one commando to another, or scouts and patrols on active duty, stopped at the farmhouses for food for themselves and their horses, and the women gladly prepared the finest feasts their larder afforded.  No remuneration was ever accepted, and the realisation that they were giving even indirect assistance to their country’s cause was deemed sufficient payment for any work performed.  Certain farmhouses which were situated near frequently travelled roads became the well-known rendezvous of the burghers, and thither all the women in the neighbourhood wended their way to assist in preparing meals for them.  Midway between Smaldeel and Brandfort was one of that class of farmhouses, and never a meal-time passed that Mrs. Barnard did not entertain from ten to fifty burghers.  Near Thaba N’Chu was the residence of John Steyl, a member of the Free State Raad, whose wife frequently had more than one hundred burgher guests at one meal.  When the battle of Sannaspost was being fought a short distance from her house, Mrs. Steyl was on one of the hills overlooking the battlefield, interspersing the watching of the progress of the battle with prayers for the success of the burghers’ arms.  As soon as she learned that the Boers had won the field she hastened home and prepared a sumptuous meal for her husband, her thirteen-year-old son, and all the generals who took part in the engagement.

When the winter season approached and the burghers called upon the Government for the heavy clothing which they themselves could not secure, there was another embarrassing situation, for there was only a small quantity of ready-made clothing in the country, and it was not an easy matter to secure it through the blockaded port at Delagoa Bay.  There was an unlimited quantity of cloth in the country, but, as all the tailors were in the commandos at the front, the difficulty of converting the material into suits and overcoats seemed to be insurmountable until the women found a way.  Unmindful of the other vast duties they were engaged in they volunteered to make the clothing, and thenceforth every Boer home was a tailor’s shop.  President Kruger’s daughters and grand-daughters, the Misses Eloff, who had been foremost in many of the other charitable works, undertook the management of the project, and they continued to preside over the labours of several hundred women who worked in the High Court Building in Pretoria until the British forces entered the city.  Thousands of suits of clothing and overcoats were made and forwarded to the burghers in the field to protect them against the rigors of the South African winter’s nights.