Page:Following the Equator (Mark Twain).djvu/687

Rh Total, 133, out of the original 530. It is just 25 per cent. This is a large improvement upon the precedents established at Bronkhorst, Laing's Nek, Ingogo, and Amajuba, and seems to indicate that Boer marksmanship is not so good now as it was in those days. But there is one detail in which the Raid-episode exactly repeats history. By surrender at Bronkhorst, the whole British force disappeared from the theater of war; this was the case with Jameson's force.

In the Boer loss, also, historical precedent is followed with sufficient fidelity. In the 4 battles named above, the Boer loss, so far as known, was an average of 6 men per battle, to the British average loss of 175. In Jameson's battles, as per Boer official report, the Boer loss in killed was 4. Two of these were killed by the Boers themselves, by accident, the other by Jameson's army—one of them intentionally, the other by a pathetic mischance. "A young Boer named Jacobz was moving forward to give a drink to one of the wounded troopers (Jameson's) after the first charge, when another wounded man, mistaking his intention, shot him." There were three or four wounded Boers in the Krugersdorp hospital, and apparently no others have been reported. Mr. Garrett, "on a balance of probabilities, fully accepts the official version, and thanks Heaven the killed was not larger."

As a military man, I wish to point out what seems to me to be military errors in the conduct of the campaign which we have just been considering. I have seen active service in the field, and it was in the actualities of war that I acquired my training and my right to speak. I served two weeks in the beginning of our Civil War, and during all that time com- ———