I crossed the Orange River into the Orange River Colony on or about the 15th of August last.  It is brought back to my memory inasmuch as Commandant Cachet was killed on the 15th of August in the district of Venterstad in the Cape Colony.  I did not take any natives prisoner prior to crossing the river.  Commandant Wessels was with me before I got to the river, about five or six miles from the river he left me and crossed.  I crossed the Orange River on the Bethulie side.  Wessels crossed the river on the Norval’s Pont side.  I did not see him cross the river.  After crossing I went to the first farm.  No one was at home there, and I off-saddled.  The name of the farm is unknown to me.  It was a farm that had been burnt.  When I arrived at that farm there was no other commando there.  Before I crossed the river I heard rifle-fire, but after I had off-saddled for a little while I heard cannon-fire.  The firing came from the west, from the direction which Wessels had crossed the river.  The cannon-firing also came from the same direction.

I mounted a horse and rode up a kopje to see if I could see anything that might be taking place.  The kopje was about 1,000 to 1,200 yards from my laager.  I was riding a chestnut horse.  I went to the kopje alone, but a man by the name of Michael Coetzee, whom I intend to call as a witness, was on the kopje on duty as a sentinel.  I remained there a considerable time.  I saw cannon-firing on a little ridge on the Colony side of the river.  I heard rifle-fire while I was on the kopje.  I returned to the laager.  The firing was in the direction of the laager.  When I got back to the laager Commandant Wessels was there, off-saddled.  After I arrived at the camp I spoke to him about the firing I had heard.  I knew that some of the farmer’s cattle were being brought in for the purpose of slaughtering, and I asked Wessels why they fired so many shots at the animals, and he replied that a couple of Kaffirs had been shot.  I was chaffing Wessels when I asked him why they fired so many shots at the animals.  When I was on the kopje I certainly did not know that Wessels had taken natives prisoner.  I did not see these natives after they had been shot.  I do not know the boy Jan Louw.  I did not speak to him that day, nor to any other native.  The Wessels in question is the Commandant Louis Wessels, who passed into the Colony from the Orange River Colony, and I met him three or four days before I crossed.  The day after our meeting we had a skirmish with the British.  Wessels and I got separated.  The following day we met again on the farm of Van der Keever.  He was not under my command in the Colony, nor in the Orange River Colony.  I had about between seventy and eighty men when I crossed the river, and Wessels had between thirty and forty men.  I had a few natives shot in the Orange River Colony prior to my crossing into the Colony in the first instance.  These were tried by Captain