A woman's wanderings and trials during the Anglo-Boer WarDe la Rey, Jacoba Elizabeth
History
A woman's wanderings and trials during the Anglo-Boer War
De la Rey, Jacoba Elizabeth
De La Rey, Jacoba Elizabeth, 1856-1923; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Personal narratives
For only think to what all that has brought them. Some became traitors;
too spiritless to help their own people, they were courageous enough
to take up arms to help the English; on all those rests the guilt of
their brothers’ blood. The result was to render those who held on still
more steadfast and to teach them still greater abhorrence of treachery
and of bad faith.
As they had struggled and suffered for so long, and it had not pleased
God to deliver them into the hand of their enemy, they did not wish
to be themselves the ones to do it. And I was entirely at one with
them, for their story and mine were one and the same. It still remains
inexplicable to me how for seventeen months I had been able to fly with
my children, many a day not knowing what to do.
It is often hard and difficult to “trek” round with so many children
and not to be able to get clothes and other necessaries for them.
And yet I was able to say every day, “The Lord has helped me and
strengthened me, like He helped the widow of Zarephath, so that her
cruse never failed her, but always remained full.” Often as I lay in
bed at night, feeling so depressed by the thought of what would come of
it all, did I repeat Hymn 22, “Rest, my soul, thy God is King,” and the
last verse, “Your God is King, be contented with your lot.”
And every day the Lord strengthened me in this manner, so that I had no
right to be faithless. And it was the same with our people.
They went on with their meetings, and every time they decided to
persevere and not give up. Everywhere it was the same.
I thought, “Who is it that makes the burghers so strong? It is beyond
man’s comprehension.”
Yet if one remembers the place of Golgotha, then one can better
understand.
That the Saviour must suffer so much, and yet be innocent, was a
difficult thing for His disciples to understand at the time. It was
known throughout the world that the Saviour must die, and undergo the
most cruel treatment, but men could not tell why it should be.
And we do not know why this people should suffer so bitterly; some day
we shall learn the reason.
When the meetings were over in the Lichtenburg district they went to
the Zwartruggens and Marico. I was then in the Lichtenburg district.
As soon as the General had left Lichtenburg the “khakis” began to
“trek” on.
They were already advancing rapidly towards Vryburg. I heard that they
were coming on in such large numbers that I thought, “Why is it that
the ‘khakis’ can never let me have a little peace? I shall go somewhere
where I can stay in some little comfort, and I will not fly any more,
for they are busy making peace. Let the ‘khakis’ come if they like.”
People were all flying away with their cattle as hard as they could.
They advised me to let my cattle also go with the rest. I said, “I do
not know what will be best. I have not come across the troops for a
long time, and I do not know what they would do now if I were to meet
them.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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