ers were speeding towards their destination. Every man placed his own
horse in a cattle-car, his saddle, bridle, and haversack in the
passenger-coach, and then assisted in hoisting the cumbersome ox-waggons
on flat-top trucks. There were no specially deputised men to entrain the
horses, others to load the waggons, and still others to be subtracted from
the fighting strength of the nation by attending to such detail duties as
require the services of hundreds of men in other armies.

After the burghers were entrained and the long commando train was set in
motion the most fatiguing part of the campaign was before them. To ride on
a South African railway is a disagreeable duty in times of peace, but in
war-times, when trains were long and overcrowded, and the rate of progress
never higher than fifteen miles an hour, then all other campaigning duties
were pleasurable enjoyments. The majority of burghers, unaccustomed to
journeying in railway trains, relished the innovation and managed to make
merry even though six of them, together with all their saddles and
personal luggage, were crowded into one compartment. The singing of hymns
occupied much of their time on the journey, and when they tired of this
they played practical jokes upon one another and amused themselves by
leaning out of the windows and jeering at the men who were guarding the
railway bridges and culverts. At the stations they grasped their
coffee-pots and rushed to the locomotive to secure hot water with which to
prepare their beverage. It seldom happened that any Boer going to the
front carried any liquor with him and, although the delays and vexations
of the journey were sufficiently irritating to serve as an excuse,
drunkenness practically never occurred. Genuine good-fellowship prevailed
among them, and no quarrelling was to be observed. It seemed as if every
one of them was striving to live the ideal life portrayed in the Testament
which they read assiduously scores of times every day. Whether a train was
delayed an hour at a siding or whether it stopped so suddenly that all
were thrown from their seats, there was no profane language, but usually
jesting and joking instead. Little discomforts which would cause an
ordinary American or European soldier to use volumes of profanity were
passed by without notice or comment by these psalm-singing Boers, and
inconveniences of greater moment, like the disarrangement of the
commissariat along the route, caused only