oers depended wholly upon the information
they secured. There was no regulation which forbade burghers from leaving
the laagers at any time, or from proceeding in any direction, and much of
the information that reached the generals was obtained from these rovers
over the veld. It was extremely difficult for a man who did not have the
appearance of a burgher to ride over the veld for more than a mile without
being hailed by a Boer who seemed to have risen out of the earth
unnoticed. "Where are you going?" or "Where are you coming from?" were his
invariable salutations, and if the stranger was unable to give a
satisfactory reply or show proper passports he was commanded, "Hands up."
The burghers were constantly on the alert when they were on the veld,
whether they were merely wandering about, leaving for home, or returning
to the laager, and as soon as they secured any information which they
believed was valuable they dashed away to the nearest telegraph or
heliograph station, and reported it to their general or commandant. In
addition to this valuable attribute the Boers had the advantage of being
among white and black friends who could assist them in a hundred different
ways in securing information concerning the enemy, and all these
circumstances combined to warrant General White's estimate of the Boers'
intelligence department, which, notwithstanding its efficiency, was more
or less chimerical.

In no department or branch of the army was there any military discipline
or system, except in the two small bodies of men known as the State
Artillery of the Transvaal and the State Artillery of the Free State.
These organisations were in existence many years before the war was begun,
and had regular drills and practice which were maintained when they were
at the front. The Johannesburg Police also had a form of discipline which,
however, was not strict enough to prevent the men from becoming mutinous
when they imagined that they had fought the whole war themselves, and
wanted to have a vacation in order that they might visit their homes. The
only vestige of real military discipline that was to be found in the
entire Boer army was that which was maintained by Field-Cornet A.L.
Thring, of the Kroonstad commando, who had a roll-call and inspection of
rifles every morning. This extraordinary procedure was not relished by the
burghers, who made an indignant protest to General Christian De Wet. The
general upheld the field-cornet's