When a man has reached the age of sixty it may be assumed that he has outlived his usefulness as a soldier; but not so with the Boer.  There was not one man, but hundreds, who had passed the Biblical threescore years and ten but were fighting valiantly in defence of their country.  Grey-haired men who, in another country, might be expected to be found at their homes reading the accounts of their grandsons’ deeds in the war, went out on scouting duty and scaled hills with almost as much alacrity as the burghers only half their age.  Men who could boast of being grandfathers were innumerable, and in almost any laager there could be seen father, sons, and grandsons, all fighting with equal vigour and enthusiasm.  Paul Kruger is seventy-five years old, but there were many of his burghers several years older than he who went to the frontier with their commandos and remained there for several months at a time.  A great-grandfather serving in the capacity of a private soldier, may appear like a mythical tale, but there were several such.  Old Jan van der Westhuizen, of the Middleberg laager, was active and enthusiastic at eighty-two years, and felt more than proud of four great-grand-children.  Piet Kruger, a relative of the President, and four years his senior, was an active participant in every battle in which the Rustenburg commando was engaged while it was in Natal, and he never once referred to the fact that he fought in the 1881 war and in the attack upon Jameson’s men.  Four of Kruger’s sons shared the same tent and fare with him, and ten of his grandsons were burghers in different commandos.  Jan C. ven [Transcriber’s note:  sic] Tander, of Boshof, exceeded the maximum of the military age by eight years, but he was early in the field, and was seriously wounded at the battle of Scholtznek on December 11th.  General Joubert himself was almost seventy years old but as far as physical activity was concerned there were a score of burghers in his commando, each from five to ten years older, who exhibited more energy in one battle than he did during the entire Natal campaign.  The hundreds of bridges and culverts along the railway lines in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Upper Natal were guarded day and night by Boers more than sixty years old, who had volunteered to do the work in order that younger men might be sent to localities where their services might be more necessary.  Other old Boers and cripples attended to the commissariat arrangements along the railways, conducted commissariat waggons, gathered forage for the horses at the front, and arranged the thousands of details which are necessary to the well-being and comfort of every army, however simple its organisation.

Among the Boers were many burghers who had assisted Great Britain in her former wars in South Africa—­men who had fought under the British flag, but were now fighting against it.  Colonel Ignace Ferreira, a member of one of the oldest Boer families, fought under Lord Wolseley in the Zulu war, and had the Order of the Commander of the Bath conferred upon him by the Queen.  Colonel Ferreira was at the head of a commando at Mafeking.  Paul Dietzch, the military secretary of General Meyer, fought under the British flag in the Gaika and several other native wars.