the Transvaal, before the Boers destroy Johannesburg.

In their dismay they actually weep over their plates at dinner, and half-strangle themselves by sobbing as they drink their whisky at bed-time. The Mount Nelson, the Queen's, and the Grand Hotels are all full of these merchants and millionaires, faring on the fat of the land, idle, loafing all of every day, and discussing what per cent. of their losses the British Government will pay when they put in their claims at the end of the war.

Some came here as clerks, some as labourers in the mines, and some are merchants who brought £10 worth of goods out from Birmingham a dozen years ago. They tell you that they have left £100,000 worth, or £80,000 worth of goods in their shop, and that altogether £25,000,000 is in danger of destruction in Johannesburg.

"Oh, mine Got!" one has just been saying to me; "I can'd dell how much I shall lose by dis peezness. I shpeak mit much feeling, my frent. Blease excoose me grying. Vot do you dink! Do you dink I can git back dirty-dree per cent. of vot I lose from de British Government? Oh, Got! den I lose £60,000— ain'd it derrible?"

They are pulling their long faces all over the place, and shedding their tears wherever you meet them. It is enough to make a statue ill to have to hear and see

them and move among them. Why don't they equip a regiment of rough-riders or make up a battalion of volunteers among themselves? Why don't they fight? The war has jeopardised their property, and they have a keener interest in it than any Tommy, or any officer now at the front. How can they see the cream and flower of English manhood rushing down here to spill its precious blood for them, and never feel a blush of shame, or a pang of any emotion except grief over personal losses which will still leave many of them rich?

Really, Capetown is a wonderful place. It is worth the journey to see the streets blocked by able young men, and the hotels crowded by rich refugees, while each night's train takes out the fearless gentlemen who are deliberately risking not only their lives but more of worldly advantage than can ever come to these skulkers, who cling to the shelter of England's guns, and weep while they wait for men to die, that they may rush up to the British Treasury with their claims.

If the exhibition these refugees are making in Capetown were as important at it is conspicuous, one would think the Englishmen in charge here would drop the contest where it is, and go home in disgust. But it is only a phase of a side issue, quite apart from the principle at stake.

CHAPTER IV

THE BOER AT HOME

A GERMAN correspondent took me aside in the City

Club one day and said: playing us all for fools. to believe that they can only fight behind rocks, and while the British acted on this belief they have come right out in the open and given them a huge surprise, bottling up Kimberley and cutting off all communication with it, besides capturing trains, destroying bridges, and all the rest."

"You see, the Boers have been They have allowed the world

Almost as he spoke out of his dense ignorance, an American born in Natal, and now a man of wealth and position in South Africa, drifted to our group and told us his very different opinion of the enemy.

"The British talk about keeping on the defensive until their whole force is in position in December; but, mark my words, it will all be over before then. I was. born among the Boers, I speak their language, I have hunted with them, seen them in war, been intimate with them in all the States and colonies, and I tell you they will not hold out. They are fanatics, but their

fanaticism goes only so far. They have never seen more than a thousand British in war, and these they have potted at from behind rocks while the British were wholly exposed.

They fancy this is to be always the rule. I can cite you instances in several wars with natives, where the Boers absolutely refused to occupy positions of danger. They want to kill, but do not at all relish being killed. They are so closely related, and so much inter-married, that the killing of a Boer makes mourning in forty families. The killing of forty Boers would practically put the whole Transvaal in mourning.

"I will predict within a very little what is going to happen. To begin with, they detest discipline, and always dispute with their leaders. Every man who knows them will tell you that even when they make up a hunting party they waste the best time of the day arguing over every plan that is proposed. Englishmen who hunt with them have learned to say to them, 'You stay here and talk it out, we are going in such a direction,' and then they go off, and leave the Boers to follow them. In war they will want to argue every plan that is proposed, and they will rapidly grow more and more discontented.

"Their habit is for each Boer to look out for himself. All are farmers, and every man in the field has left his affairs with no one in charge. They are not

professional soldiers like the British, they are not willing to die like the British, they are not paid like the British. By and by they will begin to go home. They will say that they must look after their farms, and when they decide to do so, nothing can stop them.

"I passed through the Transvaal a few days ago, and I had two remarkable conversations which go to show how peculiar the Boers are. The first was with a man who had been sent to a Boer house to collect

some taxes that were long overdue. He rode up to the house, called out the head of the family, and stated his errand. The Boer turned on his heel and went indoors at once. Presently he came out again with his loaded gun.

"See here,' said he, 'I own this house and all the land as far as you can see around you. It is mine. I am king here. You go back and tell Paul Kruger that if he sends another man here for that five pounds of taxes I will kill the man. As for you, if you say any more about it I will shoot you.'

66

My second talk was with a field cornet, whom I chanced to meet. Said he, They are talking of going

Well, my people all hate they are not satisfied with

to war with the English. the damned English, but the way things are going. They tell me that they hear that Oom Paul is rich; that he rides in a carriage, and does no work. They say they are poor and are getting nothing out of the Government stealings,