at the pass office in Johannesburg. By the end of September 1899 some 5,000 Zulus were stranded in Johannesburg and Marwick obtained permission for them to walk back to Natal. They were to walk to the border at Volksrust, some 150 miles from Johannesburg. The march started on 6 October. On 11 October they reached the town of Standerton, where Marwick learnt that the Boers had delivered an ultimatum to the British and it would expire at five o'clock that afternoon. The Boer commandos, numbering some 8,000 men, had been assembling at Sandspruit on the road between Standerton and Volksrust. Marwick rode ahead to see General Joubert at Sandspruit, but found that the Boer forces had advanced to Volksrust. On 12 October the Zulus marched to within three miles of Sandspruit. That night a heavy downpour of rain came on. A large number of natives were suffering severely from exposure. The next day they reached Volksrust. They saluted General Joubert as they marched past him and then crossed the border into Natal. Unfortunately there were no trains available and the Zulus landed up behind some Boer commandos invading Natal. Marwick and his Zulus were eventually allowed through and they reached Newcastle on 14 October 1899, when the long march home ended. Some walked to Zululand, while others boarded trains for Durban. Closing of mines On 4 September 1899 the state attorney, Jan Smuts, wrote to the government that the mines would be of the utmost importance in the event of war. They would be a vital source of money if they could be kept open. To guarantee their operation, supplies of material and men had to be maintained and this, in turn, meant that whole staffs, even if British, had to be encouraged to stay. The government responded by reintroducing the Gold Law (Law 15 of 1898). It provided that after martial law had been declared, if a mine ceased operations, the government could order it to reopen and, if it did not comply, it could take over the operation itself. The government would then be entitled to use any gold thus won for its own benefit. The government would be obliged to return the mine to its owner upon repeal of martial law, provided that the owners had not been found guilty of high treason. Over the weekend of 30 September many of the well-known mines closed, including Simmer