In fact, the Transvaal government was so shocked and infuriated by Churchill’s escape that tracking him down suddenly became the first order of business. “So great was the Government’s … desire to capture [Churchill],” Haldane wrote, that “the whole State machinery came to a standstill.” To Hofmeyr, the Boer officials appeared to be almost paralyzed with rage. “It seemed to me,” he wrote, “that even the war was forgotten.”
