At Naauwpoort nearly all the Australians were mounted, and now acted as
mounted infantry. The horses supplied are Indian ponies, formerly used by
the Madras Cavalry. They are a first-class lot of cattle, well suited to
the work that lies before them, and have evidently been selected by someone
who knows his business a good deal better than a great number of his
colleagues. General French inspected the men at Rensburg during the first
day or two, and seemed fairly well satisfied with them, though, of course,
they did not make a first-class show in their initial efforts on horseback.
A great number of them rode well, but very few of them had ever gone
through a course of mounted drill, and it will take a week or two to knock
them into shape for this work; though, when once out of the saddle, they
are not in any way inferior to the best British regiments I have seen. But
they are keen to learn, and very willing, so that I expect to see them make
wonderfully rapid strides towards efficiency as mounted men. They seem to
feel that their only chance to get a fight is to become high grade
soldiers, and to that end they will stand all the work that can be crowded
into them. I have no idea what their future movements will be, nor do I
think anyone else connected with the regiment has; but one thing seems
certain, that sooner or later they will fall foul of the enemy in small
skirmishing parties, as the kopjes for a length of twenty miles are
infested by little bands of Boers, who have a knack of disappearing as soon
as a British force draws near them, only, however, to crop up again in a
fresh place, a short distance away.

For the Boer is a past master in this kind of warfare, and knows how to
play his own game to perfection. What the Goorkha is in Indian warfare, so
the Boer is in Africa. He does not fight in our style, but that does not
say that he cannot fight, neither does it argue that he is devoid of
courage. As a matter of fact, the more I have seen of this country, and
note what the Boers have done in opposition to all the might of Great
Britain, the more I am impressed with the idea that our alleged
Intelligence Department wants cutting down and burning root and branch, for
it must have been absolutely rotten, or unquestionably corrupt. We were led
by members of this Department to believe that the Boer was a cowardly kind
of veldt pariah, a degenerate offshoot of a fine old parent stock. Well,
the Boer is nothing of the k