an warriors relied, indeed,
less on attack than on defence. They trusted yet more to that weapon,
perfected by many small races which have been compelled to work out
their own methods of warfare, the weapon of evasion. Nearly always
outnumbered, never sure of victory, the burghers always provided, then
kept their eyes continually upon, a loophole of escape, for if that
were closed they felt themselves to be lost. These characteristics,
with many more which will be noted, the early Boer bequeathed to his
sons and grandsons; a legacy so strangely composed that many of the
very qualities which brought temporary victory to the campaigners of
1899 foredoomed them to ultimate defeat.

[Footnote 65: _E.G._, the revolt of La Vendee, the resistance
of the Maories, the Red Indians, the Achinese, the
Montenegrins, of the Trans-Indus Highlanders, of Andreas
Hofer's Tyrolese, of Shamyl's Caucasians.]

[Sidenote: Value of these in present warfare.]

Self-reliance and individuality are factors of extraordinary military
importance under any conditions, but especially under circumstances
involving such dispersion of combatants, such distances between
commanders and commanded, as were brought about by the conjunction of
long-range arms, an open terrain and the clearest atmosphere in the
world. South Africa was a country which gave the freest play to the
deadly properties of small-bore rifles. The new weapons fitted into
the Boer's inherited conceptions of warfare as if they were a part for
which his military organisers had long been hoping and waiting. He had
an antipathy to fighting at close quarters, but he knew the value and
necessity of striking; the Mauser enabled him to strike at the extreme
limit of vision, multiplying tenfold the losses and difficulties of
the enemy who attempted to close with him. The portability of the
ammunition, the accuracy of the sighting, the absence of betraying
smoke, all these increased the Boer's already great trust in himself,
and he took the field against the British regular infantryman with
more confidence than his sires had felt when they held their laagers
against the Zulu and the Matabele. The modern rifle, moreover, still
further increased his self-reliance by rendering avoidance of close
combat, which alone he feared, a much simpler matter than hitherto.
His father had escaped the bayonets of the British at Boomplaats; he
himself was no more willing or lik