Show THE OF IVA hafi R SHOWN ON EIGHT HUNDRED MILES OF battlefields from beaufort west to johannesburg boer and briton grappled irk death struggle devastated territory must have been terrible spectacle special correspondence eight hundred miles of battlefields in an almost straight line from beaufort west of johannesburg yet this i 1 only one af oj the three great lines alou alonga 9 A and nd between n which the stub bornest fights of modern days were waged As the limited mail and trundled on for twe days and nights through the stricken fields ones mind went babit to the querulous questionings of th the e armchair ceans at home as to when the war yas waa 2 grand hotel going to end for the man who travels from capetown to johannesburg with his eyes open the wonder is that it ever ended on the lower portions of the line war has left few traces behind it A blockhouse perched here and there about the stony sedny heights of the hex river pass whither the boldest of doer boer or rebel did not dare to venture a litter of bully beef biscuit tins and bottles marking a camping ground that was alli all P for here briton and boor boer had not yet come to death grips but when tm th train has cleared the mountains and is moving on with that trotting gait peculiar to narrow gauge railways across the karr oo 00 a long range of hills rises to the left and as we swing past a little wayside station called bathas halt a red cleft opens about six miles away it is one of the many graves of reputations which the war has left behind it for into that death trap scout scentless tess and unsuspecting marched a convoy strong on the plain below by a little dark clump of blue gums are the graves of the men whose wasted lives paid the pen alty of carelessness and tence presently a little octagonal brown walled grey roofed structure surrounded by a mound of red earth looms up ahead to the right it drops behind and another rises to the left and band now mile after mile hour after hour and day clay after day they will A v succeed each other as interminably as the endless lines of barbed wire on either hand for now we have entered that mighty web which the patient genius of K of K X slowly spun round the fe feet et of the elusive boer till at last lak tripped entangled and cornered he had to own himself beaten there are few out of all the thousands of these tiny fortresses that do not mark the cen center ter of come some nameless little and every here and w there you may see proof of this in t the h p pebble ebble ringed mounds beside them nameless as the fight in which the sleeper below gave his life for his country near some of them are the th e remains of gardens addens ar dens the paths m marked with white stones and in the center a mound bearing the device of the regiment to which the lonely litt little IL garrison belonged A AT I 1 a any ny of the larger ones near important stations and al afe ibe ends of bridges are veri veritable tible forts solidly built of stone and loop holed for machine guns as we as fifles ii fles on one of these guarding the bridge just outside richmond road station stands in bold black letters the familiar legend this house to let imagine the joy that must have been in the hearts of ane humorists who traced these words on the walls of what had been their fortress prison for so many weary weeks it is only when you have traveled at a very respectable speed for alf fifty ty hours or so through blockhouses fences and cunningly devised networks of entanglements entangle ments that you can form any clear idea of the colossal magnitude of the scheme which K of K conceived and the bratle patient nt hato 0 or mr adkins executed in cape colony the relies relics of war are few and far between and many a farm that sheltered the enemy and to him as an arsenal has escaped the fate it merited in fact I 1 only say one or two in ruins all the way from beaufort west to the orange river but from thence onward you may trace the red track kracl of war from end to end of the once smiling and prosperous land just across the bridge a little to the right the blackened ruins of a big farm house stand gaunt and silent amid its groves of poplars and the orchards on both sides of the little stream that flows through what was once a smiling oasis in the wilderness of the veldt hence for foi hundreds of miles you can scarcely see a farm that is not deserted or a house that is not roofless and tenantless the country for miles south of jo johannesburg h an is an absolute wider ness tenanted ten anted only by ragged kaffits firs mangy dogs dog and mobs of forlorn horses mutes A and fand lon monkeys aon key keys burnea loose to rest and feed or starve die as the remains of their strength may determine and the as wheeling watchfully above them waiting for some poor starving brute too weak to feed to sink on to its knees and roll over it was here that the long pent u up fury of mr air atkins was finally lot let loose here that the disasters and disgraces graceson of kop nicholsons Nich olsons nek colenso and Magers fontein were wiped out in blood and fire every night as the demoralized Boers sought refuge and a little breathing space in the hills they looked back and saw miles of fire marking where their crops and homesteads had been awen ty your four hours before only a single house in all the hundred miles was left and that was saved by the prayers and tears of a newly wedded bride those who saw it tell me that that hundred mile sweeping hurricane of TAX V F 4 T 1 P V i dutch church shot and shell bullet and stee steely flame fla 1 me and furious vengeance alice was the mot terrible spectacle in all the war would that in some prophetic vision U I 1 have been behold four bour years ngo ago by the men whose gree greed Fand and ambition made it the eastly hast ly necessity that it was but the coming of peace has stirred to new energy both doer boer and briton and ibe has development of the devastated country is proceeding with remarkable speed soon the re stocked farina will have the aspect of happiness and prosperity they wore before the flood of war swept them bare with the tide of immigration that inevitably evit ably will set in when the territory has been put in order a new era will begin and the foundations will lie be laid for the great republic which it is south destiny to become our illustrations show three ot of the principal buildings in the city of pro pre r Raad toria the dutch church is the one in which ex president kruger worshiped |