It is as yet impossible to say exactly what was the force of the Boers on their western frontiers between the middle and the end of October. Steevens, as above quoted, thought 12,000 at the earlier date. A more likely reckoning seems to me to be 8,000, but it probably rose near the higher figure before November, and must much have exceeded it by the 1st of December, unless British {p.116} estimates are more wide of the mark than is probable. The lowest maximum for the forces of the two republics that I have seen was given by one of the Boer envoys now[9] in the United States; viz., 38,000. Allowing 30,000 to Natal by November 1, there is nothing immoderate in the supposition that there were then from 10,000 to 12,000 on the line of the Orange River, and from thence round to Mafeking. Personally, I believe that the totals were larger, for very considerable numbers of the Dutch population in Cape Colony and Natal joined the Boers, and the indications are that all the available men were put--and very properly--at once in the field. The emergency was great, time was invaluable, and the maintaining of a reserve, judicious in many cases, would under the conditions of the Boers have been a mere dividing and frittering of forces, by the immediate employment of which alone might success be snatched. [Footnote 9: May 19, 1900.] To allow Great Britain time to arouse, to assemble and put forth her strength, before some really decisive advantage, material or moral, {p.117} was gained over her, was to ensure defeat. This, however, was what the Boers did. Although they put in force successfully a _levee en masse_, and thus in point of time concentrated into action their whole fighting population, they did not with equal exclusiveness of purpose concentrate in force upon a single military objective; nor was such choice as they made dictated by sound military principle, or carried out with sound military judgment. It so happened that the conditions at the opening of the campaign bore a curious resemblance, though on a considerably larger scale, to those attending the hostilities of 1881 in South Africa. Then, as now, the British were in number far inferior. Then, as now, they were scattered here and there in small detachments. Then the Boers had achieved successes which doubtless surprised themselves as well as their enemies, and had produced for them the unfortunate result of overvaluing their own prowess, and of inducing a secure belief that both they and their opponents, after twenty years, remained in native and acquired qualities in the same relative {p.118} positions of individual superiority and inferiority that they had somewhat prematurely assumed.