After all the farms had been burnt, all property destroyed and there was no food to be had, and after more than 15,000 women and children had been buried, Lord Kitchener made a very generous and English-like offer to General Louis Botha. He said that he would return all the Boer women and children to their farms and give them three months' rations if Botha wished to have them. General Botha replied that he would be pleased to receive them, but six months' ration must be furnished so that they would have time to grow a crop, as he had no food for them. Lord Kitchener declined to accept General Botha's amendment, for it plainly meant that the women and children would not starve to death and that the Boers would not have to surrender to save them. CHAPTER XXVII. A PERFECT SPY SYSTEM--CAPTAIN NAUDE AND HIS FEMALE SPIES OF GREAT SERVICE--THE ATTITUDE OF THE AMERICAN CONSULS. During the last two years of the war, the Boers had a perfect system of communication with Pretoria and Johannesburg. Captain J.J. Naude, a young Boer about twenty-three years old, was chief spy, and it was he who organized the force that did the work. In Pretoria he had seven Boer ladies, all smart and daring, and all prominent in Pretoria society. Their duty was to collect all information, official and otherwise, about what the English were doing in Pretoria, and what their intentions might be, have it typewritten and ready for delivery every Wednesday evening. Every Monday, dressed in an English officer's uniform, Captain Naude would work his way through wire fences, forts, blockhouses and three lines of guards, into the town and stop at the home of a Mrs. Van W----. Sometimes he would stop with one of his other spies, at the home of a Mrs. M----. Another one of his spies, a Mrs. H----, often drove with him in a carriage through the streets during the day, and visited certain important places. The English soldiers invariably saluted Captain Naude as he passed by them. In the evening, at the house where he was staying, Miss M----, known as "Little Megs," Mrs. A----, possibly Mrs. J----, Mrs. M----, and Mrs. H----, would assemble to talk over the situation, put everything in proper form for Captain Naude, and then quietly return to their homes. These ladies would in person deliver all letters brought in by Captain Naude from the burghers in the field, and he would take back the answers. He conducted his affairs in Johannesburg in the same way, but here his assistants brought out a typewritten paper every week, telling the people what had happened in the field, which the English tried to keep concealed. These typewritten papers would be posted up early in the morning, and before the English authorities could find and tear them down, hundreds of people had read them.