Evening star., 1901-09-14
BURIED SUPPLIES.
One Reason Why the Beers Can Com
tfnue the War.

One reason why the Beers Can Con-
tfnue the War.
Capetown Letter to London Express
The desperate attack made upon 400 men
under Colonel Crabbe by large number Of
Beers under Kritzinger near Cradock is at
the present juncture Of considerable i'm
portance. It proves that Kritzinger's force
is much more formidable than even the
commanders of the columns chasing him
had any idea. He was officially reported
on July Is as being in command of $50 men,
mostly dismounted, and deficient of ammu
milton; yet he could surround force of
400 veterans and fire thousands of rounds
of ammunition at them for whole day.
The local farmers reported isolated bodies
of Beers. but no commando of more than
fifty strong, and 1t was this that induced
Colonel Crabbe to leave his guns and his
convoy and take the advice Of the critics
who live In London. More mobility is now
the cry even In Capetown. but you can't
move transport wagons and fifteen-pound-
ers more than twenty-five miles per diem
even in fiat country. General French has
under his command three mobile columns
with light-wheeled machine guns only, and
supplies carried on pack horses. These
columns will move between garrisoned sup
ply bases, and will be able to-in the most
sparsely settled districts-stop out seven
days. Official reports have it that there
are 2,1OO of the enemy, Of whom 1,SOO are
rebels, under arms today south of the
Orange river.
That this number Is far short Of the
mark the experience Of Crabbe's force am
ply proves, for commanders are cOntinu-
ally cropping up where they are least ex-
pected. That they have an excellent sys-
TEN Of Intelligence goes without saying,
and now it is being generally recognized
as true that the second invasion of the
colony was no spontaneous movement, but
well-conceived scheme. Supplies of am
munition and food were buried all over the
rebel districts of this colony, and only last
rtha6 of these caches hv
pure accident quite close to Dordrecht 1t
was found to consist Of timed foods, sup
plies sufficient for 500 men for seven days..
while the boxes OF ammunitfon-mostly
Lee-Metford, by the way-have been vari-
ously estimated at from 10000 to $1,000
rounds. My informant said that he saw
forty cases, which would mean 10000 car
tridges.
What a mine of information. what a tale
of duped colonial officialdom, does this Boer
supply nest reveal? When Hertzogs COM
mando came south at the end OF last De.
cember, what assurance did we not get
that the invasion was the rash act of the
despairing Beers whose sources of sup
plies in the Free State were exhausted; that
the Dutch farmers Of Cape Colony, satis-
fed with the leniency of the Cape treason
BILL would not only refuse to assist the
| invaders, but would certainly take up arms
to repel them by force? That occurred
eight months ago.
Since that date we have killed and cap
tured 1,3OO Beers and rebels south of the
Orange and yet here today we get intelli-
gence of the surrouding and the almost
providential escape of a force OF 400 OF our
veterans in a district traversed by our
forces certainly every four weeks for the
last seven months. Where do these bri-
gands get their supplies, their ammunition,
their recruits? 1t is the end of winter in
this colony, the country is bare Of supplies
for man and beast. We know of the loot
ing of the towns of Murraysburg, James
town, Van Rhynsdorp, Of the sacking of
sundry ira ns of the farm raids, of all the
| avenues of supplies to desperate and cum
ming enemy; but, dependent on these
sources, the commanders could not have
held out for eight weeks leave alone eight
months.
That cache at Dordrecht solves the prob
lem-makes it all plain. When Lord Rob-
erts relieved this colony and carried the
hind him population ready to be tried for
treason and suffer being struck off cleo
toral rolls wherein in six cases out of ten
their names did not appear. They SEEM
ingly were sick of war, tired of a hopeless
struggle, but while awaiting trial they
made holes in the hills and filled the holes
with their reserve ammunition, with their
best guns and with their timed food. The
day of resurrection came with the dawn
ing Of this year, and now, eight months
after, we begin to understand the secret of
the marvellous mobility of the Boer the
reason why he can traverse long tracts of
country depleted of all foodstuffs by our
troops, and, above all, why he is able to
hurl tons of lead on our men, and still Is
| always found with his rifle and his bando-
lier full of cartridges. The problem now
awaiting solution is, How many of these
veldt depots do the enemy possess? If this
were known some idea could be formed of
the date when this miserable state of
things would end; but, alas! even our in
telligence department are unable to hazard
a