Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-10-28

Savage warriors may add terror to the
struggle ,etween Great Britain and the
Boers. Everlasting enInity exists be-
tween the Beers and the fanatic Kaffirs.
aud il is not improbable that the sturdy
putchmen win have TO reckon with their
I'D foes. Ii is only 4 few years since
scenes Of savagery prevailed not exceed
I'd. if equalcd. by the Indian warfare in
the early days of America.
The story of the attack upon the Van
Ncchtan homestead shows the character
of fighting between the katfirs and
Beers. The place was surrounded by a
stockade, into which the Kafiirs plunged
with demoniac yeils They were only
separated from the brave Beers 10y the
distance of few feet. Every side OF the
Beers house was surrounded The in
side of the stockade was filed with ma
ked savages. Beyond the ramparts were
hundreds of others Steadily, with calm.
deliberate aim, the Beers fired, and at
every shot Kaffir bit the dust The
brave defenders of the homestead wiped
the smoke out of their eyes and never
moved out of the loopholes. Not single
one of the Beers was injured in this part
VI lHt Hknt dlIct o3fuSc was
bored through and through with lead,
and still the cruel, relentless firing con-
timed.
But certain death seemed to have no
terror for the Kaffirs. They climbed the
stockade in il steady stream, and no SOON
er was one laid low than another stepped
up, TO take his place. So the fight went
on until the house was set on fire. This
.t. L..
when the Beers have been imprisoned
and caught like rats in a trap. They
brought piles of brushwood, which was
placed around the ground on the outside
of the house.
Even while the flames mounted high
from the ruins of their once happy home
stead the brave Beers kept up a sullen,
hopeless firing until just before the roof
fell in. Then all was still within the
house. Suddenly the wall burst out by
the force of an explosion, and then all
was a, hopeless mass of burning, blazing
ruins. To blow up the magazine had
been the last patriotic work of the brave
defenders.
-Four days later, when the Van Vech-
tan homestead was visited by neighbors,
it was d smoking mass of ruins. Where
there had been the happy home of peace
full. liberty loving citizens was now a
black, unsightly mass, smoldering and
fitfully blazing The barns and the out
houses were all gone. the mill was burn
ed to the ground, and an abandoned plow
standing in a furrow showed where the
peaceful work of husbandry had been ar
rested. The stock on the farm had all
been driven off.
The Kaffirs did not even stop to bury
their dead but left them stepped in their
blood on the field of battle. But where
were the brave Beers who had made
such a stubborn resistance until the last
hope was gone? They were among the
group of sorrowing and vengeful Beers
who visited the homestead on that day
after the outrage. vowing that this work
of plunder and destruction should be wip-
ed out in blood. How had they escaped?
Had relief come at the last moment?
No.
The foresight of these settlers in Afri-
ca s savage wilderness had provided for
the time when they should find them
selves surrounded as by ring of fire and
blood. Transvaal homesteads do not
have a cyclone cellar. hut many have an
underground passage leading from the
cellar to some adjacent stream or hill
Such was the case with the Van Vech-
tans. A small earthly passage a short
distance underground through which but
one person could pass at time led for
500 feet to sudden depression of the