CHAPTER II.
FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD In the olden days, before men with strange languages and customs entered their country and disturbed the serenity of their life, the Boers were accustomed to make annual trips to the north in search of game, and to exterminate the lions which periodically attacked their flocks and herds.
It was customary for relatives to form parties, and these trekked with their long ox-waggons far into the northern Transvaal, and oftentimes into the wilderness beyond the Zambesi.

Women and children accompanied the expeditions and remained behind in the ox-waggons while the men rode away into the bush to search for buck, giraffe, and lion.

Hardy men and women these were who braved the dangers of wild beasts and the terrors of the fever country, yet these treks to the north were as certain annual functions as the Nachtmaals in the churches.

Men who went into the wild bush to hunt for the lions, which had been their only unconquerable enemy for years, learned to know no fear, and with their wives and children formed as hardy a race as virgin soil ever produced.

With these pioneers it was not a matter of great pride to have shot a lion, but it was considered a disgrace to have missed one.