The difficulties both at Kimberley and Mafeking were the result of the obstructive policy adopted by the Colonial Government before the outbreak of hostilities. While the storm-cloud hung on the horizon, Kimberley had appealed to Mr. Schreiner for permission to send up from Port Elizabeth Maxims which had been ordered by the De Beers Company, and the licence was refused on the ground that there was no necessity to strengthen the defences of the town. The appeals from Mafeking were treated in much the same way, the authorities at the Cape suggesting that there was no reason to believe that the situation demanded extra precautions! Ingenuity and pluck had been the backbone of British defence, not British guns. An ordnance factory was established, and excellent shells were cast, and even powder manufactured. Thus the alarm lest ammunition should run out before the arrival of relief was allayed. The great ambition of the garrison was to complete a 5½-inch howitzer, and throw "home-made shells from a home-made gun with home-made powder." Major Baillie described with some pride the self-contained nature of the community: "We have our bank, our ordnance factory, and our police; and we flourish under a beneficent and remote autocracy. And now, as regards the ordnance factory, it was started for the manufacture of shells for our 7-pounder, for shot, brass and iron, for our antique cannon, and for the adaptation of 5-pounder shells (left here by Dr. Jameson) to our 7-pounders by the addition of enlarged driving-bands. These have all proved a complete success, and too much praise cannot be given to Connely and Cloughlan of the Locomotive Department, who have organised and run the factory. As great a triumph has been the manufacture of powder and the invention of fuses by Lieutenant Daniels, British South Africa Police and the Glamorgan Artillery Militia, which render us secure against running short of ammunition. A gun also is being manufactured, and will shortly be used. This factory is of long standing, but the authorities had not allowed us to allude to its existence." Other manufactures, too, were commenced, for manufacture it must be called--the art of making the poor skeletons, at one time known as horses, into succulent meat. Some declared that the number of cats and dogs was visibly thinning, but none dared pry too closely into the workings of the wonderful machinery that fed them. A number of the Protectorate Regiment's horses were slaughtered, and any others that were shot by the enemy were passed on to the commissariat.