"Where are you going ?" or "Where are you coming from ?" were his invariable salutations, and if the stranger was unable to give a satisfactory reply or show proper passports he was commanded, "Hands up." The burghers were constantly on the alert when they were on the veld, whether they were merely wandering about, leaving for home, or returning to the laager, and as soon as they secured any information which they believed was valuable they dashed away to the nearest telegraph or heliograph station, and reported it to their general or commandant.

In addition to this valuable attribute the Boers had the advantage of being among white and black friends who could assist them in a hundred different ways in securing information concerning the enemy, and all these circumstances combined to warrant General White's estimate of the Boers' intelligence department, which, notwithstanding its efficiency, was more or less chimerical.
In no department or branch of the army was there any military discipline or system, except in the two small bodies of men known as the State Artillery of the Transvaal and the State Artillery of the Free State.
These organisations were in existence many years before the war was begun, and had regular drills and practice which were maintained when they were at the front.

The Johannesburg Police also had a form of discipline which, however, was not strict enough to prevent the men from becoming mutinous when they imagined that they had fought the whole war themselves, and wanted to have a vacation in order that they might visit their homes.

The only vestige of real military discipline that was to be found in the entire Boer army was that which was maintained by Field-Cornet A.L.
Thring, of the Kroonstad commando, who had a roll-call and inspection of rifles every morning.

This extraordinary procedure was not relished by the burghers, who made an indignant protest to General Christian De Wet.