Show THE BOER AS A FIGHTER The world since the Boer war of JLSSl has formed a very high estimate of Boer skill with the rifle The fact Is that lie Bocr is a fair shot thoroughly familiar with his weapon with the horse he rides and with the country in which he fights V V The Boers strong point is his mo blllly lie can ride lo a chosen spot dismount and drop his reins lire a halfdozen shots mount again and goon go-on lo a fresh position Ills horse is trained to stand in the veldt wherever wher-ever he IK left His coinmlwjarlnt is of the simplest A chunk of biltong In his pocket will supply many ineals for himself V and tho grasses of tho veldt give abundant forage for his horse His skill with the rllle has been acquired in puirsull of largo herds of antelope But hy knows nothing of the I finer bklll of the deerstalker His fa vorilo mark is a herd of two or three hundred blesbok I have seen a Boer refuse to lire at a single animal on the ground of L 1 too probable waste of ammunition < V The Boer has not been without his uses in the worldscheme of civilization civiliza-tion Like the American backwoodsman backwoods-man lie has blazed ito way for the march of progress Ills bold and restless rest-less shin has 1010 ted out u path lo hue crowding nations of the Old World His have been the privations his lie toll and his the peril But his function Is at an end civilization presses at his heels the land XtOifl wjilch ho drove out the KaflJr calls for a denser population popu-lation He musl submit lo absorption or perish For the present he refuses to be absorbed Mono mono tekel upharsln The Boer War of 1881 by an English Officer Who Fought in It in the Januaiy Forum |