sympathy. These, with a modicum of humour thrown in, are the chief ingredients in what is called tact, so that you cannot see him, talk to him, or be with him without feeling that since diplomacy has failed to relieve the tension here, and war has followed, it cannot have been the fault of so gentle, so self-possessed, so calm a man.

I have also seen Sir Forestier Walker at his desk in a bare room of the old Dutch "castle" or fort, and have enjoyed that visit, for he is a man of the frankest and most affable nature.

Both the civil and the military leaders are of one type-tall, slender, strong, and wiry men, whose youth resists their years, and who take so much of the burden of the moment on their own shoulders, that all who are under them work cheerfully and with a will.

CHAPTER III

BRAVE OFFICERS AND RICH REFUGEES

ON every ship that arrives in Capetown from the north are many British officers. Some bring a dozen or twenty; others as many as fifty. They are the pick and flower of Englishmen. Most of them are young men, in the late twenties and early thirties, bearing distinguished names, exhibiting the long, refined faces of the British aristocracy, carrying themselves at once like dandies and like athletes.

The one strange thing about them is that nobody is sending them here, and they do not know to what part of the seat of war they are bound, or what they are going to do. They only know that they could not keep away. They are here to see what they call "the fun." It is a war against bushwhackers, guerillas, and sharpshooters, in which a far greater proportion of officers than men are certain to be killed, but that does not matter to them. The first accounts of skirmishes they read after they have landed tell of the special dangers which they have to face. Apparently the manner in which the enemy reveals its presence among

the hills out Natal way is by the dropping of an officer from his saddle, or in his tracks, as he pushes ahead of his men. What of that? It is part of "the fun," they say.

These fine young fellows have come during their leave of absence, which has been well earned by active service in disagreeable climates, in lonely garrison posts, in the Sudan, or on the Indian frontier. One who came out with me has given up a billet for which he had long been striving, and which was offered to him just as he had determined to come here and do a little fighting for variety. Another of my companions on the voyage was starting fully equipped to make a tour of the world, but this excitement proved more attractive. A third officer on the same ship arrived in England to see his people, from whom he had long been separated; he got, however, no further than London, and only stayed four days when he caught the spirit of his comrades and bolted for South Africa. On another ship was a young man with an income of £40,000 a year who was just about to be married, but instead of taking his bride to St. George's he asked her down to Waterloo to see him off for Durban.

I watched these men on shipboard during seventeen 'days. They were up at six o'clock every morning, running so many dozen times round the deck in slippers and pyjamas in order to keep themselves in

good condition, then plunging into a cold bath, and coming back to the deck again in flannels, as fresh and blooming as new-cut flowers. All day they read about South Africa in the little libraries they had brought along with them, and which they exchanged for similar books that other men had brought on board. They were, emphatically, the best of Englishmen-wideawake, well-informed, proud, polished, polite, considerate, and abounding with animal health and high spirits.

The more I saw of them the more I resented all that we hear about various fanatical people on earth who are celebrated for not being afraid to die-the Sudan dervishes, the stolid Turks, the pilfering Albanians, and now, last of all, these wooden-headed Boers. Of some of these we are told that they welcome death, of others that they believe themselves in God's special care.

And what of these English? Are they afraid to die? Who would say such a thing or think it for a moment--of these splendid fellows who have led England's ranks against every fanatic on earth except the Turk? They are as ready to die as any men, and they rank above their foes as towers rise above the lowly grass, because they risk their lives with a full knowledge of what they are doing, and because in risking themselves they risk the most enviable lot of which any man can boast.

The incomes and homes, the wives and sisters, the companions and sports and clubs of these men, the comforts and the luxuries with which they can surround themselves whenever they will, are ties which must make life dearer to them than the bare, hard lot of most of the poor wretches whom historians and poets have glorified for not fearing death; but every one of those, I honestly believe, fears it more than these splendid, dashing fellows, who keep on carving empires out of the map of the world to swell the British Empire.

"Been to Government House?" I asked one of these men yesterday.

"No," said he," and I'm not going. I am afraid they might send me somewhere out of the thick of things. I don't want them to know I'm here. I'm going to wherever its liveliest. I'll be certain to find somebody under whom I have served, or with whom I have fought, and so I'll see the best of it."

And that was the man who told me that out of a hundred men with whom he studied for the service seventy-five are dead already-fifteen of illnesses, and sixty of bullet wounds and spear thrusts!

It is disgusting to leave these men, and turn into any one of the Capetown hotels to find yourself surrounded by the rich refugees from Johannesburg, and to hear them cry like children as they tell you what they will lose if the British do not hurry up and take