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teer officers taught them much of military methods. Bu they never had to be taught courage, self-reliance, endurance and obstinacy. Their leaders must have had some realizing sense of the magnitude of the contract they were taking in challenging Great Britain to arms, but beyond a doubt the great mass of the common people both overestimated their own strength and underestimated that of the foe. They were obsessed by the memory of the unfortunate victory of Majuba Hill. Once they had whipped the "rooineks" and they could, consequently do it again whenever they pleased, was their fatuous belief. That England could put ten time their bumbers in the field, had the resources of the world to draw upon for the materiel of war, was able to cut them off from outside aid and would exert all her power not only to conquer them but to requite terribly that memorable defeat, were considerations of which they made little or nothing. Choral singing of hymns and supposably opposite scriptural quotations promising victory, easily dispelled such unpleasant reflections.
Despite the vast odds against them, they certainly have put up an amazingly good fight. Such advantages as they had, thorough knowledge of the country, inurement to exposure, fatigue and pain, exceptional skill as marksmen and the inspiration of devotion to a cause in which they earnestly believed, they made the most of. Though again and again declared conquered, they went on fighting. England congratulated Lord Roberts and felicitated herself that the war was ended—but the Boers fought on. The two republics were, officially, wiped out of existence, but kept their little armies in the field all the same. Gen. DeWet was "bottled up" over and over again, and always broke out and appeared with distressing energy in some new and unexpected place. It has been authoritatively reported that the Boers, haggard and worn by privation, fatigue and wounds, were scattered in small "commandos," short of ammunition and with scant forage for their lean and exhausted horses—but, even yet, the idea that they had been whipped did not seem to have occurred to them.
Buffalo Bill's Wild West, in conformity to its established policy of presenting to its patrons the most interesting people concerned in the making up of current history, has brought from South Africa a detachment of Boer soldiers, led by commandment F. A. Vander Look, that the American people may see for themselves what sort of men have been doing such fighting. Some of them were with Gen. Cronje, "The Lion of the Transvaal," and made their escape when he, with nearly all of his command, after one of the most heroic struggles in history, was captured on the anniversary of "Majuba Hill;" others have only recently served under Gen. DeWest. It is but justice to them to say that only disability for continued service in the field prevents their still being among the irrepressibles harassing Gen. Kitchener, and enables their procurement, during recuperation, by the Wild West. They are typical Boer burghers and appear mounted, armed, and equipped exactly, in every detail, as they were in the field.
(Picture) A TYPICAL BOER CAMP.
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THE HOME OF HISTORY AND HEROISM.
In concluding this sketch of the poineer, military and managerial career of Colonel W. F. Cody, and of the historic characters and salient features with which Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World has made mankind familiar, it is worthy of note that their present and seventeenth annual tour will be signalized by a magnitude, interest, value and perfection programme of performances, the result is such an historical, martial and equestrian triumph as but one man could organize and but one country produce.
It is at once a colossal Object School of living lessons and an entertainment radically and exceptionally differing from all other exhibitions, in that it is actually a part of the romantic past it perpetuates, and vitalized by the presence of some of the most noted makers of the frontier history they illustrate. There is no "make believe" about it ; nothing that seems to say, "We will now give you an imitation of somebody doing something," and it does not in any degree rely for its success upon the display of sensational feats that have no other utility than mere spectacular exhibition. The men who participated in it are, in absolute verity, just what they are represented to be, and the things they do are such as they have been accustomed to in war and military life, or in the struggle for existence in their serveral vocations and conditions. Himself the acknowledged master horseman of his generation, Colonel Cody is a critical judge of the individual, the collective and comparitive merits of the cavalry, Indian, Cossack, Cowboy, Bedouin, Mexican, Cuban, Argentine and other riders he has secured. As an expert he knows just how to most brilliantly and effectively mass these hundreds of representative riders and their horses in grand review, cosmographic pageant and kaleidoscope maneuvers. Himself a famous participant in many fierce battles, pursuits, rescues, and even deadly single combats, he knows how to plan and direct the spectacles of dreadful war and carnage, and of savage ambush and foray, in comparison with which the conflicts in the Coliseur of the Caesars were but spiritless and insignificant affrays.
(Picture) JOHN M. BURKE.
To those who have followed the march of civilization from the Alleghenies to the Pacific, this exposition is like an illustrated reproduction of events which transpired during the long and bloody struggle between the white man and the Indian, in the former's effort to extend his empire and the latter's heroic but hopeless defense of his hunting grounds. The singular and savage characters of the Leather Stocking Tales become striking, electrifying realities. The admirers of Lewis and Clarke, the explorers ; of Daniel Boone, the pioneer ; of Kit Carson, the scout, and of Fremont, Crook, Custer, Sherman, and Miles, the fighters, readily recognize in the exhibition how courage, indomitable grit, altertness, sagacity accuracy of aim, acuteness of perception and physical endurance won for them the name so enviably identified with the history of the fierce and prolonged frontier struggles, wherein every piece of ground was disputed inch by inch.
And now, to all that has made this unique entertainment the public's favorite in the past, there is this season added the Battle of Tien-Tsin, the Rescue of the Legations in China last year, participated in by Marines of the Navies of all the world powers; the picturesque "Gourkas" and "Sikhs" and Japanese Soldiers, and an Exhibition Drill of United States Life-Saving Service men by real life-saving crew ; a band of Boers directly from De Wet's Army ; a squad of the "Strathcona Horse." Canada's crack regiment, directly from the South African War, and a squad of Northwest Mounted Police, the pride of the Canadian frontier.
COPYRIGHTED BY JOHN M. BURKE. CODY & SALSBURY, NEW YORK, 1901.
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