The ranks of the Town Guard were being augmented daily; fresh men were coming up in batches to be “sworn in.”  There was no medical examination, nor any such bother.  Anybody in trousers was eligible for a hat, a bandolier, and a rifle; and lads in their teens affected one-and-twenty with the sang froid of one-and-forty.  Camp life, and, mayhap, a little fighting, would be a novelty—­for three weeks.  Certain employers were at first disposed to keep their employees exclusively to the work they engaged them to perform; but the most obtuse among the captains of industry were soon made to realise that such an attitude, if persisted in, would scarcely pay.  This truth was brought home to them so forcibly that they forthwith developed the fighting spirit, and became the most blood-thirsty entities in, the service of the Queen.  All were needed, and When afterwards a merchant found himself “officered” by his factotum, he enjoyed (after a fleeting spasm); the humour of the revolution as much as anybody.

The manner in which the drills were muddled through at the beginning was primitive and amusing.  The agony depicted on the faces of the “raw”; the hauteur of the seasoned campaigner; the blunders of the clerks; the leggings of the lieutenants:  made spectators risk martial law and laugh in the face of it.  Ever and anon, the butt of a rifle would come in contact with some head other than that of him who carried the gun, and the victim—­not the assailant—­would be sharply reprimanded for omitting to “stand at ease.”  The marching and the turning movements were comical, too; but practice did much to make perfect the amateur soldiers in mufti.  They, naturally, desired a little target practice.  With many of them experience in the use of arms had been limited to a snowball, a pop-gun, or a bird-sling; and they were not only dubious of their marksmanship, but fearful that their rifles in the rough and tumble of war’s realities would “kick” to pieces their ’prentice shoulders.  The authorities, however, could not allow ammunition to be wasted; it might all be needed for actual warfare.  This only tended to make the men anxious to try conclusions with the Boers—­or, better still, the foreign officers who, it was supposed, directed operations “from behind, when there was any fighting,” like the Duke of Plaza Tora in the play.

The De Beers Corporation continued with untiring energy to do what in them lay for the further protection of the town, and on Monday offered to provide the military with a thousand horses.  The offer was gladly accepted.  It was decided to form a mounted corps of men who could ride well and shoot straight.  We had a good few denizens of the Rand in our midst, and there was no difficulty in finding men proficient in both accomplishments to place on the backs of the horses.  There came into being, accordingly, the famous Kimberley Light Horse—­a corps destined to play an heroic, a tragic part in defence of the