Benjamin Weil, of the firm of the well-known South African
merchants. His residence stood in the centre of the little town,
adjacent to the railway-station. At that time bomb-proof underground
shelters, with which Mafeking afterwards abounded, had not been thought
of, or time had not sufficed for their construction. On all sides one
heard reproaches levelled at the Cape Government, and especially at
General Sir William Butler, until lately commanding the troops in Cape
Colony, for having so long withheld the modest reinforcements which had
been persistently asked for, and, above all, the very necessary
artillery.
At that date the Mafeking garrison consisted of about seven or eight
hundred trained troops. The artillery, under Major Panzera, comprised
four old muzzle-loading seven-pounder guns with a short range, a
one-pound Hotchkiss, one Nordenfeldt, and about seven ^{.}303 Maxims--in
fact, no large modern pieces whatever. The town guard, hastily
enrolled, amounted to 441 defenders, among whom nationalities were
curiously mixed, as the following table shows:
British 378
Germans 4
Americans 4
Russians 6
Dutch 27
Norwegians 5
Swedes 2
Arabs and Indians 15
____
Total 441[23]
This force did not appear sufficiently strong to resist the three or
four thousand Boers, with field-guns, who were advancing to its attack
under one of their best Generals--namely Cronje--but everyone remained
wonderfully calm, and the townspeople rose to the occasion in a most
creditable manner.
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