XI. WAR INCIDENTS 170




"In the Shadow of Death."




CHAPTER I.

ANTECEDENTS.

The child is father to the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

_Wordsworth._


A few preliminary pages of personal history I offer to those who
followed me either in thought or deed during the Anglo-Boer War.

My ancestors were Germans; my grandfather was born in the South. About
the year 1820 he, along with two brothers, bade farewell to the land of
his nativity and emigrated to South Africa. They found a home for
themselves in the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth, and there they
settled as farmers. Two of the brothers married women of Dutch