Leaving aside the religious aspect of the man, the Boer reminds me very forcibly of our South-westerners, in appearance; and especially in his riding and shooting ability. I have given a lengthy, but an honest and faithful portrait of the Boer, because the subsidized press of England spent itself in trying to disgrace him in the eyes of the world, for no other reason than to cover up the English Government's infamy in forcing a most unholy and damnable war on the God fearing Boer race of South Africa. During the time of intense excitement in the towns of South Africa, and in London, the unmindful Boer was quietly and religiously pursuing his daily routine work on his remote farm. It never occurred to him that his quiet was liable to be disturbed at any moment by an exploding bomb that might force him to leave his wife and little ones for two years and eight months, and possibly forever. Occasionally he heard the distant rumble of impending war, but he gave it no heed, for his ear had become accustomed to such sounds during the last twenty years. He could see no reason for war and therefore dismissed the subject from his mind. The Transvaal Government and the Free State Government had, all told, a standing army of about 900 artillerymen who manned their forty cannon and sixty maxims. The artillerists were farmer boys, smooth-faced, and from sixteen to eighteen years old. They were trained by Boer officers principally. I think there were as officers, also, two young Hollanders, and two Germans, who had long resided in the Transvaal. These young Boer officers and smooth-faced farmer boys proved themselves the most remarkable artillerists in the world. The Free State and Transvaal were exactly on the same footing as to readiness for war, and neither was, therefore, in any sense of the word, prepared for a struggle with the mightiest Empire of the world. The total population of the Free State and Transvaal combined did not exceed 250,000 men, women and children; while that of Great Britain and her colonies runs up to something like 350,000,000. The Transvaal and the Free State are two inland countries several hundred miles from the coast; so England had no reason to fear trouble in landing her troops at any of her many coast towns. The Transvaal and the Free State are divided into districts, and each district is divided into veldtcornetcies. In each veldtcornetcy there is a veldtcornet, elected by his constituents, who is a civil officer in time of peace and the military leader of the men in his veldtcornetcy, in time of war.