The enemy and all other men called it war, but to the Boers it was merely a hunt for lions such as they had engaged in oftentimes before.

The old Boer farmer hardly needed the proclamation from Pretoria to tell him that there was to be a lion-hunt, and that he should prepare for it immediately.  He had known that the hunt was inevitable long before October 11, 1899, and he had made preparations for it months and even years before.  When the official notification from the Commandant-General reached him through the field-cornet of the district in which he lived, he was prepared in a few minutes to start for the frontier where the British lions were to be found.  The new Mauser rifle, which the Government had given him a year or two before, was freshly oiled and its working order inspected.  The bandolier, filled with bright new cartridges, was swung over his shoulder, and then, after putting a Testament into his coat pocket, he was ready to proceed.  He despised a uniform of any kind as smacking of anti-republican ideas and likely to attract the attention of the enemy.  The same corduroy or mole-skin trousers, dark coat, wide-brimmed hat, and home-made shoes which he was accustomed to wear in every-day life on the farm were good enough for a hunting expedition, and he needed and yearned for nothing better.  A uniform would have caused him to feel uneasy and out of place, and when lions were the game he wanted to be thoroughly comfortable so that his arm and aim might be steady.  His vrouw, who was filling a linen sack with bread, biltong, and coffee to be consumed on his journey to the hunting grounds, may have taken the opportunity while he was cleaning his rifle to sew a rosette of the vierkleur of the Republic on his hat, or, remembering the custom observed in the old-time wars against the natives, may have found the fluffy brown tail of a meerkatz and fixed it on the upturned brim of his grimy hat.  When these few preparations were concluded the Kafir servant brought his master’s horse and fixed to the front of the saddle a small roll containing a blanket and a mackintosh.  To another part of the saddle he strapped a small black kettle to be used for the preparation of the lion-hunter’s only luxury, coffee, and then the list of impedimenta was complete.  The horseman who brought the summons to go to the frontier had hardly reached the neighbouring farmhouse when the Boer lion-hunter, uniformed, outfitted, and armed, was on his horse’s back and ready for any duty at any place.  With a rifle, bandolier, and a horse the Boer felt as if he were among kindred spirits, and nothing more was necessary to complete his temporal happiness.  The horse is a part of the Boer hunter, and he might as well have gone to the frontier without a rifle as to go in the capacity of a foot soldier.  The Boer is the modern Centaur, and therein is found an explanation for part of his success in hunting.