he officers for the first time appeared to
lead their men in concerted action against the opposing forces. To call
the Boer force an army was to add unwarranted elasticity to the word, for
it had but one quality in common with such armed forces as Americans or
Europeans are accustomed to call by that name. The Boer army fought with
guns and gunpowder, but it had no discipline, no drills, no forms, no
standards, and not even a roll-call. It was an enlarged edition of the
hunting parties which a quarter-century ago went into the Zoutpansberg in
search of game--it was a massive aggregation of lion-hunters.

CHAPTER III

THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY

A visitor in one of the laagers in Natal once spoke of a Boer burgher as a
"soldier." A Boer from the Wakkerstroom district interrupted his speech
and said there were no Boer soldiers. "If you want us to understand
concerning whom you are talking," he continued, "you must call us burghers
or farmers. Only the English have soldiers." It was so with all the Boers;
none understood the term soldier as applying to anybody except their
enemy, while many considered it an insult to be called a soldier, as it
implied, to a certain extent, that they were fighting for hire. In times
of peace the citizen of the Boer republics was called a burgher, and when
he took up arms and went to war he received no special title to
distinguish him from the man who remained at home. "My burghers," Paul
Kruger was wont to call them before the war, and when they came forth from
battle they were content when he said, "My burghers are doing well." The
Boers were proud of their citizenship, and when their country was in
danger they went forth as private citizens and not as bold warriors to
protect it.

There was a law in the two republics which made it incumbent upon all
burghers between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join a commando and to
go to war when it was necessary. There was no law, however, which
prevented a man, of whatever youthfulness or age, to assist in the defence
of his country, and in consequence the Boer commandos contained almost the
entire male population between the ages of thirteen and eighty years. In
peaceful times the Boer farmer rarely travelled away from his home unless
he was accompanied by his family, and he would have felt the pangs of
homesickness if he had not been continually surrounded by his wife and
children. When the war began it was not an easy matter fo