A Yankee Account of the Battle of Majuba Hill.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 485, 2 July 1890, Page 6

A Yankee Account of the Battle of Majuba Hill.

On the second day of August, 1881, I went on board at Calcutta the English barque Cecilia, loaded with provisions for the coolies in the Natal colony, South Africa, and started for Port Natal, and made the trip in sixty-four days. I landed there just after the death of Sir George Colley, and his four or five thousand men that were killed by the Boers, as they are called, but, properly speaking, the white settlers of Transvaalthey are not all Dutch. I think I saw as many Scotch and Irish as Dutch, and they all speak English, I heard a very good account of Sir George. It was his first time out, and, after he took a glance at where the Boers were located, he laughed'to think of a few old farmers having the cheek to dare to resist Her Majesty. So he telegraphed back to Cape Town, saying that the next day at 1.45 p.m. he would plant the British flag on Prospect Hill. So at good daylight next morning the march was ordered, and just as soon as the English got within 600 yards, the Boers began to pick them off with their long-, range rifles. It was all up hill with the English, for they could see no one to shoot at. For the Boers on top of the hill were protected by a stone wall ; then between them and the English was a ditch about 20 feet wide and 14 feet deep, that no one could get over without a bridge. So if they had come up to the ditch the Boers would have laid down their rifies and picked up frheir large breech-loading shot guns, which every one of them had with him, and used ‘blue whistlers’; and as they are all the very best of marksmen, they would soon have killed all the soldiers England had had there, and not have lost a man. The 69bli Highlanders, who had been in India and other parts one year over their time—that is, twenty-two years—had just come down to Bombay to start home to be paid off. They gave them a good send-off in Bombay, and got them to let their families go home through the Suez Canal, and wanted them to go over, around by the Cape, to teach a few old Dutchmen out there in Africa to respect Her Majesty. So after a good deal of coaxing they went, and Colley led them up the hill about seventyfive yards. Then he was shot dead, and so were almost all the bold 69th, as well as the rest of the command.

If the Boers had liked, they could have killed them all; but those that ran and bid in the jungles were called out after the battle was over and let go free. The Boers then took all the English armsandammunition, and 150 transport waggons, all loaded with provisions, arms, and food for the animals—and one of the waggons had 20,000 pounds. All went to the Transvaal; then they were rich. In a few days out came more troops to clean out the Boers. They gave them a month to come under the flag, or be all killed. They would not obey, so at the end of the month orders came from England not to molest the Boers any more, but to recognise them as a Republic, which was the best thing they ever did ; for if they had gone up there again they would not have found the Boers alone, bub about 10,000 good troops from the Orange Free State, and about three times that number from the Cape and Natal colonies ; and I should have been one of them, as I had joined a company in Durban to go and help the Boers. Then if they had whipped the English out of the Transvaal, they would have had to get out of the colonies as well, for it was the intention to unite all together, and make one Republic of them. The English troops were the poorest set of men I ever saw in uniform, very few of them over sixteen years old, and picked out of the streets of- the towns. The whole lot would not have lasted more than two hours, and not that long if they could get them in shooting distance of the farmers, — ‘Overland Monthly.’