I had great difficulty at that time to keep things straight; as I have many children it grew extremely difficult to keep them all clean. Soap was still very scarce; I could not get more anywhere. As far as clothes were concerned I was happy as long as they were only clean. A man told me he had scraped off some deposit of saltpetre from a wall at Schoonspruit and had made good soap. As soon as possible I got a bag of it and also made some very good soap, so that I had not to worry about that any longer. After we had been here about three weeks General De la Rey came back from the Zwartruggens after the defeat of Colonel Van Donop, which took place at Kleinfontein on the 24th of October 1901. It was on the 24th of October 1901, the very day that we had been married for twenty-five years, that a terrible battle was fought, in which many people were killed or wounded, and among them one more good friend of ours, Commandant Kritzinger, and his son, both of whom were killed. So that we had on this day, instead of a silver wedding feast, a terrible shedding of blood. There were great losses on both sides. But the burghers were now, however, well supplied again with clothes and other things which they had been needing badly. We had made up our minds to stay here, when suddenly came the report that the troops were advancing. We made a hurried start in the direction of Harts River, and went on from there till past the Zoutspannen. When the enemy had gone off in another direction back we went again slowly all along the Harts River. Whenever we thought that we were going to be left in peace for a little while, we would find that the English troops were coming in such numbers that we would have to go on trekking backwards and forwards without any respite. With the approach of Christmas things grew quieter. I went to Doornfontein, Badenhorst’s place. The houses had been injured but not quite destroyed, so that I was able to make use of one during the time that I remained.