[14] 100 prisoners, 30 male refugees, 300 women, 980 children, 400 black refugees, 30,000 sheep, 6,000 cattle, 300 horses. [15] Pte. Pruce, E Company. [16] Prisoners of War 53 Rifles 4 Ammunition 500 rounds Dynamite 10 lbs. Horses 558 Ox wagons 36 Cape carts 30 Cattle 2052 Sheep 15000 Refugees. White men 3 " women 131 " children 467 Black men 2 " women 7 " children 70 [17] Pte. Boniface, of G Company, was killed there. On the same day Pte. Shorney, of H Company, was mortally wounded at Hex River. CHAPTER XXIV. TWO DISTRICTS. A derelict town--The district--Entertainments--British "commandos"--Hertzog's Adjutant--Back to Springfontein-- Vlakfontein--The scene of a disaster--Caledon River--Edenburg-- Stranded traction engines--Ventershoek--"Commandos" again. Col. du Moulin moved out of Springfontein on the 21st of July to take over the district which had been assigned to him, and which lay west of the line, and north of the Orange River, round about the town of Philippolis. He had under him about 600 men of the Sussex, nearly all mounted, and a section of the 7th Battery (Capt. Geoghegan and Lieut. Chamier), besides the pom-pom. Philippolis, which for the next two months was used as the headquarters and rendezvous of the column, lies at the head of a valley some 15 miles west of the railway. The usual stone Church looks down the usual main street of one-storied tin-roofed buildings. Two other parallel streets and a few cross roads make up the town. It is surrounded by bare veldt; a eucalyptus or two and a couple of rows of cypress down the main street are the only trees to be seen for miles round. At this time there were still a few inhabitants remaining, although most of the houses were quite empty. At first, here as elsewhere, the town had been left undisturbed under authorities appointed by the British; but, when the local commandos again took up arms, authorities and townspeople had alike to be brought in to the line; and now the last of them was to be removed, Lord Kitchener's order being not to leave a living thing. For if inhabitants were left, food must be left too; and what was food for the inhabitants was food also for the local commandos--or the fragments of them that lurked in the hills round. Besides this, information, more valuable even than food, would be spread as to the movements of columns. The supreme object at this juncture was to make life impossible for the Boers under arms.