I let myself be talked over, and sent all my cattle away. I had two waggons; I let one go with the cattle. I remained with one waggon, a tent, a spider and four cows. All the rest went in the flight. The “khakis” came on in large numbers. They came swarming over the ground. I said, “Where can all these ‘khakis’ have come from that there should be such crowds of them?” Still I did not go away, but stayed on at the place called Corsica, belonging to Mr Meyer, where his wife was still living and some other women besides. We kept on hearing of large armies that were advancing. All our men were away. Suddenly we heard the sound of fighting not very far from us. Then all at once we saw horsemen coming up over the rise. We saw that they were Boers, and we asked where the troops were. “Not far from here,” they said. “We have just been fighting with them.” It was already late and the burghers went away. In the morning we got up early, knowing that the troops would be getting here very soon. We had not even breakfasted yet when we saw them coming over the rise. I thought to myself, “What will they do to me now? I have been fleeing before them for eighteen months and they were doing all they could to catch me, but in vain. Perhaps they will revenge themselves on me now. But,” I thought, “the Lord has always watched over me till to-day, and He will continue to do so.” They stopped a few hundred paces away from us and rode up and down there for a little while. Suddenly they dashed up to my waggon, came up to where I was sitting behind, and one of them asked me where the Boers were. I answered, “There are none here.” “When were they here last?” “They went away from here yesterday afternoon.” “Where are the commandoes?” he asked. “I know nothing about the commandoes.” Then I told him that as the Kaffirs that were among the troops behaved so badly and cruelly to women and children I did not want to have anything to do with coloured people. I only had to deal with white people, and so they must just keep the coloured ones away from me. He was polite, and said, “Very well, Mrs De la Rey, you shall not be troubled by the Kaffirs.” But they kept coming continually to the waggon. I thought, “It is rousing their appetite for burning.” A Kaffir had already told my boy when he was by the fire that this waggon and tent would have to be burnt. Colonel Williams came to my daughter in front of the tent and asked whose waggon it was. When she had told him came the cruel order, “It does not matter to me whose waggon it is. The woman must get out, were she the Queen herself, and the waggon and tent must be burnt.” Then I thought to myself that I must now undergo that about which I had heard so much from others. To think that poor women must see their things taken away from them and burnt. I was very angry, and I thought, “Do what you like, I shall say what I think and what is right.”