It is impossible to secure accurate statistics in regard to the military strength of the various colonies, states, and tribes in the country, but the following table gives a fair idea of the number of men who are liable to military duty:
Cape Colony 20,000 10,000 177,000 Natal 7,000 5,000 100,000 Orange Free State 10,000 ...... 30,000 Transvaal 30,000 20,000 140,000 Rhodesia ...... 2,000 25,000 Swaziland and Basutoland ...... ...... 30,000 ------ ------ ------- Total 67,000 37,000 570,000
To him who delights in forming possible coalitions and war situations this table offers vast opportunities. Probably no other country can offer such a vast number of possibilities for compacts between nations, races, and tribes as is presented in South Africa. There all the natives may unite against the whites, or a part of them against a part of the whites, while whites and natives may unite against a similar combination. The possibilities are boundless; the probabilities are uncertain.
The Pretorian Government has had an extensive secret service for several years, and this has been of inestimable value in securing the support of the natives as well as the friendship of many whites, both in South Africa and abroad. The several thousand Irishmen in South Africa have been organized into a secret compact, and have been and will continue to be of great value to the Boers. The head of the organization is a man who is one of President Kruger's best friends, and his lieutenants are working even as far away as America. The sympathy of the majority of the Americans in the Transvaal is with the Boer cause, and, although the American consul-general at Cape Town has cautioned them to remain neutral, they will not stand idly by and watch the defeat of a cause which they believe to be as just as that for which their forefathers fought at Bunker Hill and Lexington.
But the Boers do not rely upon external assistance to win their battles for them. When it becomes necessary to defend their liberty and their country they reverently place their trust in Providence and their rifles. Their forefathers' battles were won with such confidence, and the later generations have been similarly successful under like conditions. The rifle is the young Boer's primer and the grandfather's testament. It is the Boers' avenger of wrong and the upholder of right. That their confidence in their rifles has not been misapplied has been demonstrated at Laing's Nek, Majuba Hill, Doornkop, and in battles with natives.