As I have already stated, the burgher had to boil or roast his own meat.
The roasting was done on a spit cut in the shape of a fork, the wood
being obtained from a branch of the nearest tree. A more ambitious fork
was manufactured from fencing wire, and had sometimes even as many as
four prongs. A skillful man would so arrange the meat on his spit as to
have alternate pieces of fat and of lean, and thus get what we used to
call a _bout span_.[3]

The burghers utilized the flour supplied to them in making cakes; these
they cooked in boiling fat, and called them _stormjagers_[4] or
_maagbommen_.[5]

Later on, the British, finding that by looting our cattle they could get
fresh meat for nothing, were no longer forced to be content with
bully-beef. They then, like ourselves, killed oxen and sheep; but,
unlike us, were very wasteful with it. Often, in the camping places they
had vacated, we found the remains of half-eaten oxen, sheep, pigs, and
poultry.

But I shall not go further into this matter. I leave it to other pens to
describe how the British looted our property, wantonly killed our
cattle, and devastated our farms. In the course of this narrative my
intention is to mention only those cases which I saw with my own eyes.
The reader, perusing them, may well pause in surprise and cry out, "Can
such things be possible?" To such a question I have only one
answer--"They actually occurred, and so my only course is to record
them."

But enough of these digressions. Let me return to my proper subject--the
story of my own experiences and doings in the great struggle which took