This is actually the opinion of a Boer who administers for the Transvaal Government an important district, and who is under orders to proceed to the Natal border without loss of time. Surely he must be consumed with delusion and impotent fanaticism; nevertheless, educated Boers from the border side and living in the Cape Colony, who have come to the camp to invite the officers to a cricket match or some buck shooting, have all expressed this view. At present I have not met the Boer who can conceive the defeat of his own countrymen, while both Imperial and Republican Governments count upon the assistance of the natives. Upon the other hand, however, I am informed that there are many Boers who do not wish to fight, since they recognise the futility of any effort which they can direct against British troops; but, at the same time, should they be called out upon commando, there is no fear of their declining to obey, while, so far as my inquiries go, they have failed to elicit anything which would show the Boers to be moved by any view so eminently sound as this would be. CHAPTER IV BRICKS OF STRAW THE CAMP, ORANGE RIVER, _September 26th, 1899_. Soldiers and sand--clouds of sand whirring and eddying through the air, drifting through closed windows, piling in swift-mounting heaps against barred doors. That is the camp here, stretching upon both sides of the railway line in orderly rows, flanked upon either extremity by a ragged outspan of waggons, empty to-day but soon creating work for numerous fatigue parties when the orders come to push forward the supplies. At present it is only a small cluster of tents, many more tents than men--this to confuse the friendly Boers who, visiting the railway station refreshment bar for the purposes of espionage, stop to drink in an effort to gauge the strength of the camp by counting the ranks of dirty white tents which flap and quiver in the breezes. Such an impossible little camp, but so impressed with the true spirit.