UFO sightings in South Africa during the Boer War, circa 1899

I was reading a book for my history course on the Anglo-Boer War and saw an interesting passage that seemed to suggest that the Boers thought they were being attacked by "airships", some with a "powerful light" attached. There was some fear amongst the Boers that the British might attack them with new airships that were just being developed at the time. But no airships were used during the Boer War by the British, so what the heck were they actually seeing? In a few cases, the Boers even fired on some of these airships.

Kind of weird what you can find in history books. I'm sure there are many other reports of UFO sightings that have been overlooked.