The old Boers of the towns and the takhaars looked askance at the youth of Pretoria and Johannesburg in their uniforms, and shook their heads at the innovation as smacking too much of an anti-republican spirit.
Like Cincinnatus, the majority of the old Boers went directly from their farms to the battlefields, and they wore the same clothing in the laagers as they used when shearing their sheep or herding their cattle.

When they started for the frontier the Boer farmers arranged matters so that they might be comfortable while the campaign continued.

Many, it is true, dashed away from home at the first call to arms and carried with them, besides a rifle and bandolier, nothing but a mackintosh, blanket, and haversack of food.

The majority of them, however, were solicitous of their future comfort and loaded themselves down with all kinds of luggage.

Some went to the frontier with the big, four-wheeled ox-waggons and in these they conveyed cooking utensils, trunks, boxes with food and flour, mattresses, and even stoves.