CHAPTER III.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY A visitor in one of the laagers in Natal once spoke of a Boer burgher as a "soldier." A Boer from the Wakkerstroom district interrupted his speech and said there were no Boer soldiers.

"If you want us to understand concerning whom you are talking," he continued, "you must call us burghers or farmers.

Only the English have soldiers." It was so with all the Boers; none understood the term soldier as applying to anybody except their enemy, while many considered it an insult to be called a soldier, as it implied, to a certain extent, that they were fighting for hire.

In times of peace the citizen of the Boer republics was called a burgher, and when he took up arms and went to war he received no special title to distinguish him from the man who remained at home.

"My burghers," Paul Kruger was wont to call them before the war, and when they came forth from battle they were content when he said, "My burghers are doing well." The Boers were proud of their citizenship, and when their country was in danger they went forth as private citizens and not as bold warriors to protect it.
There was a law in the two republics which made it incumbent upon all burghers between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join a commando and to go to war when it was necessary.