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Ch. 20: The Mines Besieged

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252 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
285 men; the Diamond Fields Horse, Major Rodger, 6 officers and 142 men. The total force of regulars and volunteers was about 1100.
The Town Guard was organized, and the men were drilled in the use of the Lee-Metford rifle. At the beginning of the siege this force numbered about 1200 men, but both the volun­teer corps and the Town Guard were soon increased until the total strength of the garrison reached 4500 men. This included the Cape Mounted Police, numbering about 360 officers and
men, and unmounted police to the number of 175. The limit of the defence force was gauged by the number of rifles in Kim-berley — which had been considerably increased during the pre­vious year by the importation by local merchants of 1000 rifles 'and six Maxims, together with a considerable amount of ammu­nition for the use of the rifle clubs.
Our forts and redoubts were in many ways unique and pic­turesque. The waterworks reservoir was surrounded by a huge fortification, made of grain and coal sacks filled with soil. The forts on the tailing heaps were made with rows of the trays of trucks which in times of peace convey the diamond-bearing
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