The garrison of the town, whose fame will certainly live in the history of South Africa, contained no regular soldiers at all with the exception of the small group of excellent officers.  They consisted of irregular troops, three hundred and forty of the Protectorate Regiment, one hundred and seventy Police, and two hundred volunteers, made up of that singular mixture of adventurers, younger sons, broken gentlemen, and irresponsible sportsmen who have always been the voortrekkers of the British Empire.  These men were of the same stamp as those other admirable bodies of natural fighters who did so well in Rhodesia, in Natal, and in the Cape.  With them there was associated in the defence the Town Guard, who included the able-bodied shopkeepers, businessmen, and residents, the whole amounting to about nine hundred men.  Their artillery was feeble in the extreme, two 7-pounder toy guns and six machine guns, but the spirit of the men and the resource of their leaders made up for every disadvantage.  Colonel Vyvyan and Major Panzera planned the defences, and the little trading town soon began to take on the appearance of a fortress.

On October 13th the Boers appeared before Mafeking.  On the same day Colonel Baden-Powell sent two truckloads of dynamite out of the place.  They were fired into by the invaders, with the result that they exploded.  On October 14th the pickets around the town were driven in by the Boers.  On this the armoured train and a squadron of the Protectorate Regiment went out to support the pickets and drove the Boers before them.  A body of the latter doubled back and interposed between the British and Mafeking, but two fresh troops with a 7-pounder throwing shrapnel drove them off.  In this spirited little action the garrison lost two killed and fourteen wounded, but they inflicted considerable damage on the enemy.  To Captain Williams, Captain FitzClarence, and Lord Charles Bentinck great credit is due for the way in which they handled their men; but the whole affair was ill advised, for if a disaster had occurred Mafeking must have fallen, being left without a garrison.  No possible results which could come from such a sortie could justify the risk which was run.

On October 16th the siege began in earnest.  On that date the Boers brought up two 12-pounder guns, and the first of that interminable flight of shells fell into the town.  The enemy got possession of the water supply, but the garrison had already dug wells.  Before October 20th five thousand Boers, under the formidable Cronje, had gathered round the town.  ‘Surrender to avoid bloodshed’ was his message.  ‘When is the bloodshed going to begin?’ asked Powell.  When the Boers had been shelling the town for some weeks the lighthearted Colonel sent out to say that if they went on any longer he should be compelled to regard it as equivalent to a declaration of war.  It is to be hoped that Cronje also possessed some sense of humour, or else he must have been as sorely puzzled by his eccentric opponent as the Spanish generals were by the vagaries of Lord Peterborough.