Our men only lost two killed, and eleven wounded.
Besides those already mentioned, the burghers under General Wessel Wessels and Commandant Mentz were also among those who escaped of the two thousand troops surrounded by the enemy.
With the others it fared but ill.
The English closed in, and the circle became narrower and narrower.
On the 27th of February, 1902--"Majuba Day"-- Commandant Van Merwe and four hundred men fell into the hands of the enemy.[106] On that very day, in the year 1881, the famous battle of Majuba had been fought.

Nineteen years afterwards, on the same day of the same month, we suffered a terrible defeat at Paardeberg, where we lost General Piet Cronje and a great force of burghers.
And now the 27th of February had come round again, and this time it was the twenty-first anniversary of Majuba that we were celebrating.

The day of our coming of age had thus arrived, if I may be allowed to say so.
But instead of the Republics now attaining their majority--as they should have done, according to all precedent--_minority_ would have been a more fitting word to describe the condition in which we now found ourselves--for, through the losses which we had just sustained, we were _minus_ not only a large number of burghers, but also an enormous quantity of cattle, which ought to have served as food to our commandos and families, but which the enemy had captured.
The cattle which had just been taken from us had formed the greater part of our cattle in this district.

We had always been able, until now, to get them safely away; the unevenness of the veldt here was greatly in our favour.

This time we could not.