In the early part of the campaign in Natal the laagers were filled with ox-waggons, and, in the absence of tents which were sadly wanted during that season of heavy rains, they stood in great stead to the burghers.
He was constantly in the laagers when there was no fighting in progress, but as soon as the report of a gun was heard the adventurer felt the necessity of going on urgent business to Pretoria.
The men were twenty miles distant from their laagers at Dundee and only a short distance from Ladysmith, but they lay down and slept on the other side of the kopje, less than a hundred yards from the cavalrymen.
He loved his home more than the laagers at the front, and he took advantage of every opportunity to return to his home and family.
Another striking feature of life in the Boer laagers was the deep religious feeling which manifested itself in a thousand different ways.
There was no regulation which forbade burghers from leaving the laagers at any time, or from proceeding in any direction, and much of the information that reached the generals was obtained from these rovers over the veld.
Several miles farther on were the hills on the outskirts of Pretoria, where, in the war of 1881, the Boer laagers sent forth men to encompass the city and to prevent the British besieged in it from escaping.
There were many old Boers who left their laagers whenever they heard the report of a gun, but the ages of the great majority of those who were killed or injured were between seventeen and thirty years.
There were hundreds of men in the Natal laagers who never engaged in one battle and never fired a shot in the first six months of the war.
Scores of boys not more than twelve years were in the laagers in Natal, and hundreds of less age than the minimum prescribed by the military law were in every commando in the country.
Thus we find that the farmers had pressed a number of natives from Waterberg into one of their laagers (Zwart Koppies); two of them tried to run away, a Boer saw them and shot them both.
Meanwhile the Boers were by degrees drawing nearer and nearer to the town, till at last they pitched their laagers within six miles, and practically besieged it.
The distance between the different laagers lengthened considerably, and a speedy and certain method of communication soon became a necessity.
They have been moving the big gun and the 16-pounder Krupps again, and some of the laagers seem to be shifting, so we have kept an extra eye open of late, by night as well as by day.
Boer outposts, and the raised edges of the basin East and West were set thickly with similar twinkling jewels where the laagers were; while smaller groups shone nearer, marking the situation of isolated vedettes.
No more boasts on the part of Brounckers, General in command of those massed, menacing, united laagers on the Border, seven miles from Gueldersdorp as the crow flew.
And then came the orderly crowding to the door, and they were outside under the great violet sky, throbbing with splendid stars, breathing the tainted air that came from the laagers and the trenches.
Although we had no idea of the enemy's strength, we were fully prepared to meet the attack; the Pretoria, Lydenburg and other laagers were posted to the left on the summit of Majuba Hill, and other commandos held good positions on the east.
Our laagers were not in a very satisfactory position, more as regards our safety than the question of health, sickness being expected to make itself felt only later in the year.
The mountains were covered with cattle from the laagers about Glencoe Station.
There would be three hours' darkness, and that would be plenty of time to get well past the Boer laagers before the sun rose; so we are resting till then.
I will make my plans and observations as to which of the three laagers it would be more prudent to attack.
But you wouldn't get in to-night with one, and such an enterprise against either of the other laagers would now be impossible.
On Sundays I held divine service in the church at Harrismith, and on week-days I was in one or other of the laagers on the Drakensberg.
On the following day Dingaan's Day was celebrated in all the laagers with excessive joy, as might be expected.
Towards the 10th of November the Free State laagers lay around Ladysmith in this order: Near the railway line to the east of Smith's Crossing was the laager of the Kroonstad Commando.
He came to the top of the high hill between Colenso and the Boer laagers around Ladysmith, and saw from there that the British troops were approaching nearer and nearer to the village.
The difference between the camp here and the great laagers on the Drakensberg, with their walls of encircling waggons, struck me.
And down beyond the flats stretching away from the heights of Caesar's Camp, and in all the laagers surrounding the beleaguered garrison, bands of stern, resolute Boers collected together in absolute silence in the darkness.
Then they slipped out, and, climbing on a mound near by, stared across the veldt at the Boer laagers and then back at the defences of Kimberley, all easily distinguishable under the rays of a glorious moon.
In the meantime the Boers were very uneasy, with many horsemen coming and going, but the laagers were not being shifted.
But this pleasant conversation was interrupted by a message, saying that, as the Boer laagers were as intact as yesterday, the artillery were going to bombard them at once.
The precise location of the Boer laagers does not appear to have been known, but it was certain that a considerable number of them were scattered about thirty miles or so to the west of Klerksdorp and the Schoonspruit line.
A guard was kept upon the frontier to prevent the return of refugees and the smuggling of ammunition, while General Kitchener, the brother of the Sirdar, broke up a few small Boer laagers in the neighbourhood of Lydenburg.
The great white tilted waggons of the various laagers filed along the road around the eastern end of Bulwana.
We forded the Klip River breast high, and, still surrounded by our escort, trudged on towards the laagers behind Bulwana.
The Dutchmen held very strong positions north of Colenso, their camps and laagers being linked with those surrounding the southern side of Ladysmith, while to the south of the river they also held a formidable and commanding post.
At the rumour of British approach, the Boer laagers at once broke up, their occupants dispersing towards south and east.
Boers made a violent lunge on the west and north of the position, directing the main fury of their attack at the two laagers held by the Durham Company of Artillery.
Here he became aware that Steenkamp's laagers were situated some seventeen miles to north of him.
They penetrated the wire around the laagers and got to within twenty yards of the defenders, but Lieutenant R.
The early mist was lifting round twolaagers full of slumbering Boers at Middeldrift and Busby, when with a rush and a yell the British troops covered the scene.
Knox (from Greylingstad) against Boer laagers near the source of the Wilge River, joined hands with both the above-named officers at Krondraai, on the 16th and 17th of May.
It was known that the Boers had outposts on the low ridge, that they held Moss Drift, that they had detachments to the south of the river, and that near Langeberg farm and Brown's Drift were laagers of considerable extent.
Numbers of people fled to the seaboard, and thence to the neighbouring colony; while, behind laagers and hastily constructed fortifications, the people waited in expectant terror for every item of news from the theatre of war.
The inhabitants fled to the towns, laagers were formed in every direction, while in D'Urban and Pietermaritzburg entrenchments and fortifications were at once erected.
In fact, strong guards had to be posted round the laagers to prevent the desertion of Boers of pacific tendencies.
Is this hundredth day of siege to be the last, or shall we wake to-morrow to hear that the Boer laagers are back again, and the relieving force once more south of the Tugela?
The Boers came hurrying down in groups from Spion Kop's crest, their waggons were trekking from laagers across the plain towards Van Reenan's, and men could be seen rounding up cattle as if for a general rearward movement.
Operations began with the shelling and capture of two laagers on the north side of the river, and the way being thus cleared of the enemy, the division made its way to a point where it was met by the contingent from the Modder River.
On February 2 General Snyman, in reply to my letter with regard to his deliberately shelling the women and children's laagers on the 27th ult.
All hotels and private houses are filled to overflowing, whilst little laagers are spread everywhere in and outside the town.
SIR,-- I have been obliged, owing to the overwhelming forces of the enemy, to surrender unconditionally with all the Orange Free State laagers here.
Later on, we shall see in what a predicament the Republican laagerswere placed through the toleration of this irregularity.
He never realized that it would be the cause of the death of many burghers, and of indescribable panic throughout not only all the laagers on the veldt, but even those of Colesberg, Stormberg and Ladysmith.
But it was not only the women and children who were on the verge of starvation; the burghers still left in the laagers were in the same predicament.
History had thus taught us to place Brandwachten round our laagers at night, and to reconnoitre during the hours of darkness as well as in the day-time.
Laagers containing no one but women and children and decrepit old men, were fired upon with cannon and rifles in order to compel them to stop.
One weak picket of Gordon Highlanders was thrust forward over the rim on to the outer slope of the hill to keep an eye on those silent grey patches which marked the Boer laagers far below.
It was Hamilton who was to have led the bayonet attack by night on the Boer laagers two days before Talana Hill was fought.
On the east the pass runs up into sharp rocky kopjes, strengthened by successive lines of stone walls trailing away towards the main laagers of the enemy.
To the north, however, it presents a wide bay, on whose grassy shores rising from the more arid plain the Boer laagers were reported to stand.
Boer laagers and Boer patrols had been found scattered about the country to the south-east and north-east.
As it was, he succeeded in warning the other scattered parties in time for them to form their simple laagers and to shoot down the attacking Zulus until surrounded, literally, by heaps of dead savages.
The Boers were accustomed to a wandering life in wagons, and, in time, their laagers must inevitably have extended further and further into native territory.
Then they fled from their laagersfor the first time.
They would have felt it three years ago, when they seized this country we are now in, but for a wholly unavoidable reason, and then even the strong laagers and parks of Maxims would have counted for nought.
The oft-recurring scares, necessitating the crowding of, at any rate, the bulk of its inhabitants into the laagers at night, contributed in the main to this.
However, the balloon reports the presence of laagers of ten commandoes in sight.
The Boer laagers have increased in size, and are not so carefully hidden.
Hour after hour we waited, recalling tales of Indian life and Afridi warfare, or watching the lights in the Boer laagers reflected on a cloudy sky.
The tents of another large camp showed among the bushes on Lombard's Nek, where the Helpmakaar road passes between Lombard's Kop and Bulwan, and many waggon laagers were in sight beyond.
The Boers had moved one of their waggon laagers a little further back, but the main camps were unchanged.
It is true that in their laagers one does not see as much soap and water used as in our camps, but this is possibly due to want of opportunity as much as to want of inclination.
I had one of this peculiar species at me the other day in Burghersdorp, and he painted a Boer laager so vividly, between nips at my flask, that if I had not seen a fewlaagers myself I should have felt bad over the matter.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "laagers" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
