frontiers between the middle and the end of October.
Steevens, as above quoted, thought 12,000 at the earlier date. A more
likely reckoning seems to me to be 8,000, but it probably rose near
the higher figure before November, and must much have exceeded it by
the 1st of December, unless British {p.116} estimates are more wide
of the mark than is probable. The lowest maximum for the forces of the
two republics that I have seen was given by one of the Boer envoys
now[9] in the United States; viz., 38,000. Allowing 30,000 to Natal by
November 1, there is nothing immoderate in the supposition that there
were then from 10,000 to 12,000 on the line of the Orange River, and
from thence round to Mafeking. Personally, I believe that the totals
were larger, for very considerable numbers of the Dutch population in
Cape Colony and Natal joined the Boers, and the indications are that
all the available men were put--and very properly--at once in the
field. The emergency was great, time was invaluable, and the
maintaining of a reserve, judicious in many cases, would under the
conditions of the Boers have been a mere dividing and frittering of
forces, by the immediate employment of which alone might success be
snatched.

[Footnote 9: May 19, 1900.]

To allow Great Britain time to arouse, to assemble and put forth her
strength, before some really decisive advantage, material or moral,
{p.117} was gained over her, was to ensure defeat. This, however, was
what the Boers did. Although they put in force successfully a _levee
en masse_, and thus in point of time concentrated into action their
whole fighting population, they did not with equal exclusiveness of
purpose concentrate in force upon a single military objective; nor was
such choice as they made dictated by sound military principle, or
carried out with sound military judgment.

It so happened that the conditions at the opening of the campaign bore
a curious resemblance, though on a considerably larger scale, to those
attending the hostilities of 1881 in South Africa. Then, as now, the
British were in number far inferior. Then, as now, they were scattered
here and there in small detachments. Then the Boers had achieved
successes which doubtless surprised themselves as well as their
enemies, and had produced for them the unfortunate result of
overvaluing their own prowess, and of inducing a secure belief that
both they and their opponents, after twenty years, rema