General Pole-Carew's march and prompt measures were also producing excellent effects, and helping to correct the misunderstandings created in the ignorant mind by British leniency. Till now the Boers had not been taught that there was necessity for honour even among foes, but now the General took drastic measures to show burghers on whose farms he found rifles that British "magnanimity" was not without its limits. Wherever these turncoats were found their horses and cattle were captured, their meal and provisions destroyed or carried off. In this way the delinquents were punished, and the Federal Army was crippled in the matter of supplies. Generals Pole-Carew and Stephenson, in conjunction with General Rundle's advance, and acting on information from the Intelligence Department, had made a round of certain farms in the district of Leeuw Kop, and everywhere propagated their wholesome lesson. The women and children, however, were treated with great consideration. There were, of course, tragic moments with these weaklings, whose notions of morality in the art of war were nil. All that interested them was to preserve their homesteads, and sell at as profitable rates as possible their goods to the first British buyer who had money in his pocket. They saw no sin in declaring they had no concealed ammunition when the place was stocked with it, or in handing out a few disabled rifles and burying the better ones for use "on a rainy day." Only when General Pole-Carew insisted that the Boers should give up with their Mausers a reasonable amount of ammunition, on pain of being seized as prisoners of war, were Mausers and ammunition in plenty forthcoming. There was now no doubt that these prompt measures helped to clear the military situation with astonishing rapidity. A typical conversation which conveyed a world of instruction took place during one of General Pole-Carew's invasions. A young Transvaal prisoner, who was standing among the confiscated goods from many farms, was questioned how long he thought the war would last. He cast a rueful glance at the commandeered effects, and said, "Not long, if this continues!" General Pole-Carew could have had no greater compliment to his acumen in dealing with what for more than a month past had been a perplexing problem!