regiment he had been fighting against.  A fun-loving Boer replied that the Boers had no regiments; that their men were divided into three brigades—­the Afrikanders, the Boers, and the Takhaars—­a distinction which carried with it but a slight difference.  “The Afrikander brigade,” the Boer explained, “is fighting now.  They fight like demons.  When they are killed, then the Boers take the field.  The Boers fight about twice as well and hard as the Afrikanders.  As soon as all the Boers are killed, then come the takhaars, and they would rather fight than eat.”  The officer remained silent for a moment, then sighed and said, “Well, if that is correct, then our job is bigger than I thought it was.”

The ideal Boer is a man with a bearded face and a flowing moustache, and in order to appear idyllic almost every Boer burgher, who was not thus favoured before war was began, engaged in the peaceful process of growing a beard.  Young men who, in times of peace, detested hirsute adornments of the face allowed their beards and moustaches to grow, and after a month or two it was almost impossible to find one burgher who was without a growth of hair on his face.  The wearing of a beard was almost equal to a badge of Boer citizenship, and for the time being every Boer was a takhaar in appearance if not in fact.  The adoption of beards was not so much fancy as it was a matter of discretion.  The Boer was aware of the fact that few of the enemy wore beards, and so it was thought quite ingenious for all burghers to wear facial adornments of that kind in order that friend and foe might be distinguished more readily at a distance.

Notwithstanding their ability to fight when it is necessary, it is doubtful whether twenty per cent of the Boer burghers in the commandos would be accepted for service in any continental or American army.  The rigid physical examinations of many of the armies would debar thousands from becoming regular soldiers.  There were men in the Boer forces who had only one arm, some with only one leg, others with only one eye; some were almost totally blind, while others would have felt happy if they could have heard the reports of their rifles.  Men who were suffering from various kinds of illnesses, and who should have been in a physician’s care, were to be seen in every laager.  Men who wore spectacles were numerous, while those who suffered from diseases which debar a man from a regular army were without number.  The high percentage of men unfit for military duty was not due to the Boer’s unhealthfulness, for he is as healthy as farmers are in other parts of the earth.  Take the entire male population of any district in Europe and America and compare the individuals with the standard required by army rules, and the result will not differ greatly from the result of the Boer examination.  If all the youths and old men, the sick and maimed, could have been eliminated from the Boer forces, eighty per cent, would probably have been found to be a low estimate of the number