OCR Text |
Show BOER IB TO FIH I Preparing to Defend Pretoria Against the British. 4 . New Tonk, April 4. A special to the Herald from "Washington, says: After Secretary of the . Interior Hitchcock eent to Webster Davis a brief note in which he aid the president had asked him to announce that Sir. Davis' resignation res-ignation has been accepted to take effect ef-fect April 4, Mr. Davis felt at liberty then to talk freely upon the South Af-,j Af-,j rican situation and to a friend he re lated the history of his trip. . "My journey was uneventful until we crossed the Transvaal border and ; stopped at Koomatipoort," he said, i "There the whole neighborhood turned out and welcomed me. At station after af-ter station, the station master would come to bo "'n ask if there was anything he could do for mv comfort. "Yet, the English told me with great positiveness that the savage Boers would shoot me as goon as they learned I spoke English. They tell this lie so much at Cape Town that) they even got Colonel Stowe, our consul there, to believe it. At Pretoria, I was given a cordial greeting. Marvelous to etate, during all the time I was there not one man asked me whether I favored the British or Boers. "I viewed the defenses of Pretoria and I consider them impregnable. 1 do not believe the English troops will ever paes the line of hilla surrounding the town, bristling as they are with high power Krupp and Creutot guns. "There seems a very general impression impres-sion that the guns used by the Boers in the field were taken from the fortresses fort-resses at Pretoria, but I saw every earthwork and fort surrounding the town and I could not see where any guns had been removed. They were all there and formidable they looked. "When I describe the city as impreg nable, I speak from the judgment of a man of common sense. Pretoria lies in a basin surrounded by rugged hills, affording af-fording most admirable opportunities for defense. While there I learned enough to know that the city is one vast storehouse of fjodttuffs and ammunition. am-munition. "What imprested me nvst was the natural bigness of that grand old man, Kruger. I consider him as possessed of more of the elements of greatness than any man I .ever met. At 75 he is as full of vigor as the average man who owns up to twenty years less. His versatility versatil-ity impressed me deeply. "I have it on unimpeachable author ity, that the battle of Coleneo, .where Builer wa crushed by the Boers, was planned entirely by this old man.. Jou-bert Jou-bert carried out Kruger'e instructions to the letter and won that signal. victory vic-tory by the directions of an old man away up there in Pretoria. ' "I was present at the battle of Spion Kop and saw a thin line of Boers drive an army before them. After the fight, I walked over the field and counted the dead bodies of 125 Englishmen in one trench, where the Boers had placed them for burial.- During my stay in the neighborhood. I visited every laager in the lines surrounding the city and talked with scores of officers and men. "I visited the linfe along the Tugela, where Buller and his 40.000 men were held at bay, and I speak from'the most positive knowledge when I say that all of the Boer troops in that region numbered num-bered but 7.0(h). With this forcjc-Jou-' bert and Botha held Bul'er back and kept White and his 15,000 men corralled in the town. i ! nm W nen ironje was iiiienicucu, u.'i-v men were sent to him from Ladysmith. leaving about 4.000 to face the 55,000 men of the enemy. At the battle of the Little Tugela, when Builer v.z& again driven back upon Chieveley, I saw General Louis Botha in action and I consider him the greatest great-est of the Dutch commanders. When the fighting began, Botha was sauntering saunter-ing along behind the line of trenches watching his men taking careful shots at the advance of the British force. "For half an hour after we could first detect the movement, there was not much excitement, but aii at once there was a rush of cavalry and artillery and the double quick of infantry in open order. The bullets began to patter around us and two burghers were hit close beside Botha. He seemed to awake instantly and sprang down into the trench- exclaiming exclaim-ing "Shoot, shoot" in Dutch. As the word was carried along the lines, he caught up the rille from the hands of a dead burgher and began making quick but careful shots at the foe. "Five minutes and it was over, as quickly as the rufh had begun. From the Boer side it was like the Kinline description a fight with the Fuzzy Wuzzies in the desert. "At Pretoria I met President Steyn. I also learned that there is no truth in the report coming from English sources concerning dissensions between the two presidents. They are in perfect accord. "As I said before, I do not believe the British will ever enter Pretoria Even the women of the town are supplied sup-plied with rifles and are daily practicing practic-ing in marksmanship. Some of them are very expert and their average shooting is good. The strength of Kruger and his burghers lies in the belief that God is with them." |