href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@41788@[email protected]#chap16" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">ORANGE FREE STATE . . . 239

CHAPTER XVII

BACK TO COLCHESTER . . . 261

CHAPTER XVIII

ABYSSINIA . . . 273

DESPATCH, APRIL 16, 1900 . . . 286

INDEX . . . 289

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM GATACRE, K.C.B., D.S.O.
(Photogravure) . . . Frontispiece

COLONEL W. F. GATACRE, D.S.O., 1888 . . . 74

KACHIN BRIDGE, OVER WHICH 500 MEN CROSSED IN ONE DAY . . . 90

GOORKHAS CROSSING THE LOWARI PASS . . . 134

ON THE ROAD TO CHITRAL . . . 138

GENERAL GATACRE AND HIS FAVOURITE PONY . . . 142

BELUCHI MURDERERS . . . 158

HINDU BURNING-GHAT . . . 162

HOUSE-TO-HOUSE VISITATION . . . 172

INVASION OF CAPE COLONY: THE BOERS MARCHING SOUTH OVER
THE ORANGE RIVER AT ALIWAL NORTH . . . 224

MAPS

At the end

MAP I. INDIA [Transcriber's note: this map was omitted, being too large to scan.]

MAP II. EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN

MAP III. EASTERN CAPE COLONY AND PART OF THE ORANGE FREE STATE

MAP IV. ABYSSINIA

GENERAL GATACRE

1843-1906

CHAPTER I

1843-1862

GATACRE

According to a venerable Shropshire antiquarian, that county "has ever been inhabited by a race of men characteristic for uniformity of principle and energy of action."[1] Mr. Eyton goes on to tell of various places mentioned in the Domesday Book, and among these of the Manor of Claverley, which included a very large tract of country, and is described as an "ancient demesne of the Crown." The Manor of Claverley was broken up into various townships, to three of which he accords special notice, "in regard that the King's Tenants thereof were of a rank superior to that of the average class of Freeholders in Royal Manors. These Townships were Broughton, Beobridge, and Gatacre."[2]

[1] Antiquities of Shropshire, by R. W. Eyton, 1854, preface.

[2] Ibid., vol. iii. p. 77.

Ancestors

There is a well-authenticated tradition that the family established at Gatacre at the time of the Conquest held their lands by tenure of military service, under a grant from Edward the Confessor. Eyton speaks of them as "a family of knightly rank, which, having early feoffment in Gatacre, took its name from the place. The period of such feoffment it is vain to conjecture, as being beyond all record of such matters."[3]

[3] Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. iii. p. 86.

In the reign of Henry II., Sir William de Gatacre had a suit with one Walter, about half a hide of land in Great Lye: this was subject to a Wager of Battle, and apparently Gatacre proved himself the better man, for Great Lye is even now held by his descendant. This same William appears in another record as one of the four "Visors," who in July 1194 had to report to the Courts of Westminster on the validity of the "essoign of Cecilia de Cantreyn, a litigant. Gatacre's associates in this duty—to which knights only were usually appointed—were Henry Christian, Philip Fitz Holegod, and William de Rudge, all his neighbours and of equal rank with himself."[4]

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