The Mounted Infantry is, theoretically, an arm of the first importance. In practice it has its partisans and its detractors. I leave the task of authoritative pronouncement to critics more expert than myself, and shall only say that Colonel Martyr's and General Hutton's Mounted Rifles rendered very considerable service to Lord Roberts. The Mounted Rifle has an ordinary cavalry saddle, with a black cloak rolled up on the holsters before him. His uniform is the same as that of the infantry: a tunic, trousers, and flannel bandages. He wears the felt hat of the country. He carries two bandoliers and is armed with the Lee-Metford rifle and with a short bayonet like that of our artillery-men. The butt-end of his gun rests in a bucket hanging on the right of his saddle, and the stock is supported by a leather thong round the right arm like a lance.
The Mounted Rifle fights on foot, sheltering his horse behind a piece of rising ground. His horse to him is merely a rapid means of transport.
Belts and straps, swords, sheaths and hilts, guns and waggons, are all painted khaki colour.
After enumerating all the weapons used by the belligerents, it would be an unpardonable omission to say nothing of the famous dum-dum bullets.
Have they been much used? Yes, certainly, and on both sides.
The story that the Boers only used those they had captured from the English is quite inadmissible, for the Mauser rifles, which were used exclusively in the Transvaal, were largely provided with them.
I will try to describe the patterns chiefly used:
1. Section in the nickel casing, leaving the extremity of the leaden bullet exposed; the lead, getting very hot, emerges partly from the casing, flattens at the slightest resistance, and expands.
2. Four longitudinal sections in the nickel casing allow the bullet to flatten at the moment of contact, and to exude lead through the apertures.
These two first patterns, the ones most in use, are made for Lee-Metford and Mauser rifles.
The English also use hollow-nosed bullets, the extremity of which is cut or rubbed off.
The Boers, for their part, have manufactured solid projectiles, which show the lead through a straight section, and have the four longitudinal slits.