At Eland's Laagte
a very promising coal field is being worked, from which great and
important results are expected in the future. Soon after crossing the
Transvaal border we passed the battle fields of Laing's Nek, Majuba
Hill, and Ingogo, names indelibly associated with one of the saddest, as
well as most humiliating, episodes of English modern military history,
in connection with the Transvaal War of 1881. I gazed mournfully on
Majuba Hill, that black spot of bitter memories to every Briton, and of
natural exultation and pride to the Boers; and on Colley's grave, the
unfortunate commander, whose unhappy and most unaccountable military
blunder led to the lamentable and fatal defeat, which cost him his life,
and resulted in the miserable fiasco--the retrocession of the Transvaal
to the Boers. It is impossible to estimate the damage done to British
influence, prestige, and power by the political consequences resulting
from that disastrous day.
[Illustration: CEMETERY, MAJUBA HILL.]
The south-eastern part of the Transvaal is as bare, and treeless, and
altogether as uninteresting and unattractive as the south western
region, between Bechuanaland and Klerksdorp, through which I had
travelled a few weeks previously.
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