made a trysting-place at a high peak to the east of Bloemfontein in
what was lately the Orange Free State. One party of the emigrants
was cut off by the formidable Matabeli, a branch of the great Zulu
nation. The survivors declared war upon them, and showed in this,
their first campaign, the extraordinary ingenuity in adapting their
tactics to their adversary which has been their greatest military
characteristic. The commando which rode out to do battle with the
Matabeli numbered, it is said, a hundred and thirty-five farmers.
Their adversaries were twelve thousand spearmen. They met at the
Marico River, near Mafeking. The Boers combined the use of their
horses and of their rifles so cleverly that they slaughtered a
third of their antagonists without any loss to themselves. Their
tactics were to gallop up within range of the enemy, to fire a
volley, and then to ride away again before the spearmen could reach
them. When the savages pursued the Boers fled. When the pursuit
halted the Boers halted and the rifle fire began anew. The strategy
was simple but most effective. When one remembers how often since
then our own horsemen have been pitted against savages in all parts
of the world, one deplores that ignorance of all military
traditions save our own which is characteristic of our service.

This victory of the 'voortrekkers' cleared all the country between
the Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of what has been known
as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In the meantime another
body of the emigrants had descended into what is now known as
Natal, and had defeated Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus.
Being unable, owing to the presence of their families, to employ
the cavalry tactics which had been so effective against the
Matabeli, they again used their ingenuity to meet this new
situation, and received the Zulu warriors in a square of laagered