342 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



of course ? Allemagtig ! I tell you it was astounding, 

 and our baas-raaking (thrashing) your English rooi- 

 baatjes (red-jackets) was even more wonderful to us 

 than to them. Your men were badly led, and their 

 shooting was alte sclecht (most wretched) . I never 

 saw anything like the way they threw away the 

 battle. It happened in this wise. About daybreak 

 we in our camp down below were awakened to find 

 the soldiers crowning the mountain. Then about 

 eighty of us went up to meet them ; and so creeping 

 from bush to bush, from rock to rock, we slowly 

 made our way upwards. We could see the rooi- 

 baatjes' heads sticking out over the tops of the high 

 rocks, and, too, the flash and smoke of their rifles, 

 which were discharged very rapidly and at random. 

 But they fired anyhow, at least fifteen or twenty feet 

 over our heads. Ja ! die coegels het vere bookautonz 

 gevluit (Yes, the bullets whistled high above us). 

 As we crept closer we picked off the poor soldiers, 

 as they showed their heads, like so many dassies 

 (rock- rabbits) . Even then had they charged us with 

 the bayonet they might have driven us back ; but 

 no doubt they thought us much more numerous 

 than we actually were, and feared, too, our rifle-fire. 

 Well, nearer and nearer we becrept them, until at 

 last we saw them making some attempt to charge. 

 Allemagtig ! Poor General Colley, he was indeed 

 a brave man — too brave, in fact ; for almost at the 

 instant he came forward, cheering his men, and 

 calling on them to charge, he fell riddled by our 

 bullets — stukken geschiet (shot to pieces). When that 

 happened, then your men fled, and we shot them down 

 like rheboks as they ran down the mountain-side ; for 

 our battle-blood was up. Many of them jumped down 



