1900 - Mafeking siege day 186 (85%). Wepener siege day 8 (47%)
1901 - Douglas defeats Viljoen and Muller at Palmietfontein and reaches Dullstroom.
1900 - Mafeking - A diary of the siege by Major F D Baillie
Fairly quiet day. The Boers shelled the western outpost and brickfields. I went down to the brickfields to see Captain Brown, Cape Police, who is in charge and was in charge when he occupied the Boer advanced trench. Since then he has been wounded, but is now back at duty again. He told me that the idea of the Boers was apparently that we should not enter the trench until the morning after they had vacated it, but our doing so the night before and cutting the wire had frustrated their aimable intention of blowing up our men and presumably rushing the brickfields in the confusion. The other day, a Cape policeman met a Transvaal policeman with a white flag (between these forces in times of peace a very good feeling prevails) and chaffed him, saying, " Why don't you blow your mine up." " Ah! " said the latter, " you were too slim for us there."
Houndsditch, the old Boer trench, has now been converted into a strong fortification for ourselves, and the brickfields generally are a far more desirable place for residence, the several Boer trenches now being nine hundred to one thousand two hundred yards away. They have some very good marksmen in their trenches however, and make things very warm for our advanced trenches. A Cape Boy exposed himself for a moment two or three days ago and was picked off through the head by a Martini at once, and in the very few open spaces which of course they have got accurately ranged they shoot remarkably close. The brickfields are now garrisoned by the Cape Police and Cape Boys under Captain Brown and Lieutenants Murray and Currie.
The big gun is still conspicuous by its absence, and it is reported to have gone to Pretoria. If that be so it is the greatest sign so far that the Boers feel hopeless about taking the town and the point may be fairly scored off against any point they may have scored against us yet.
There was a wedding this morning between a private of the Bechuanaland Rifles and a Dutch girl, he cannot talk Dutch nor she English. Let us hope that it is a good omen of the future settlement of South Africa with the British as " Boss."
This morning, too, three ambulances were seen coming in from the North, and an ambulance and five waggons went in that direction, so Plumer may have had a successful "scrap," at any rate, we all hope so.
These high velocity guns seem beautiful weapons, I must confess that in common with the rest of the garrison I should dearly like to see them tried on the Boer. It is all very well to be an expert in artillery, but ours is not the most agreeable way of gaining the experience.
