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
Her daughter (Mrs Bodenstein) is also a mother of seven children, and
when I saw her she told me that she had nothing for her children, not a
single blanket had been left to her. When she went to complain to the
English officer, he only asked her, “Who is the man who did it?” The
man who did it was nowhere to be found. But the harm had been done, and
in the same way not one, but many had to suffer. May no other people
in the world ever have to endure another such war so long as the world
may last. I do not think that it can be forgotten. I cannot say who it
was who were wrong, we or our adversaries. But this I can say, that
it was terrible to bear. Never could I have thought that human beings
could treat each other in such a way. I know well that war is one of
the blackest things upon earth, still I cannot depart from all sense
of justice and put down every sort of barbarity to war and consider it
right. As we were known to the whole world as two Christian nations,
I had thought that such things could not be allowed. But I have been
taught that suffering and misery can go on increasing to the bitter
end, and that in war no deed can be too hard or cruel to be committed.
[Illustration: Four of Mrs De la Rey’s children, with two little girl
friends.]
Here are four of my children who during all my wanderings were with me
all the time. A Frenchman near my waggon took this photograph; he found
it very amusing to take the children in that way. The girl with the
revolver is the daughter of Field-Cornet Meyer, at whose place I was
then staying. The Frenchman slung round the children all the guns and
revolvers and field-glasses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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