If the commando came from a district far from the frontier, it proceeded to the railway station nearest to the central meeting-place, and then embarked for the front.  No extraordinary preparations were necessary for the embarking of a large commando, nor was much time lost before the hunters 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 slight remonstrances from them.  An angry man was as rarely seen as one who cursed, and more rare than either was an intoxicated one.