Strange to say, the Boers nearly always took from the English their Christmas dinners. The first Christmas they took nearly all the Queen's chocolates, the second Christmas, all the plum puddings, and now General De Wet, a third Christmas, has taken the poor devils' Christmas dinner from them again. I heard some prisoners once say that they wished their friends at home would secretly send them Christmas dinners three months ahead, so that they could get them and eat them before the Boers found it out. Generals Smuts and Kritsinger continued to make things merry in Cape Colony, and their commandants helped themselves to several convoys, much to the regret of the English, but with great pleasure to themselves. Before the month closed, however, General Kritsinger was severely wounded while trying to rescue one of his wounded men near a blockhouse, and was in consequence captured. In this was a severe loss, for he was a dashing and persistent fighter. Many other small fights took place, and the Boer commandants were generally successful in taking a few prisoners and wagons. CHAPTER XXIV. DESTRUCTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN--THE ONLY WAY TO END THE WAR--SCOTS GREYS ROUTED--ENGLISH TROOPS AND ARMED KAFFIRS FIGHT SIDE BY SIDE--GEN. DE WET COMPLETELY CORNERED. The year 1901 came to an end and the Boers were still in excellent spirits, and good fighting trim. Our little command was twenty-five miles from Pretoria, and in addition to our dinner of mealie pap and fresh meat, we received through our famous spy, Captain Naude, our weekly mail from Pretoria. Letters informed us that Lord Kitchener wanted reinforcements to bring the war to a speedy end, and that the application of martial law in Cape Colony was making trouble among the British subjects. With all this the burghers were highly pleased, but the further news, that their women and children were daily dying by the hundreds in the prison camps, cast a gloom over all, and they spent most of the afternoon and evening in prayer. Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, Joe Chamberlain and Milner, all fully realized that the only way to bring the war to a speedy end was to destroy the Boer women and children as quickly as possible. They all worked to the same diabolical end, and within eighteen months their death lists contained the names of 22,000 defenceless Boer women and children.