Chapter 8

[7]Butter.—Owing to the shaking of the waggon when “trekking,” the milk in the stone bottle would gradually be churned into butter.

[8]Petatas.—A species of potato.

We had all sorts of difficulties. The poor burghers were very badly off for clothes. They began tanning sheepskins and using them. We got quite clever at dressing the skins, and they were soft and clean. If a man had a pair of trousers almost worn out he would patch them up with skins. It was the same thing with boots. We called them “armoured” clothes. The women and children took “kombaarzen”[9]and made skirts and jackets out of them.

[9]Kombaarzen.—Blankets. In this case the blankets taken from the enemy.

I had always kept up through everything. If life grew too hard in one place I would move on to another; but when I had lost my cattle, and could not leave when I wanted, many a day fell heavily on me. However, thanks to the doctor and to a Frenchman who remained near us, things were better than they otherwise might have been.

We were waiting in great suspense to hear the result of the negotiations. At last there came a man with the news that peace had been declared on the 1st of June. It was wonderful. I had been so anxious to hear if it would be peace, and now when the news came I could not be joyful. I knew nothing for certain yet about the terms, and I thought, “That is the reason why I do not feel happier, although it is two years and six months now since we began this dreadful and pitilessstruggle from which we have so often longed to be delivered.”

The children were very happy. The doctor and our Frenchman still had their horses, and they rode off that same day. Other burghers fired their guns into the air for joy. They did not know what sort of a peace it was, but for the moment they could only rejoice.

I did not want to stay any longer where I was, but had still no oxen. A short way off there was a man who had a span of Government oxen. I sent my boy to this man to get them from him so that I should be able to return to my own district.

He sent the oxen, and everything was soon ready for the start, although, as I had always had two waggons with me before, it was very difficult to get everything packed into one. Whatever I was not able to load I left behindme. We had been in this place now for more than a month, and the people were sorry to see us going away. But, however hard it might be for me, on I went.

The waggon was heavy and the road very sandy, so that very often the children had to get out and walk alongside the waggon. The first place we came to belonged to Widow Lemmer. The poor old woman was very unhappy, for that very week the “khakis” had taken away her cows and everything else that she had remaining.

From there I went on again, but heard no talk of peace. I went past the Zoutspannen to the place belonging to G. Stolz.

I stopped there that Sunday. In the afternoon it was peaceful, and yet I felt so sorrowful. Saturday night I could not sleep, and that night I said to my daughter Ada,“I cannot think why I feel like this about the peace. If only it is not a surrender of arms, this peace that they talk of! But no,” I said, “it cannot be anything like that, for then it would not be peace.”

At ten o’clock next morning my children and I all met together for worship.

I felt very much affected. There had been so many Sundays spent in making war, and now to-day it was peace. Therefore I said to my children, “We have been through so many hard and bitter days, and the Almighty Father has brought us safely through our weary pilgrimage. Let us now thank Him with all our hearts.” I felt that it was only God’s goodness that had spared us from falling into the hands of our adversary.

That afternoon I went to lie down for a little in my waggon. At four o’clock in theafternoon Liebenberg arrived from Klerksdorp and came to my waggon with the report of peace. And now I had to hear that it was indeed a surrender of our arms.

I did not know how to pacify my children; they wept bitterly, and could not find words for their indignation. And yet it was peace all the same. I said to them, “Let us keep silence; later on we shall understand it all.”

I stayed there till Monday morning. As Liebenberg had come to take me to Klerksdorp, and as from there I should be able to go on to Pretoria, I soon thought to myself, “What a joy it will be when I can meet my children again, after having been separated from them for nearly two years.”

But this peace was so distasteful that I could not get over the thought of it.

When everything was packed we madeready to start. While I was driving I took my day-book. The text for that morning was Gen. xxii. 7: “And Abraham said God will provide....”

Now we went on quickly. I met on that road none but sorrowing women and children. I said sometimes, “Where can the poor burghers be that we do not meet them?”

After having travelled for a couple of days we came to Mr D. van der Merwe’s place. There I met several burghers. Van der Merwe was a good and clever man and I was glad to be able to talk with him. He told me that, however incomprehensible it might all seem, he was sure that the officers after having struggled so long and so bitterly would now also do their best.

As they had first gone to the Zwartruggens and Marico to see that the arms were allgiven up, I had not seen any of them yet.

We were now in the Lichtenburg district. I waited at Mr van der Merwe’s place. It was bitterly cold. It snowed for three days, and during all my wanderings this was the worst cold I had experienced. And there was no house to shelter us. There were plenty of buildings there, but all were more or less in ruins. It was dreadful to see them. Now came the time when the burghers in this neighbourhood also had to give up their arms.

On the 12th of June the last gun had been given up in the Lichtenburg district. That evening my people came for the first time to my tent. I thought how bitter it was to meet them in this way. My husband came to me and my son, little Coos. Little Coos cried, “Mamma, I have still got my gun.”

It was very hard for him; he could stand the war better than the peace. I did not want to speak about it with his father. The terrible shedding of blood was at end. We had offered up our property and our blood for Freedom and Justice.... Where was this freedom? where was this justice?

Jesus was betrayed by Judas. He had to die the cruel death on the cross. His death brought us everlasting life; yet Judas killed himself.

We have been betrayed by many of our burghers. We have lost our right for a time. Yet they who struggled to the end, and who resolved that right must go first without thinking of might, have kept their fortitude. However the end may have shaped itself, they are glad not to have been Judases.

There was now a great longing on the partof all those around to see the members of their families from whom they had been parted for so long.

I, too, rejoiced that I could go to Pretoria to see my children, whom I had not seen for so long a time. And I thought again of my beloved son, whom I had had to give up.

And yet I had not had to sacrifice so much; many a woman had given her husband and her children too.

We went on to Klerksdorp in my waggon. As we would have to drive for two days before getting there, and as Sunday came in between, on that day we made a halt. It was the last Sunday that I spent out on the veldt. I thought earnestly of all that had taken place. How many Sundays had I not spent in flying before the enemy?

Sunday evening we entered Klerksdorp;Monday morning I sent back the waggons which had housed me and my children for twenty months. I had grown so used to life in my waggon that I did not like to see it go away.

We went to Pretoria that evening, and I found my children in well-being. It was pleasant after such a long separation. I had been two days in Pretoria when a son was born to my daughter. Then I became a grandmother, for this was the first grand-child. He was christened Jacobus Herklaas De la Rey. I felt very grateful. In all the bitterness of those weary days I was able to say, “But He knoweth the way that I take; when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job xxiii. 10); and also as in Job ii. 10 (the last part), “What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we notreceive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”

Now, dear brothers and sisters, since we are sure that God shall prove His Word, let us stand steadfast in our faith and wait for the salvation of the Lord. This is the time of trial; now will the Lord see if we are worthy that He should make His wonders manifest unto us before the eyes of the whole world.

“Though He tarry, He knows His hour,He comes, He surely comes:And all eyes shall contemplate Him,All hearts shall realise the deedsWhich He wrought here upon earth.”

“Though He tarry, He knows His hour,

He comes, He surely comes:

And all eyes shall contemplate Him,

All hearts shall realise the deeds

Which He wrought here upon earth.”

Mesdames Ferreira and Bezuidenhout.

One of the three ladies standing up (in the accompanying photograph) is my daughter, now Mrs Ferreira; the other two are two Misses Bezuidenhout. They have there the very flags of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, which are their great treasure.The two Misses Bezuidenhout are the daughters of the Widow Bezuidenhout, my husband’s eldest sister. She is the mother of nine children; she too had her house burned down and all that she possessed taken away from her. I have often found her in tears, and she would say to me, “What is to become of us all? I and my children have not one single animal left alive, and everything on my farm has been destroyed!”

Her daughter (Mrs Bodenstein) is also a mother of seven children, and when I saw her she told me that she had nothing for her children, not a single blanket had been left to her. When she went to complain to the English officer, he only asked her, “Who is the man who did it?” The man who did it was nowhere to be found. But the harm had been done, and in the same way not one, butmany had to suffer. May no other people in the world ever have to endure another such war so long as the world may last. I do not think that it can be forgotten. I cannot say who it was who were wrong, we or our adversaries. But this I can say, that it was terrible to bear. Never could I have thought that human beings could treat each other in such a way. I know well that war is one of the blackest things upon earth, still I cannot depart from all sense of justice and put down every sort of barbarity to war and consider it right. As we were known to the whole world as two Christian nations, I had thought that such things could not be allowed. But I have been taught that suffering and misery can go on increasing to the bitter end, and that in war no deed can be too hard or cruel to be committed.

Four of Mrs De la Rey’s children, with two little girl friends.

Here are four of my children who during all my wanderings were with me all the time. A Frenchman near my waggon took this photograph; he found it very amusing to take the children in that way. The girl with the revolver is the daughter of Field-Cornet Meyer, at whose place I was then staying. The Frenchman slung round the children all the guns and revolvers and field-glasses.

At times the children thoroughly enjoyed life out on the veldt. It was often trying for them with all the hardships we were constantly encountering, but on the whole the children came off better than their elders. When there was danger they would begin to cry, but soon it would all be forgotten. They were always so ready to help me and to make everything easier for me as far as they could. It was very hard for them sometimes to lookafter themselves and keep their clothes in order. And as they always went on growing they kept growing out of their clothes and wore them out, so that they had to help to patch and make the most of them. Sometimes they would have no cups or mugs to drink out of—then they would set to work with “jambliks” and try to make mugs out of them. My brother, Jan Greef, who used sometimes to be near my waggon, would help to make mugs. He was very clever at it. Fortunately, I managed to keep always one or two cups and saucers. Cups which could break so easily during all that driving about had to be taken great care of. We were always trying to find new ways of doing things. If we wanted cotton for sewing we would take a piece of sailcloth, unravel it and use the threads, or else undo our shoe-stringsand unravel them. The girls made a large number of socks, stockings, bands, etc. We would take some sheep’s wool and card it; then the Kaffir boys made little wooden “machines,” and with them wove the wool into strands.

Three of Mrs De la Rey’s children.

Here are also three more of my children, the three youngest. The little boy in the middle, Gabriel Johannes, is now six. He often used to say to the English soldiers, “Hands up,” and then they would laugh at him. It was a pleasure to him to be flying away; whenever we had been long in one place, he would say, “I wish we had to run away again; not from the ‘khakis,’ but just so as to be driving.” When he heard that the burghers had to give up their arms, he said, “I am not going to give my gun to ‘khakis’; I wouldrather break it in pieces; the ‘khakis’ shall never have it.” There he has it in his hand. It was such a momentous time, even the youngest felt the weight of it.

If I am still to go through many days of hardship in this life, let me then cast a glance upon those that are past. Because once we had so many good and happy hours, and now find ourselves so bitterly oppressed, I have often heard people say that they doubted whether there could be a God.

What I used to think of in my days that were most full of sorrow, was just that it could be no mortal that was guiding us through everything; my past life rose constantly before my eyes. My father, Hendrik Adrian Greef, who is now long since dead, was one of the Voortrekkersof Transvaal, and he went then to live in Lichtenburg, where I remained from my fourth year, till the day I was driven away by the war. My father too had had to go through a great deal; for in those days the whole place was a wilderness. When my father went on a shooting expedition, as we were living alone on the farm, my mother would not let him leave her behind; so she used to go with him with her four children, of which I was the eldest, then twelve years old. It was a wild country; one met only Kaffirs and other savage people. They were like wild beasts; as soon as they caught sight of us they would run off as hard as they could; thus very often my father could not get anybody to show him where there was water. He went on then to the Lake, andfrom there to Damaraland, so that this journey kept us for a year on the veldt. We were often in danger from the black Kaffirs, who tried to get hold of us; and often we came to places where there was no water to be found.

When passing through these later days of trial I often thought of my father, for a child does not easily forget what its father has done. When living in prosperity, it had always been my wish to walk in the ways of the Lord, and now, however hard the storm of injustice might strike me, never would it be heavy enough to part me from the love of Jesus. In the days when all was well with me I often wondered how it would be if I had to bear great troubles; and if I should not then despair. When one is happy it is easyenough to be a Christian. And though, like everyone else upon this earth, I have my cross, yet the Saviour has always made it lighter for me, so that I am able to bear it.

And this weary war has taught me to see one thing clearly;—that the bent reed will not be broken. For many a time when I thought, “Now all is over,” I would seem to hear God’s voice answering me, and saying, “He who persists unto the end shall be saved.” Thus I cannot come to understand how in such times men can drift away from God instead of drawing closer to Him.

So I can say about myself, “I shall still praise and thank the Lord for His Fatherly guidance”; for who was it that watched over me when I wandered around for many a stormy day and night?—Itwas our gracious God. Who was it that kept me and mine from falling into the hands of our adversary?—It was the Lord, before whom we must all of us come one day.

How can I then prove unfaithful? No—however great may be our sufferings, I shall always put my trust in the salvation of the Lord.

Praise the Lord, who ever will forgive your sins. How many they may be, He will graciously forgive. He knows your sufferings and will lovingly cure them. He will cleanse your life from stain, and will crown you with goodness and mercy as He saved you in your need.

Jacoba Elizabeth De la Rey,(born Greef).

COLSTON AND COY. LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH

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