I had joined with Major Pretorius of the artillery near Bronkhorst Spruit in July, but was now separated from him because the English cut in between us at Dalmanutha when he was with one Long Tom and I was with the other. My aim was to find Pretorius, and when near Pilgrims' Rest his brother-in-law, Gustav Preller, and myself set out to find him. Just before we reached the town of Pilgrims' Rest, we saw the English, about 15,000 strong, at the drift on the Sabi River, but we moved rapidly, reached the little town and heard that Major Pretorius with his guns, was about twenty miles ahead, near Aurichstad. We spent but little time at Pilgrims' Rest, because the English were very near us. Three days later we caught up with Major Pretorius near the Devil's Pulpit on the Olifant River. We had been separated from August 26th at Dalmanutha till this day, October 1st, so that we had plenty to talk about. He had saved all his guns and had fought the English at close range for more than three weeks. We had a hard time getting the guns down the mountain to the river bank. He had six guns, including one Long Tom, and twenty-four artillery men with him. So steep and long was the open way to the river bank that we had to dismount the guns, put them on slides and turn them loose. Some would roll over, some would glide nicely, and then some would skip off into the rocks on the side. It meant a great deal of work, but every gun was landed safely without any damage whatever. We had a lookout, of course, and on the last day he reported several thousand English about six miles from us. They could certainly see the trail of the guns, and why they did not come over and take us we do not know, unless it was that they were afraid of an ambush. We now pushed on to Leydsdorp and finally reached Pietersburg on October 7th. Here we met President Steyn and his escort under command of a good soldier, Koos Boshof. In two or three days two or three thousand burghers had assembled. General Botha cut through by Kruger's Post near Lydenburg and finally reached Botha's-berg near Middleburg. He had with him quite a good command. South of the railway the Ermelo, Carolina, Bethel, Wakkerstroom and in fact all the commandos on the high veldt had gotten themselves into fighting trim. General de la Rey had assembled 6,000 men in the Western Transvaal who had surrendered their guns, armed them again, and put them in excellent fighting condition. General De Wet had put the whole Free State in perfect order, so that when we finished counting noses we found that we had about 30,000 fighting men in the field, while the English did not have over 250,000 men. Our chances were excellent, and the two little republics would have won their independence if the devil and all his angels had not been against them.