A few days after the occupation a pretty young woman, tastefully dressed in a white summer gown, appeared on the street with a large bow of the national colors, red, white, blue, and green, pinned on her shoulder. An officer stopped her and told her to take it off, but she looked at him contemptuously and turned away. He stopped her again, and finally removed the colors himself. The young lady made no resistance, but passed on. Within half an hour she was out with another equally large bow of the colors. Again it was taken away from her, and again she put on another knot of ribbons. The matter was brought to the attention of the military governor, and she was told that if it happened again she would be put in jail; but it did happen again just as fast as she could get the ribbon to put on. Whether she was arrested or not I never knew, but I saw her on the street several days later still wearing the colors of her country.
For some days before the British arrived, the prices in Pretoria for provisions of all kinds had advanced to unheard-of figures. There seemed to be a sufficient quantity of everything, except white flour; but those who had stock on hand were making the best of their opportunity. The flour seemed to have been “cornered” by the bakers, for they were all furnishing bread regularly, and were charging from fifteen to twenty-five cents a loaf, according to the size. This was considered very cheap in comparison with the price asked for a sack of flour a few days before, the lowest price then being five pounds. “Mealies,” or common corn, sold at thirty to sixty shillings unground, the regular price being six or eight shillings. As this corn was used only to feed animals it made the expense of keeping a horse rather high. Up to this time the English have not discovered the value of Indian corn as a food product, although many attempts have been made to introduce it into England. There was an abundance of canned goods that sold at a fairly reasonable price, and also plenty of fresh beef, although it was of the trek-ox variety, and almost impossible to eat.
When the British army entered the capital, with over forty thousand hungry men, looking for anything as a change from the regular ration, prices jumped higher still, and the stocks in the various stores speedily vanished. One of the first official acts of the new government was to place a guard over the various provision stores, allowing no one to buy without an order from one in authority. This was done to prevent some of the officers’ messes from buying up everything in sight.