The scene around the station resembles nothing so much as a cattle fair.  Near the line stands a policeman, his gaze fixed upon a large box lying at his feet.  The box is filled with gold.  Ben Viljoen, standing on a waggon, addresses the men, explaining to them what guerilla warfare means.  On the other side hats, shirts, and what not are being dealt out with a lavish hand.  Some burghers wander off into the bush in search of game, others lie lazily stretched out beneath the trees.  Trains crammed with men arrive from the rear, discharge their freights of assorted humanity, and are immediately boarded by the dismounted men destined for Komatipoort.  The line is blocked with traffic, trains run anyhow, and it will be some days before everything is ready for our trek to begin.

There being no longer any need for officials, my colleagues volunteered to form themselves into a fighting corps, and did me the honour of selecting me as their leader.  The corps, however, lacked accoutrements.  I went down to Delagoa Bay.  Upon returning, with two other officers, we were arrested at the Portuguese station Moveni.

Although armed with passports signed by the District Governor, we were informed that we would under no circumstances be allowed to recross the frontier.  Nor could we obtain permission to return to Lourengo Marques by train.  The young Portuguese commandant, a mirror of courtesy, explained that we had either to await further orders there or walk back to the Bay, a distance of fifty miles.

After waiting for several hours we quietly boarded a train coming from Komatipoort, and managed to reach Lourengo Marques unobserved.  We still believed that we would contrive to get back somehow sooner or later, but were soon cruelly undeceived.  President Kruger, who was the guest of the District Governor, wrote to General Coetser at Komatipoort, asking him not to destroy the bridge and advising him to take refuge in Portuguese territory.  Coetser himself, with the few of his men who had fairly decent horses, preferred to follow Botha, who by this time had begun his trek from Hectorspruit, and left General Pienaar in charge of Komatipoort.

Influenced by the arguments of the Portuguese—­one of which was that, should the British cross the Portuguese frontier and take the Boers in the rear, Portugal would not be able to prevent it—­and by the fact that the positions first chosen for the entrenchments lay within a mile of the frontier and therefore could not be occupied, a Krygsraad resolved to follow the President’s advice.  The bridge had already been mined, the guns placed in position, and everything made ready to give Pole-Carew and the Guards a worthy reception; but fate decided otherwise, and General Pienaar, with some two thousand men, crossed the frontier,—­needless to say with what deep regret—­thus reducing by one-fifth our forces in the field, a loss which would have been avoided had Steyn’s advice been taken and guerilla warfare begun after Machadodorp.