1900 - Ladysmith siege day 107 (89%). Mafeking siege day 127 (58%). Cronje evacuates position at Magersfontein. Boer rearguard actions at Drieputs and Dronfield.
1901 - French occupies Piet Retief.
In Kimberley:
Started at 4 am with General French and 2 cavalry Brigades and proceeded by Websters, Felstead, and MacFarlanes siding; a very hard day, and nothing to eat and little to drink, and was much knocked up. The enemy occupied Dronfield and MacFarlanes siding, they were driven out of the latter place, and late in the evening evacuated the latter place. It was a very disappointing day as it took a lot out of the horses and hardly any of the enemy’s waggons were cut off and the 6 inch gun was not seen.
Heard during the day that enemy had evacuated Kampersdam and the Intermediate Pumping Station which were occupied by the force under Col Murray – a quantity of ammunition and stores being taken.
In Mafeking:
I rode up to Major Godley's and had the "31st of November" cast in my teeth once more (since corrected). The big gun fired twenty-eight shots at the stadt and women's laager. From Cannon Kopje there is twenty-three-and-a-half seconds between the smoke from her muzzle and the report, which makes her a matter of nine thousand yards away, and about the same from the centre of the town which she cannot now properly reach, and to strike which at all, she is elevated apparently at right angles. She devoted several shells to McKenzie's western shelter trenches, doing no harm, however. Her change of position must have been another deliberate atrocity on the part of the Boers, for which I trust their Commander will be strictly called to account. There can be no immediate effect expected on the defences or ultimate resistance of Mafeking by the deliberate bombardment of women and children, black or white. And he who sows the storm may reap the whirlwind, for the blacks neither forget nor forgive, and this is one more, and by no means the least, tally in a long score. Now, as regards the position of the Baralongs and our other native residents.
At the outbreak of the war, the Boers flooded the town with all the refugee Kaffirs from Johannesburg and other parts of the Transvaal, who happened to be in our vicinity, hoping either on the capture of the town, which they confidently anticipated, to secure a good labour market, or, in the event of an unexpectedly protracted resistance, to exercise through these additional mouths, a severe pressure on our food supplies, and thus indirectly on our length of defence. They carefully, however, first robbed them of all their money. Now, picking a Kaffir's pocket, or wherever he may carry his money, ranks about as high in the code of honour, as stealing coppers from a blind man's plate. I am not sure whether it is a transgression ot the Law of Nations, but as by the time this diary is read the Boer will not be, as lie certainly never ought to have been, a nation, it is of small moment, but the act of robbery distinctly took place. The Baralongs were assured by both sides that the war was between two white races, and that they had no cause to interfere. We went even further, and refused to allow them to assist us. However, when the Baralong had seen his cattle raided, his kraals burnt, and himself bombarded, he, somewhat of a rhetorician, but lacking perhaps in the logical capacity for distinguishing between " a military operation " and "an act of war," decided that the Boers' application of the former to his property was good enough excuse for him to indulge in the latter to prevent a further application, he accordingly, in his childlike manner, invited the Boers to enter his stadt, and shot several of them when they tried to. Recently, too, the Boers made overtures to secure the Baralong assistance, and the Chief, Wessels, said he must think it over; after long deliberation he declined. It was probably in order to punish them for this lack of readiness to support them, that the Boers so slated the stadt. However this may be, the Baralongs and other natives have loyally and consistently supported us, and deserve ample compensation for the hardships, privations, and losses which they have sustained. All day the Boers have been making feeble attempts on McKenzie's outpost; and at night, seated at the kopje, one could see a circle of fire running all round the outposts. On the eastern side, our Maxim in the brickfields, our seven-pounder and their five-pounder and many rifles were flashing in the darkness; in the distance Fort Ayr was warmly engaged, while to support McKenzie in our immediate proximity, the armoured train was creaking and groaning up the grass-grown line. And nothing perhaps brings home our isolation so much, as to see the rails overgrown with grass, and reflect that this is a main line to England. Owing to the custom of the Boer of elevating the muzzle of his rifle over the parapet and firing in the air, bullets were whistling and falling all round us on the kopje all night, which, as we were a mile from, and two hundred feet higher than, the trench they were firing at, argued poor marksmanship on their part. However, we were all fairly safe, and the Boer presumably quite so, and as he made plenty of noise I suppose everybody was satisfied.
