Free-Staters, to whom he and Willem Pretorius belonged, possess qualities which were entirely unsuspected before the war began.
On the 8th of December three columns of the enemy appeared from Kroonstad.
It had been my plan to remain at Lindley and wait my chance of dealing with Colonel Baker, for he had under him a certain National Scout, who constantly made raids from Winburg with a band of four or five hundred Kaffirs.

A few months previously a division of Commandant Hasebroek's commando had been attacked at Doornberg by this man's Kaffirs, and four burghers had been murdered in a horrible manner.

More cases of this nature had taken place, and I only mention this one in passing.