pe, a little more full and accurate
than that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however, that the
absolute mistakes made have been few in number, and that I have never
had occasion to reverse, and seldom to modify, the judgments which I
have formed. In this final edition the early text has been carefully
revised and all fresh available knowledge has been added within the
limits of a single volume narrative. Of the various episodes in the
latter half of the war it is impossible to say that the material is
available for a complete and final chronicle. By the aid, however, of
the official dispatches, of the newspapers, and of many private letters,
I have done my best to give an intelligible and accurate account of
the matter. The treatment may occasionally seem too brief but some
proportion must be observed between the battles of 1899-1900 and the
skirmishes of 1901-1902.

My private informants are so numerous that it would be hardly possible,
even if it were desirable, that I should quote their names. Of the
correspondents upon whose work I have drawn for my materials, I would
acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Burleigh, Nevinson, Battersby,
Stuart, Amery, Atkins, Baillie, Kinneir, Churchill, James, Ralph,
Barnes, Maxwell, Pearce, Hamilton, and others. Especially I would
mention the gentleman who represented the 'Standard' in the last year
of the war, whose accounts of Vlakfontein, Von Donop's Convoy, and
Tweebosch were the only reliable ones which reached the public.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Undershaw, Hindhead: September 1902.

CHAPTER 1. THE BOER NATIONS.

Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended
themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when
Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain
of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and fortune and
left their country for ever at the time of the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes. The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile,
unconquerable races ever seen upon earth. Take this formidable people
and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage
men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could
survive, place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons
and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to
the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman, and the rider. Then, finally,
put a finer te