As I have stated, the politics of the war has found no part in the following pages, and an honest effort has been made to give an impartial account of the proceedings as they unfolded themselves before the eyes of an American. The struggle is one which was brought about by the politicians, but it will probably be ended by the layman who wields a sword, and who knows nothing of the intricacies of diplomacy. The Boers desire to gain nothing but their countries' independence; the British have naught to lose except thousands of valuable lives if they continue in their determination to erase the two nations. Unless the Boers soon decide to end the war voluntarily, the real struggle will only begin when the Imperial forces enter the mountainous region in the north-eastern part of the Transvaal, and then General Lucas Meyer's prophecy that the bones of one hundred thousand British soldiers will lay bleaching on the South African veld before the British are victorious may be more than realised. One word more. The English public is generous, and will not forget that the Boers are fighting in the noblest of all causes--the independence of their country. If Englishmen will for a moment place themselves in the position of the Boers, if they will imagine their own country overrun by hordes of foreign soldiers, their own inferior forces gradually driven back to the wilds of Wales and Scotland, they will be able to picture to themselves the feelings of the men whom they are hunting to death. Would Englishmen in these circumstances give up the struggle? They would not; they would fight to the end. HOWARD C. HILLEGAS. NEW YORK CITY, August 1, 1900. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY The Blockade at Delagoa Bay--Lorenzo Marques in war-time--Portuguese tax-raising methods--The way to the Transvaal--Koomatipoort, the Boer threshold--The low-veld or fever country--Old-time battlefields--The Boer capital and its scenes--The city of peace and its inhabitants. CHAPTER II. FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD The old-time lions and lion-hunters and the modern types--Lion-hunting expeditions of the Boers--The conference between the hunters and the lions--The great lion-hunt of 1899-1900--Departure to the hunting-grounds. CHAPTER III. COMPOSITION OF THE ARMY Burghers, not soldiers--Home-sickness in the laagers--Boys in commandos--The Penkop Regiment--Great-grandfathers in battles--The Takhaar burghers--Boers' unfitness for soldiering--Their uniforms--Comfort in the laagers--Prayers and religious fervour in the army. CHAPTER IV. THE ARMY ORGANISATION The election of officers--Influences which assert themselves--Civil officials the leaders in war--The Krijgsraad and its verdicts--Lack of discipline among the burghers--Generals calling for volunteers to go into battle--Boers' scouting and intelligence departments. CHAPTER V. THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM