with a prayer and a benediction.

After this meeting it was uncertain for some months which should attack
first; both were preparing as rapidly as possible for the conflict, and
the advantage seemed to lie with the one who would strike first. The
leaders of the lions seemed to have forgotten that they had lion-hunters
as their opponents, and the farmers neglected to take into account the
fact that the lion tribe was exceedingly numerous and spread over the
whole earth. When the leading farmers met in conclave at Pretoria and
heard the demands of the lions they laughed at them, sent an ultimatum in
reply, and started for the frontier to join those of their countrymen who
had gone there days before to watch that no body of lions should make
another surreptitious attack upon their country. Another community of
farmers living to the south, who had also been harassed by the lions for
many years and felt that their future safety lay in the subjugation of the
lion tribe, joined their neighbours in arms and went forth with them to
the greatest lion-hunt that South Africa has ever had.

The enemy and all other men called it war, but to the Boers it was merely
a hunt for lions such as they had engaged in oftentimes before.

The old Boer farmer hardly needed the proclamation from Pretoria to tell
him that there was to be a lion-hunt, and that he should prepare for it
immediately. He had known that the hunt was inevitable long before October
11, 1899, and he had made preparations for it months and even years
before. When the official notification from the Commandant-General reached
him through the field-cornet of the district in which he lived, he was
prepared in a few minutes to start for the frontier where the British
lions were to be found. The new Mauser rifle, which the Government had
given him a year or two before, was freshly oiled and its working order