Ebook Besieged by the Boers

Makes its living directly or indirectly from the Company, and for all practical purposes Kimberley and the Company are one. The town is six hundred and forty-seven miles by rail from Cape Town, and four hundred and eighty-five from Port Elizabeth, and there is no English town nearer than the last-named place. The Cape Town to Bulawayo line passes through the town; but from the Orange River (seventy-seven miles south of Kimberley) it runs for quite four hundred miles close to the Orange Free State and Transvaal borders — never more than ten miles, often only two or three, away from them. Kimberley itself is about four miles from-the border. From its isolated position it could, therefore, be cut off with the greatest'ease, and only relieved with the greatest difficulty, whilst the chance of looting its good shops and well-furnished private houses must have had an irresistible attraction for the pious Boer and his still more.