Mafeking was a small town, and was chiefly known in Britain as the place from which the Jameson raid had started. It was the nearest point of the western railway to Pretoria, and was within a few miles of the Transvaal frontier. Unlike Kimberley, it contained no garrison of regular troops, the force consisting only of three hundred and forty men of the Protectorate Regiment, one hundred and seventy Police, and two hundred Volunteers. But fortunately, early in July, the military authorities at Cape Town had appointed Colonel Baden-Powell to organize a force of irregulars, both for the purpose of preventing any native rising in case of war, and as far as possible to defend the eastern border. The difficulty of such a task, owing to the extreme length of the frontier, had been recognized at once; and a better man could not have been chosen for the task. Baden-Powell had, a year before, taken a conspicuous part in the campaign against the Matabele; and before the outbreak began, had organized the Protectorate Regiment; while, under his orders, Colonel Plumer had raised a regiment in Rhodesia. He saw that Mafeking was certain to be the first point of attack. It was but a hundred and fifty miles from Pretoria, and was the route through which the Boers would naturally pour into the colony, where the population was largely Dutch. He had chosen as his chief of staff Major Lord Edward Cecil, who arrived at the town on October 1, 1899, and set to work to prepare the town for defence, with Captain Williams and Captain Fitz-Clarence, Lord Charles Bentinck, and other officers. The military authorities had sent up a certain amount of stores. These were quite inadequate for the purpose, and Baden-Powell and Lord Cecil took upon themselves the responsibility of ordering far larger supplies to be forwarded. They might have failed in obtaining these had it not been for the patriotism of Messrs. Weil & Co., one of the largest firms in South Africa. These accepted the order, although quite aware that the prices of all goods were advancing enormously, and furnished the supplies asked for. And thus the store of provisions was accumulated that enabled Mafeking to hold out for so many months. But the requisitions for guns was not so promptly complied with. The Africander government of Cape Colony, whose sympathies were wholly with the Transvaal, pretended to doubt that there was any probability of war, and refused to send up the guns, and when at the last moment half a dozen small pieces of artillery were forwarded, they arrived too late and were unable to enter the place. On Baden-Powell's arrival he organized the town guard, consisting of all white inhabitants capable of carrying guns, and even boys of from fourteen to sixteen were formed into a cadet corps for orderly duty. An armoured train was constructed and armed with a Maxim and Nordenfeldt, and mines were laid in a circle round the town.