The general press estimate of the forces of the two republics varied from 25,000 to 35,000 men.

Mr.J.B.Robinson, a personal friend of President Kruger's and a man who had spent much of his life among the Boers, considered the latter estimate to be too high.

The calculation had no assured basis to start from.

A very scattered and isolated population, among whom large families were the rule, is a most difficult thing to estimate.

Some reckoned from the supposed natural increase during eighteen years, but the figure given at that date was itself an assumption.