AND

The Boer-British War

COMPRISING

A HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS PEOPLE, INCLUDING
THE WAR OF 1899 AND 1900

BY

J. CASTELL HOPKINS, F.S.S.

Author of The Life and Works of Mr. Gladstone;
Queen Victoria, Her Life and Reign; The Sword
of Islam, or Annals of Turkish Power;
Life and Work of Sir John Thompson.
Editor of "Canada; An Encyclopedia," in six volumes.

AND

MURAT HALSTEAD

Formerly Editor of the Cincinnati "Commercial Gazette,"
and the Brooklyn "Standard-Union." Author of The
Story of Cuba; Life of William McKinley;
The Story of the Philippines; The History of American
Expansion; The History of the Spanish-American War;
Our New Possessions, and
The Life and Achievements of Admiral Dewey, etc., etc.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME I. IN TWO PARTS

THE BRADLEY-GARRETSON COMPANY, Limited
BRANTFORD, CANADA

THE LINSCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY
LONDON, ENGLAND —— TORONTO, CANADA

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, at the
Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, in the year One Thousand
Nine Hundred, by J. L. Nichols & Co.

PREFACE.

To measure the South African War of 1899-1900 merely by the population of the two Boer Republics, would necessitate its consideration as an unimportant contest in comparison with the great international conflicts of the century. To measure it by the real power of the Dutch in South Africa, under present conditions, and by the principles involved in its inception and prosecution, makes it a struggle which rivals in importance the Crimean War, the American Civil War or the Franco-Prussian conflict. In the first of these, Great Britain, France and Sardinia united to resist the dangerous designs and aggressive policy of Russia which threatened their power in the Mediterranean and the British route to India through its intended seizure or acquisition of Constantinople. In the second, the United States was fighting a great conflict for national unity. In the third, Prussia averted a campaign of "On to Berlin" by speedy and successful military action.

All of these elements find a place in the South African War. The policy of President Kruger, President Steyn and the Afrikander Bund, of Cape Colony, has been developing for years into a dangerous and combined effort for the creation of a United Dutch South Africa and the seizure of Cape Town—one of the chief stations of British commercial and maritime power. Mr. Chamberlain precipitated matters, so far as the Cape Colony Dutch were concerned, by a policy of firmness to which they were unaccustomed at the hands of the Colonial Office and which, cautious and conciliatory as it was, forced the hand of the Transvaal President before his general policy was quite matured. As the diplomatic negotiations proceeded and the war itself developed it became a struggle for Imperial unity as truly and fully as was the American Civil War. Two great Colonies of the Empire were threatened, the principles of equal right and equal liberty upon which its entire self-governing portions have been built up and maintained were spurned, and the feeling of unity which has latterly grown so amazingly amongst its various countries was openly flouted by the treatment of the Uitlanders and the attack upon Cape Colony and Natal. Backed by the undoubted ability of President Kruger, the sentiment of racial unity amongst the Dutch of all South Africa, the swords and science of European officers and experts, the immense sums drawn from the Uitlanders and possibly from Europe, the armaments prepared during a long term of years with skill and knowledge, the characteristics of a people admirably adapted through both knowledge and experience for warfare on South African soil, the Boer cry of "On to Durban" was really more menacing to British interests and conditions of unpreparedness than was the cry of the Parisian populace, in 1870, to the Kingdom of Prussia. A war with France might not have been nearly as difficult or as serious a matter to Great Britain under existing conditions as the war with the Boer Republics has turned out to be.

The loss of South Africa, or the failure to assert British supremacy as the Paramount Power in that region, would not only have humiliated Great Britain in the eyes of rival nations everywhere and precipitated peril wherever aggressive foreign ambition could find a desirable opening, but it would have lost her the respect, the admiration or the loyalty of rising British nations in Australia and Canada; of lesser Colonies all over the world; of swarming millions of uncivilized races in Hindostan, China and Northern Africa. Its influence would have been a shock to the commercial and financial nerves of the world; a blow to the independence and liberties of the "little peoples" who now rest securely under the real or nominal guarantee of British power. In the Persian Gulf and on the borders of Afghanistan, upon the frontiers of Siam and the shores of the Bosphorus, in the waters of Australasia and on the coasts of Newfoundland, upon the banks of the mighty Nile and along the borders of Canada, the result would have come as the most menacing storm-cloud of modern history. The power of a great race to continue its mission of colonization, civilization and construction was involved; and would be again involved if any future and serious European intervention were threatened.

The origin of the question itself is too wide and complicated to treat of in a few brief words. To some superficial onlookers it has been a simple matter of dispute as to franchise regulations between President Kruger and Mr. Chamberlain. To the enemies of England it has been a wicked and heartless attempt on the part of Great Britain to seize a Naboth's vineyard of gold and territory. To a few Englishmen, even, it has seemed a product of capitalistic aggression or of the personal ambition of a Rhodes or a Chamberlain. To many more it has appeared as a direct consequence of the Gladstone policy of 1881 and 1884. In reality, however, it is the result of a hundred years of racial rivalry, during which the Boer character has been evolved out of intense isolation, deliberate ignorance and cultivated prejudice into the remarkable product of to-day, while the nature of his British neighbor has expanded in the light of liberty and through the gospel of equality, of labor and of world-wide thought, into the great modern representative of progress in all that makes for good government, active intellectual endeavor, material wealth and Imperial expansion.

Stagnation as opposed to progress, slavery to freedom, racial hatred to general unity, isolation and seclusion to free colonization and settlement, the darkness of the African veldt to the light of European civilization—these are the original causes of the war. British mistakes of policy in defending the Boer against the Kaffir or the Kaffir against the Boer; political errors in making the Conventions of 1852 and 1854, of 1881 and 1884; hesitancy in the annexation of territory and indifference in the holding of it; have increased the complications of South African life and government, but have not affected the root of the evil—the fact of two absolutely conflicting social and political systems developing side by side during a century of difficulty and racial rivalry. This antagonism has been absolute. The Boer love for liberty or independence became simply a love for isolation from the rest of humanity and a desire to imitate the slave-owners of Old Testament history. The final result has been the creation of a foreign, or Hollander, oligarchy in both the Dutch republics for the purpose of preserving this condition. The British ideal is freedom in government, in trade, in politics, for himself and for others, regardless of race, or creed, or color. The Boer principle of morality has always been a mere matter of color; that of the average Englishman is very different. The Boer religion is a gospel of sombreness wrapped in the shadow of Hebrew seclusion and exclusiveness; that of the true Englishman is a gospel of love and the light of a New Testament dispensation. Side by side these two types have lived and struggled in South Africa, and to-day the racial, national, individual and other differences are being thrown into the crucible of a desperate conflict. There can only be one local result—the ultimate organization of a united South Africa in which race and creed and color will be merged in one general principle of perfect equality and the practice of one great policy of liberty to all, within the bounds of rational legislation and honest life. A second and more widely potent consequence will be the closer constructive union of the British Empire and the welding of its scattered and sometimes incoherent systems of defence and legislation and commerce into one mighty whole in which Canada and Australia and South Africa and, in some measure, India will stand together as an Imperial unit. A third and very important result, arising out of the policy of foreign nations during the struggle, should also be the drawing closer of existing ties of friendship and kinship between the British Empire and the American Republic.

J. CASTELL HOPKINS.

Early Scenes of Settlement and Struggle.

The Dark Continent

From the date of its discovery by Bartholomew Diaz, in 1486, until the first Dutch settlement by Van Riebeeck, in 1650, the Cape of Good Hope was simply a finger post on the route to India—a convenient and temporary anchorage for Portuguese, Dutch, English, Spanish and French ships. And around its stormy and rock-bound headlands had passed the richly laden ships of the English and Dutch East India Companies for half a century before the latter founded its pioneer establishment. Henceforward, however, the shores of Table Bay, with its towering and mountainous mass of granite sheltering the Castle of the Dutch Governor and the tiny settlement of Cape Town, was to be the scene and centre of a gradual colonization, of continuous struggle with innumerable natives, of peculiar trade conditions and curious governing experiences, of capture by the English and of varied experiments in British government.

The First Settlement

The first Dutch settlement was really a station for supplying the passing ships of the Dutch East India Company. No idea of territorial extension was present in the minds of those who proceeded to erect a fort and to barter with wandering natives. They knew nothing of the vast interior of the Dark Continent and its two or three hundred millions of black or brown population, its merciless wars and campaigns, its savage customs and cruelties, its vast lakes and rivers and mountains and rolling plains. They were equally unaware that about the time of their own establishment in the south, under the protecting shelter of the vast square mass of Table Mountain, a tribe of dark-skinned natives, called the Bantu, had swarmed down upon the far eastern coast and were preparing to overrun from their home in Central Africa all the great region of barren upland and rolling veldt and level Karoo plain known now by the common name of South Africa. The tiny settlements of the Dutch were thus unconsciously preparing for a future in which the persistent pressure of millions of Bantu, or Kaffirs, from the north and east upon the white colonies of the south was to make history of a most prolonged and painful character. The Old-Time Natives At first little was seen of the natives excepting members of a degraded coast tribe whom the Colonists called Bushmen and who lived more like animals than human beings. A little higher in the scale were the Hottentots, who, in large numbers, formed a fringe of wandering tribes along the whole of the southern part of the continent. Fighting continually amongst themselves, trading occasionally with the white men and stealing cattle wherever possible from the gradually extending settlement, these natives proved a source of much trouble to the pioneers.

The Dutch East India Company

Between 1652 and 1783 the European population of the Cape increased to about twenty-five thousand persons, in comparison with an increase of four millions in the English population of the thirteen American Colonies during much the same period. But conditions were different and the character of the settlers still more so. The Dutch East India Company ruled with despotic power, and its regulations read like a product of romantic imagination. Slaves were, of course, permitted and encouraged, and, in 1754, the penalty of death was fixed for any slave raising his hand against his master, and that of a severe flogging for any who loitered outside the church doors during service time. How the French Huguenots were Received The French Protestants, or Huguenots, who came out in 1688-90, were welcomed as settlers, but were very soon shown that no ideas of racial equality pervaded the Dutch mind. A schoolmaster was imported expressly to teach the children the language of the dominant race. No separate communities were allowed, and the French were carefully mixed amongst the Dutch and other settlers. Requests for distinct church organization were stigmatized as impertinent, and the use of the language was forbidden in official or public life. By the middle of the eighteenth century it had entirely died. Sumptuary laws of the most extraordinary character prevailed. Any person seeing the Governor approach had to stop his carriage and get out of it. No one lower in rank than a merchant could use a large umbrella, and only the wives and daughters of those who were, or had been, members of the Council could do so. The trade monopoly of the Company was so rigorous that Colonists were entirely debarred from external commerce, and were dependent upon officials for the sale and price of their products. They had not the most elementary self-government, and at the end of the eighteenth century did not possess a printing press. Cut off from all literature, having nothing but the Bible and a metrical version of the Psalms, they developed a type of character unique in itself and productive of most serious consequences.

The System of "Loan Leases"

Nor was permanency of settlement encouraged by the Dutch authorities. From 1705 to 1770 the Government issued what were termed "loan leases," or licenses to occupy land in the interior for grazing purposes upon the payment of a small rental and with a right to re-assume possession at any time retained by the Government. Combined with changes in the seasons and the pasturage, and the desire to obtain better locations, this system encouraged the formation of that peculiar characteristic called "trekking," which has marked the pages of South African history with so much bloodshed and trouble. It also brought the wandering farmers, or Boers, into contact or conflict with the wandering natives. Even the Dutch officials at Swellendam and Stellenbosch complained at last of a plan under which the farmers "did not scruple to wander about hither and thither several days' journey from their loan farms;" and finally, in 1770, the system was abolished. Meantime a region larger than the British Isles had been taken from the Hottentots and their cattle driven away from the best grass-land available for their use, and which had been theirs for centuries. The natural result of cattle-stealing which ensued upon the part of the natives was punishment by the Colonists in the form of war; in the holding of captured children as apprentices or slaves; and in the occasional application of torture to individual savages.

Successive Racial Importations

This matter of relations with the natives and of slavery was complicated at an early date (1658) by the introduction of some negro slaves from a Portuguese ship. They were brought from the coast of Guinea and sold to the Government for rough labor in the neighborhood of Cape Town, and also to some of the more distant settlers. Naturally inclined, already, to utilize natives for any work of a manual nature, this official encouragement immediately complicated the relations between Hottentots and Bushmen and the Dutch farmers. The latter, having once tasted the pleasures of slave-ownership in the midst of vast reserves of dark-skinned people, soon put the principle into the fullest practice and application. From time to time further consignments of slaves from other parts of Africa were introduced by those inveterate dealers, the Portuguese, and to them were soon added large numbers of native criminals from Malacca, Java and the Spice Islands, who were sent by the Batavian Government to serve out terms of punishment or slavery at the Cape. They were, of course, more intelligent than the imported slaves from Guinea and Mozambique, and often made excellent masons, harness-makers, coopers and tailors; but their influence upon the moral tone of the white community amongst whom they were placed is not hard to estimate. From their arrival dates one of the many mixed races with which South Africa swarms. Another class of imported Asiatics of a higher type consisted of political offenders sent from Java at a later date to live, with their families, upon fixed Government allowances. They received occasional accessions up to 1781, when the last batch came out. As a result of these successive racial importations Cape Colony came in time to include a most singular and varied half-breed population in which Dutch and Hottentots and Malay and Negro were all intermixed.

European Population in 1759

In 1759, a century and a half after the Colony was established, its population contained 9,782 Europeans, of whom 1,486 were women and 8,104 slaves. How many natives there were it is difficult to estimate, as they were always a very movable quantity. Up to the end of the century this population lived and slowly increased under conditions which absolutely precluded real progress and evolved the character of singular stagnation which met the English conquerors in 1795. In 1779 the Dutch settlers pleaded in vain with the Directors of the East India Company for a limited privilege of making purchases directly in Holland instead of through the Company's stores at Cape Town. In vain the so-called burghers also asked for the most elementary political rights—though even then entirely unwilling to concede any rights to the surrounding natives. In vain they petitioned for printed copies of the laws and regulations of the Government and for a printing press.

The Dutch and the Natives.

Hottentot Character

At the commencement of British rule in Cape Colony (1806) there were in the country 26,000 persons of European descent, chiefly Dutch; 17,000 Hottentots who wandered around the outskirts of settlement and made a precarious livelihood by raising or stealing cattle; and 29,000 slaves. The Bantu had only occasionally appeared upon the visible horizon to the east and this gathering cloud was not yet a serious subject to the people or their Governors. The yellow-skinned Bushmen had retired from sight and sound of the settlers and were in any case a small and diminishing quantity. The Hottentots were in abject fear of their masters, whether as slaves "tending another's flock upon the fields" which once had been their fathers', or as wandering and homeless vagrants constituting a continuous nuisance to the scattered communities. Apart from their subjection to the Dutch, however, they were a thoughtless, cheerful, good-natured people, ignorant of everything except a little hunting and, in physique and character, were about half-way between the Bantu and the Bushmen. Like the latter they became almost extinct under the recurring attacks of small-pox and the increasing pressure of a white population on the south and the swarming masses of Bantu on the north-east.

Native Tribes

Following the conquest other native elements came into view. Under the earlier Dutch rÉgime Malays from the East Indies had been introduced for purposes of special work and negro slaves from the west coast had been obtained in large numbers. From the union of Hottentots and Malays came a mixed race called "Cape Boys," and from the union of Dutch and Hottentots came the Griquas who afterwards filled a considerable place in local history. From the seventeenth century until the abolition of slavery, in 1834, all the hard and humble work of the community was done by slaves. The Dutch farmer lost all knowledge of menial work and acquired a conviction of personal superiority which became ingrained in his character. Upon his lonely farm he was master of what he surveyed, and even the laws had little real influence or effect upon him. Constant danger from Hottentot inroads and afterwards from the far more serious and deadly Kaffir raids had bred an independence of character which isolation and ignorance deepened into extreme racial narrowness combined with contempt for men of darker colour or alien extraction.

Grievance of the Hottentots

The plowing of ground and fence-building by the Dutch was to the natives a declaration of war upon the rights of Africans—that is, according to the natives themselves, just as the building and mining by the British in the Transvaal is held to be hostile by the Boers who have inherited Hottentot principles with their Hottentot blood. In 1659 Van Riebeck, of Cape Town, wrote to the Governor-General at Batavia that the natives had been in mischief again, that one prisoner spoke "tolerable Dutch," and "being asked why they did us this injury, he declared ... because they saw that we were breaking up the best land and grass, where their cattle were accustomed to graze, trying to establish ourselves everywhere, with houses and farms, as if we were never more to remove, but designed to take, for our permanent occupation, more and more of this Cape Country, which had belonged to them from time immemorial."

Wars with the Natives

Wars with the natives were frequent. The first one with the Hottentots occurred in 1659, and arose out of the natives finding their cattle debarred from accustomed pasture lands. It consisted chiefly in a series of cattle raids and fruitless return expeditions, but was perhaps as annoying as a more real war would have been. The Hottentot tribes could never be found when sought for by the Colonists, and no doubt this mobility on the part of their earliest enemy gave the Dutch settlers lessons from which they profited during the succeeding two hundred years. The last important struggle with this native race was in 1673, and arose out of the destruction by Dutch hunters of antelopes, elephants and other game which were very precious to the Hottentot, and were within the territories of the principal remaining tribe—the Cochoqua. During four years a sort of guerilla war was carried on with Gonnema, the Chief of the clan, and considerable loss of cattle, some loss of life and a great loss of sleep caused to the border settlers before peace was concluded. Their expeditions could never get at Gonnema, although he became eventually tired of living a hunted life in the mountains, moving from hiding-place to hiding-place to escape his pursuers. Gradually, however, the Hottentots disappeared from view, so far as any measure of organized hostility was concerned, and, like the Bushmen, became either wandering pariahs of the veldt or bondsmen in the fields of their fathers.

The Kaffir Wars

A hundred years or more after the war with Gonnema, the Dutch came into collision for the first time with the Bantu, or Kaffirs. During the preceding century this sturdy, vigorous, brave and restless race had spread itself southwest of the Zambesi in all directions, and were now beginning to press ominously upon the tiny fringe of white settlements at the Cape. Wars, already referred to, occurred in 1779 and 1789, and in each case the Dutch Governor endeavored to persuade or compel the Kosas—as this particular division of the Kaffirs was called—to accept the Fish River as the boundary line. But this they would not do with any degree of continuity, and each war was marked by raids south of the River, the capture of cattle, the burning of homes, the murder of settlers and the final driving back of the natives with hastily levied commandos of Dutch Colonists. In 1799, during the years of preliminary British rule, a similar struggle took place with very similar incidents and results. So in 1812 with the fourth Kaffir war, and in 1818 with the fifth contest. But in the two latter British troops had been employed to help the Dutch commandos, as British diplomacy had been used—not very successfully—in order to control the aggressive and quarrelsome Kosas now coming into continuous contact with the equally truculent Colonists.

Missionary Influence

Meanwhile, and during the years preceding the Kaffir war of 1835, a new factor in the general situation had developed in the form of missionary influence, chiefly of the London Missionary Society. Dr. Van der Kemp had come out in 1798 and given himself up, with the most unswerving devotion, to the establishment of a Hottentot mission in the eastern part of the settlement. With other missionaries, who joined him at a later date, he became the guardian of the hapless natives and the natural enemy of the Dutch farmers. To the latter nothing could be more obnoxious than the presence in their midst of men who not only preached to the wandering Bushmen and Hottentots, but treated them as human beings not expressly created for slavery and subjection; and who closely criticised, complained about and reported to headquarters, and finally to the Colonial Office, any arbitrary treatment by the Boers of slaves, or migratory natives, or so-called apprentices. Of course there were two sides to the case which history has developed and which is so important to any adequate conception of the Dutch farmer and his character. To him, through close devotion to the Old Testament and to the peculiarities of its chosen people wandering in the wilderness—of whom he believed his race to be in some sense a prototype—the natives were simply servants raised up by Providence for his especial benefit. They were little better than the surrounding wild animals, and a common inscription over the doors of the Dutch churches, as they slowly spread over the land, was: "Dogs and natives not admitted."

Dutch Prejudices

To the missionary this was not only incomprehensible, but cruel and wicked in the extreme. He did not understand the nature of the Boer as evolved out of conditions of frequent war with environing tribes, and from customs which included slavery, and did not tolerate equality in color, race, or religion. He could not understand a creed of the Boer type—hard, narrow, unsympathetic and essentially selfish. He felt in his own veins the broad sentiment of a sacrificial Christianity, and, in trying to lift up the degraded and light the pathway of life to the darkened eyes of the savage, he frequently failed in comprehension of the reserved, taciturn and bigoted Dutchman. Hence the rivalries which spread from individuals to districts, and were finally transfused into the general Dutch estimate of British Government, and into the relations between the Cape and the Colonial Office and between Dutch and English settlers. Ultimately the missionaries became identified with the British authorities, and Dutch prejudices were intensified by the protection thus given to the natives within their districts; whilst the wilder native tribes outside British limits grew in turn to hate the authorities for the opposite reason afforded by their protection of the Dutch settlers—or their efforts to protect them—against external raids and attack. Thus the Colonial Office, had a double difficulty and a double development on its hands.

The Great Trek and its First Results.

Abolition of Slavery

The abolition of slavery is one of the landmarks in South African history. The motive for the expenditure of a hundred million of dollars in freeing slaves within the bounds of the British Empire was noble beyond all criticism. The act itself was wise and necessary. But the immense distance of the British Government from the scene in South Africa and the unfortunate ignorance of the Colonial Office, at times, concerning conditions in those far-away regions, produced mistakes in the carrying out of their policy of freedom which created a distinct injustice and made memories which still rankle in the breasts of Dutchmen from the Cape to the Zambesi. The Slave Emancipation Act came into force in Cape Colony on December 1st, 1833, and by the terms of its administration $6,235,000 was apportioned to the Cape proprietors, as against the $15,000,000 at which they had valued their property. The difference was considerable and, as many of the slaves were mortgaged it is apparent that some measure of trouble must have followed even had the whole six million dollars been promptly distributed amongst the farmers. As it was, the period of seven years' apprenticeship originally granted in order to prepare all parties for the inevitable change of condition was shortened to five years, while the money itself was doled out from London after individual proof of claim. The result, through a natural and complete ignorance of procedure amongst the farmers, was the wholesale disposal of claims against the Government for mere trifles and the enrichment of hordes of agents at the expense of the settlers.

A Disastrous Measure

To many this meant ruin. Their source of labour was gone; they could not, or would not, themselves perform manual work; their discontent with the British Government was intensified by a bitter feeling that the missionaries were their sworn enemies and were installed at the ear of the Governor and in the heart of the Colonial Office; their belief in British power was at a minimum owing to weakness in dealing with the Kaffirs; their homes had been harried along the border during many Kaffir wars and sometimes in days of peace; their pleas for a vagrancy law which should restrain wandering Kaffirs or Hottentots while within the Colony had been refused from fear of harshness in its local administration; their whole social system, religious sentiment and racial pride seemed in a state of revolt against existing conditions. At this unfortunate moment another Kaffir war broke out. There had been warning signs of danger along the eastern frontier of the Province, much alarm had been felt and expressed and appeals were sent to Cape Town for protection. Dr. Philip, the political missionary and self-constituted defender of all natives, declared these fears unwarranted, and Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who had just come out as Governor, failed to take any serious measures for defence. The result was that on December 23rd, 1834, 10,000 Kaffirs swept over the frontier, plundered the farms, murdered fifty Europeans within a week and, before the Colony was cleared of them, had wholly, or partially destroyed 806 farm-houses and captured, or destroyed sixty wagons, 5700 horses, 111,000 horned-cattle and 161,000 sheep. This was the final blow to thousands of Dutch settlers. Had they been naturally loyal to British institutions and allegiance, their repeated misfortunes must have produced some discontent, and, as it was, they were said to create an absolutely impossible situation. The Trek Commences Disregarded by their own slaves, whom they despised and often ill-treated; pillaged by the native tribes, whom they hated with a bitter hatred and oppressed wherever possible; governed by the English, whom they had learned to dislike intensely and to in some measure despise; controlled by rules of administration which they failed to understand and by laws of liberty which aimed at their individual right of control over human chattels, while striving to permeate by education the dense mass of their inherited ignorance; they prepared their caravan-covered wagons, gathered together their household possessions and flocks and herds, and withdrew in thousands from the Colony, and, as they hoped, from British rule.

Qualities and Mode of Life

Such is a brief pen-picture of the immediate and surface causes of the Great Trek. It gives the most favorable view for the emigrant farmer, and constitutes, in various forms, the basis for the belief in foreign countries that the Boers were forced to migrate from Cape Colony by British tyranny or maladministration; that they deserved their independence if ever a people did; and that Great Britain had no right to interfere further with them in the interior. Such an opinion is far from correct. As we have seen in preceding pages, the British Government had made sundry serious mistakes in policy; but they had occurred under conditions of exceptional difficulty and from motives of the highest and best. The Boers, in fact, did not want firm government or free institutions; they desired liberty to do as they liked with their own living chattels and with the natives of the soil. They deliberately cultivated modes of life and thought diametrically opposed to everything the Englishman holds dear, and carefully fanned the smouldering embers of dislike and distrust in their own breasts until they became a flame of active hatred. The development of conditions, therefore, which in Canada or Australia would have produced protests and elicited eventual and satisfactory reforms only served, in South Africa, to intensify individual bitterness, to increase the racial misunderstandings and prejudices, and to hasten the great migration into the interior.

There are some important details to consider in this connection. Many of England's troubles in administering the eastern part of the Colony were due to Boer arrogance and contempt of native rights and property; while the wars which resulted in the destruction of Dutch property, in turn, were natural though regrettable ebullitions of that spirit of revenge which is not always confined to savages. Unwise as Lord Glenelg's despatch to Sir Benjamin D'Urban was, its terms clearly prove this fact. As to the Trek itself, there is a possibility that it would have occurred in any case. The Boers were accustomed to a wandering life in wagons, and, in time, their laagers must inevitably have extended further and further into native territory. The loss of their slaves would have naturally driven parties of the more enterprising and youthful into the vast interior, and the spirit with which they slaughtered natives as readily and as cheerfully as they did wild beasts would have surely established Dutch communities to the north and east without the provocations afforded by missionary charges of cruelty, the Slaghter's Nek incident, the freeing of the slaves, or native raids of retribution across the frontier. The pity of it is that the feeling of hatred toward England and Englishmen was so early in its origin and so deep-seated in its nature that some of these occurrences, which superficial writers give as the undoubted cause of the sentiment, were in reality more like the froth and foam upon the top of a slow-gathering wave of sullen and stubborn resentment against a superior racial civilization.

Troubles with the Natives

The Boers who migrated were chiefly those of the eastern part of the Colony, far away from the seat of Government and almost entirely isolated from communication with English settlers—largely by their own desire. They were accustomed to fighting the natives, and had the authorities allowed them at pleasure to throw off their allegiance and move into the interior in detached bodies, there would have been no end to complications with the native tribes, while a prolonged series of little wars in partial defence of men who were alien in race and thought and policy would have resulted. At this period, too, England still maintained throughout the world the principle that he who is born a British subject is always one, and in South Africa, up to 1836, it was really good policy to prevent isolated Dutch settlements in the native regions. When the migration became too large and too well organized to prevent, later developments made it still necessary to press this claim of allegiance in order to try and control, or check, the new rÉgime of strife and bloodshed which the Boer commandos had established and which threatened both British interests and settlers in Natal. There was much of the picturesque and something of the apparently heroic in this famous migration. Out of Egypt and from the bondage of the Englishmen—who would not let them retain their bondsmen—the Boers went to the number of at least ten thousand, and traversed the vast wilderness stretching through what is now Griqualand East into the Natal of to-day; or else trekked into the regions north of the Orange and Vaal Rivers. The interest and striking features of the migration were undoubted, but the heroism was not at first so clear. As events turned out there was much of danger and death in these determined raids into native territory—conquered and partially cleared of population by the wars of Moselkatze and Tshaka—but at first the contempt of the Boers for all savages, their absolute belief in themselves as a chosen people and in their shotguns as invincible allies, made the movement an apparently simple matter.

Preparations and First Party of Trekkers

In 1836 the Great Trek began. All through the frontier districts sounded the hum of preparation, while the still primitive roads became crowded with large wagons laden with household goods, provisions, ammunition and the families of the men who rode on either side or guarded the droves of cattle and horses and the flocks of sheep and goats which accompanied each caravan. The parties travelling together were usually made up of related families, and were led by one of themselves duly elected to the post and to the title of Commandant. The first party to start was divided into two sections of about fifty individuals each. One section met the not uncommon fate of over-confident invaders in a land of savages, and its members were destroyed with the exception of two children. The other went away up to the north and east, and only a few finally reached the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay alive. Fever and the Tsetse fly had been too much for the expedition. The Second Party The second party was a large one under command of an able leader—Hendrik Potgieter. Slowly and carefully he guided his people up to an extensive strip of land lying between the Vet and Vaal Rivers, and of this they took possession. It was not long, however, before Moselkatze, the potent Chief of the Matabele, heard of this invasion of his sphere, and some isolated parties of the farmers were killed by his warriors. Then came the news that a grand attack was to be made and the settlement wiped out. Potgieter at once selected a suitable elevation, made a strong defence with wagons and trees, and with forty men awaited the attack. The result of fierce onslaughts upon such a position by the naked bodies and brandishing spears of a Matabele army was what might have been expected, and 155 corpses of the enemy were finally left outside the laager.

British Policy During the Middle of the Century

By the middle of the century there were some twenty thousand emigrant farmers scattered over the region between the Orange and Vaal Rivers and north of the latter. They had no organized government; no bond of union except a feeling of hostility to British sovereignty and a common love of independent isolation; no adequate security against sudden attacks from surrounding savages. Occasionally they combined in small forces and fell with merciless severity upon tribes which had aroused their displeasure. They would brook no control, even from self-constituted authorities, and at first endeavoured to govern themselves by general meetings of citizens. Distances were too great, however, to render this practicable, and small elective Assemblies in several semi-republican communities eventually developed. But the Boer character possessed a positive genius for disobedience, and the feuds of families and communities soon became as marked as those of the native tribes around them—whose cattle they delighted to capture and whose children were occasionally enslaved by Dutch commandos. The settlers were not seriously interfered with by the British Government in London, or in Cape Town. A general supervision, or pretence at supervision, over their relations with the natives was maintained and with ultimately important results. But for some years following the Natal annexation nothing of importance occurred. No formal recognition of their feeble efforts at self-government was given, they remained British subjects in the eyes of the law, and Sir Peregrine Maitland's Proclamation of August 21, 1845, at the Cape, expressly reserved the rights of the Crown in this connection.

Moshesh the Basuto

Meanwhile, however, two other communities had developed in their neighbourhood. East of what afterwards became the Orange Free State and in territory which the emigrant farmers, or Boers as they were beginning to be called, claimed for themselves, an exceedingly able native chief, in the person of Moshesh the Basuto, had risen into power and had welded together the scattered fragments of tribes which had been crushed by the raids of the Matabele and Zulus. From the rugged heights of Thaba Bosigo he dominated a large extent of country, an increasing native population and much spoil in cattle and slaves. To the south and west of the Boers two half-breed leaders named Adam Kok and Waterboer had established themselves respectively with strong, armed bands of Griquas—the name given to the offspring of Dutch farmers and Hottentot women—and had become a recognized force. With Moshesh they constituted the elements of a new British policy which was inaugurated in 1843. The Colonial Office did not want at this time to extend its territories. South Africa, indeed, appeared during the first portion of this century as the least promising, and the most turbulent and troublesome, of all British possessions. The soil was supposed to be arid and without fertility or minerals, the population seemed hostile and the net result of colonization and administration had been a series of costly Kaffir wars. In dealing with the Kaffirs, or Kosas, on the eastern frontier of the Colony the British Government had shown this disinclination with quite sufficient clearness. But to allow the emigrant Boers to repudiate their allegiance was another matter, and even to the not very far-seeing statesmen of the Colonial Office of that day it presented possibilities deserving of consideration. With Sir Harry Smith's arrival and the termination of the Kaffir War of 1846-47 came another development of the situation. The new Governor of Cape Colony, who for the first time had also been appointed High Commissioner with power of control over native matters outside of the bounds of the Colony, visited the Orange River region, looked into the results of the Treaty State policy, came to the conclusion that agreements with native chiefs were like arrangements made with little children, and determined to suppress these creations of missionary statecraft as soon as might be possible.

Orange River Sovereignty

Meanwhile the High Commissioner was well received at Bloemfontein, and soon made arrangements with Adam Kok and Moshesh which greatly curtailed their authority and independence. On February 3, 1848, he announced the annexation to British dominions of the whole territory between the Vaal and Orange Rivers and the Drakensberg mountains under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The colored population was left under the control of its chiefs, and their land was carefully reserved for their own use. All relations between tribes, however, or with Europeans, were to be guided by British authorities. Major Warden was continued at Bloemfontein as the Governor, or Resident, and Sir Harry Smith returned to Cape Town after having carried out a policy which should have been effected long before. And it was now too late. Although without any definite government amongst themselves, or any allegiance to the little republics which had sprung up over the Vaal, a certain number of Dutch farmers in the new Sovereignty would not accept British rule, and they were speedily aided by the Transvaal Boers under Pretorius in a direct attack upon Bloemfontein. Major Warden was compelled to surrender, and the British officials were speedily driven out of the country. Sir Harry Smith, however, was too vigorous and able a commander to stand this sort of thing, and he hastily got some troops together, crossed the Orange River, attacked Pretorius in a strong position at a place called Boomplaatz, defeated him and re-established the Sovereignty Government. Those of the Boers who were inveterately opposed to British rule at once crossed the Vaal and were not interfered with by British officials. Their places, to some extent, were taken by fresh emigrants from Cape Colony, many of them English, and from this time forward the Orange River State was populated by white settlers more or less passively friendly toward England and composed of the least hostile amongst the emigrant farmers with a certain proportion of Englishmen.

Rebellion of Molitsane

For a time all went apparently well. Then, in 1851, Moshesh, finding his power had been restricted by the new arrangements, and knowing that he was much stronger in a military sense than the British authorities had any conception of, began to foment disturbances between his own people and native clans in the Sovereignty. He did not appear publicly in the matter, but his policy was none the less effective in drawing both Major Warden and the Cape Governor into a determination to punish Molitsane—a vassal of Moshesh—who was a distinct offender. With 162 soldiers, 120 Boers and some fifteen hundred natives, Major Warden marched out from Bloemfontein, and at Viervoet was drawn into a trap and suffered a disastrous defeat. It is said that Moshesh himself was surprised at the easy result. At any rate, he at once threw off the mask and joined forces with his vassal. A section of the Boers also repudiated the Sovereignty Government, so far, at least, as to promise Moshesh absolute neutrality if he would leave their cattle and property unharmed. This he promised and fulfilled by plundering without mercy the Boers who remained loyal. Major Warden was now helpless at Bloemfontein, as Cape Colony was in the throes of another Kaffir war. and not a soldier could be spared—a fact of which Moshesh and the disloyal Dutch were perfectly aware. The latter added to the difficulties of the situation by suggesting to Pretorius that now was his time to avenge Boomplaatz. He was not unwilling, but thought a primary duty lay to his own adherents beyond the Vaal; so he wrote Warden that if the independence of the Boers of that region were definitely acknowledged he would refrain from participation in the struggle.

The Sand River Convention

Major Warden reported to Sir Harry Smith that the safety of the Sovereignty for the time lay in assenting to this proposal, as he could not hold it against the Basutos and the Transvaal Boers combined. The result was the appointment of Commissioners and the negotiation in 1852 of the Sand River Convention "with the Commandant and Delegates of the Boers living beyond the Vaal," by which the British Government "guaranteed to the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to manage their own affairs and to govern themselves according to their own laws without any interference on the part of the British Government." Provisions were included by which the British authorities disclaimed all alliances with colored peoples north of the Vaal, and the Boers accepted the declaration (on paper) that "no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced" in the country under their control. This arrangement finally severed the two communities, carried across the Vaal another migration of the anti-British element, and in time consolidated the bitterly hostile and prejudiced sections of population into the present Transvaal Republic. Meanwhile, peace had been made with the Kaffirs, and Sir George Cathcart, who was now Governor at the Cape, invaded Basutoland with a considerable force of regulars for the purpose of punishing Moshesh. As usual in South African warfare, he under-estimated the numbers and fighting skill of his opponents as well as the natural strength of this Switzerland of the Veldt. Thaba Bosigo was too hard a nut for his force to crack, and he was, besides, drawn into an ambush and defeated. Moshesh, however, was wise enough not to press his advantage too far, and with statecraft which was worthy of a greater sphere, asked and received peace on terms very beneficial to himself.

Changed Policy

Development of Dutch Rule

Development of the Two Republics

From 1854 to 1877 the two Republics developed along very different lines. Their general principle of government was the same, but it was not administrated in the same way. In form their constitutions were nominally republican; in practice they became essentially arbitrary and absolutely antagonistic to British and Colonial ideas of government. The coloured people who, in hundreds of thousands, were established around the Dutch, had few civil rights and no political ones. They were the prey of small military bodies, the source of an enforced labour which could not in practice be distinguished from slavery, the object of personal contempt and with little protection from public law or private conscience. Citizenship was practically limited to the Boer, in the Transvaal; and in the Orange Free State, through the stringent military conditions connected with the privilege, the same result followed for some years. The right of participating in the Government of the country was thus confined to one class, the burghers or native-born Dutch citizens. These alone could elect the President, the Executive Council and the Volksraad, or popular Assembly.

Important Differences

There were important differences, however, in the further evolution of the Republics. Something of this was due to the modified feeling of the Orange River Boers towards England, to their proximity to the Cape and to the fact of English settlers being scattered amongst them with the natural result of friendly association and occasional intermarriage. They, therefore, approximated in character and type to the Dutchmen of Cape Colony. The Boer of the Transvaal, on the other hand, was entirely isolated, of unmixed stock and with sentiments of hostility toward everything British as strong and stern as they were when he first left Colonial territory. Both Republics were allowed to develop their own institutions in their own way and were, as the Bloemfontein Convention of 1854 declared, "to all intents and purposes a free and independent people." No slavery, or trade in slaves, was to be permitted, however, and what might be termed Imperial rights of control over native questions was retained along lines enunciated as follows, by Sir M. E. Hicks-Beach, in a despatch dated November 20, 1879: "Neither by the Sand River Convention of 1852, nor at any other time, did Her Majesty's Government surrender the right and duty of requiring that the Transvaal should be governed with a view to the common safety of the various European communities." The same principle, of course, covered the Free State position and, later on, was applied in connection with Moshesh and the Basuto question.

Early Organization

Without roads and bridges, churches and schools, or the ordinary machinery of government, the Dutch of the Free State commenced the work of organization in 1854, and the ultimate result reflects considerable credit upon the ignorant burghers of those scattered communities. As in the Cape Colony and the Transvaal the fundamental law was the old Roman system as modified by the Legislature of Holland prior to 1652. The official language was Dutch, and the Courts were constituted after the Dutch fashion. For a short period Josias Hoffman was President, and then Jacobus Nicolaus Boshof was elected to the position. Relations with Moshesh and the Basuto tribe constituted the chief trouble of this early period. The continuous object of this ambitious ruler was to recover certain territory which had once belonged to tribes of which the remnants now acknowledged his rule. The Boers wished to retain regions which had in great part appeared as wild and empty wastes when they had settled there. Apart from the general question, both sides were aggressive and warlike. Each hated the other, and the intermittent struggles which ensued were of the usually merciless character. But Moshesh was too much for the Boers in skill and craft, and, in 1858, the Free State President, after appealing in vain to his Transvaal brethren for aid, turned to Sir George Grey, who was then Governor of the Cape. Sir George accepted the position of mediator, studied the situation closely, and came to the apparent conclusion that the claims of Moshesh were in a measure just. To him, therefore, he gave a piece of territory which the Boers believed to be theirs, and handed over to the latter an outlying mission station which had hitherto acknowledged Basuto authority. Mr. Boshof promptly resigned the Presidency, and was succeeded by Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, a son of the famous general. He devoted himself to effecting a union with the Transvaal republics of the time, but was unsuccessful, owing to conflicting interests and jealousies and to the declaration from Cape Town that such action would dissolve the Conventions with Great Britain.

Chronic Condition of War

Meantime, and during the greater part of the years from 1854 to 1868, the Boers of the Free State were in a chronic condition of war with the Basutos. There were few direct conflicts, and the troubles consisted mainly in raids, the burning of houses or kraals, the stealing of cattle, or the kidnapping of children. The Basutos fought in much the same Fabian manner that the Boers themselves practiced, and met invaders concealed behind rocks or cairns or the ever-present kopje. The region ruled by Moshesh was a compact and round-shaped territory lying between Natal, Cape Colony and the Free State. Its surface was broken by steep hills or mountains with more or less flat summits admirably fitted for villages or kraals, and with every requisite for defence in the form of perpendicular wall-like sides. The Basutoland Between these natural fortresses were the sweeping and fertile valleys where the Basutos grew their corn and raised their cattle, and which for years it was the delight of the Boers to raid; as it was the primal pleasure of the Basutos to pour down in sudden forays from their rocky fastnesses upon Dutch territory. This constant interchange of robbery and pillage embittered the character of both peoples, but naturally had the most degrading effect upon that of the Boer. For a presumably civilized and Christian race to be engaged year in and year out in the seizure of cattle from a savage enemy and in the occasional enslavement of children or the shooting down of stray individuals and small parties of a mobile enemy could not but have an evil influence upon a character so peculiar as was that of even the best and most enlightened of the emigrant farmers.

Basutoland Overrun

After a decade of this sort of intermittent struggle, however, the Boers were encouraged by familiarity with that part of the Basuto country which lay in the valleys and fields to try the task of storming some of the strongholds of the enemy. With the aid of a few small cannon, the first attempts were successful and surprisingly easy. Thus encouraged, within the three years following 1865, the greater part of Basutoland was overrun and the best cornfields captured. They were promptly "annexed" to the Free State, and then attention was devoted to the French missionaries, who had, meanwhile, been doing a splendid work amongst the natives. They were turned out of the country in which half a million of dollars had been expended upon their stations; their homes were plundered and the private property of men who had, in some cases, been laboring for thirty years in the region was confiscated; furniture, books and other items of value were destroyed, and all redress was refused. Permission was afterwards given to re-occupy their stations, not as such, but as farms for which $500 was in each case to be paid the Boer Government. Much of the conquered territory was also surveyed and sold. But the power of the Boers was a very fitful one. With a weak Government at home they were unable to hold the regions which they captured from time to time, and the result was a re-occupation by the Basutos, an attempt to cultivate their fields, further reprisals, and more attacks upon the mountain strongholds. Upon one occasion the Boers destroyed all the growing crops of an extensive section. But Thaba Bosigo, the central fortress of the country, could not be subdued by any force available.

Development of Cape Colony.

Gradual Growth of Cape Colony

The dismemberment of South Africa, which commenced in the days of the Great Trek, which was made more distinct by the Conventions of 1852-4, and was destined to culminate in the Conventions of 1881-4, was at first somewhat of a boon to Cape Colony. It removed about ten thousand of the most discontented, restless and ignorant portion of its population and left plenty of land and room for the occupation of future immigrants. They came slowly, however, as the Kaffir wars had given the country a bad name and the reputation of its climate was not particularly good. But, between 1845 and 1850, some five thousand British settlers were brought in under aid from the Government, and a little later a number of Germans who had fought for England in the Crimean war migrated to the Cape. In 1858, two thousand German peasants were settled on lands near the southern coast of the Colony which had once belonged to the Kaffirs. They made excellent settlers, and in time merged with the British population, which came to predominate in the eastern part of the country, as the Dutch did in the western section.

The Climate

The climate was found to be reasonably healthful. To newcomers the sudden change from heat to cold, owing to the south-east winds, was found unpleasant, and in cases of weak constitutions somewhat dangerous. But with proper care in clothing and gradual acclimatization this difficulty soon moderated, and the peculiar dryness of the climate was found to make strongly for health. Sunstrokes were rare, and the only serious evil arising from the heat was the drying up of the rivers in the interior of the country. In most parts of the continent malarial fever was then an admitted and serious danger, as it is to-day in the great lake region of Central Africa and in the valley of the Nile. In German East-Africa, in parts of the Transvaal and in the Delagoa Bay region there is still a similar state of affairs. But Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal were then, and are at the present time, almost entirely free of this dreaded disease. For weak lungs it was discovered that no finer country exists in the world than the Cape, and for the development of general healthfulness and vigour the settlers of the Colony soon found themselves in an ideal region.

Natural Resources, etc.

Natural resources were not quite so apparent. A wealth of brilliant flowers and tropical plants existed, but forests were few, timber was scarce and costly, and it was years before the introduction of the Australian Eucalyptus embowered many a village from the Cape to Kimberley and from Buluwayo to Pretoria in groves of that useful tree. The land in some cases was fertile, but, on the whole, was perhaps more suited to the raising of sheep and cattle than to agriculture in the American or Canadian sense. Farming of the latter kind involves severe labour, and neither the original slaves, the coloured labourers of an after-time, nor the Dutch farmers, were fitted by disposition or nature for the work. But, as the population increased from 26,000 Europeans in 1805 to 182,000 in 1865, and to 237,000 ten years later, the country assumed a more civilized and prosperous appearance. Sheep and cattle were literally scattered over a thousand hills, while various collateral industries were developed by English settlers which the slow-moving Dutch would never have dreamed of. Between 1812 and 1820 the Merino sheep was introduced, and its wool soon became a source of profit and wealth. In 1865 ostrich farming was commenced, and speedily developed great importance through the process of artificial incubation. Roads were made, churches and schools were built, municipal government in the towns and villages was introduced, and the Colonial finances were put into shape despite the expenses of Kaffir wars and native troubles—which were mainly charged to the Imperial exchequer. The first railway was constructed in 1859, and wagon roads were carried over various mountain passes and through much of the settled part of the country.

An Executive Council Created

In 1834 an Executive Council had been created composed of members nominated by the Governor, and therefore more or less dependent upon his good-will. Perhaps at that time, and in view of the limited population, the racial rivalry and religious and educational complications, it was just as well that such a body should not be elective, as some desired. Twenty years later, however, when conditions had somewhat changed, a representative Legislature was established composed of a Council and a House of Assembly. Members were to be elected upon a wide franchise, with no distinction of race or color, excepting that a Kaffir had to hold some small amount of property and to have given up the tribal system. There were very few natives in this condition. Meanwhile the dissensions between the Dutch part of the population and the missionaries continued, and they extended at times to the English settlers also. There can be no doubt of the intense irritation aroused by this controversy. The Dutchman looked upon the native as created and existing for his special benefit, and through the effect of contiguity and similarity of conditions often induced the English farmer to agree with him. The missionary, on the other hand, believed himself appointed to guard the interests of the weaker race, and was too apt to forget the suffering caused by Kaffir raids from the outside, in his general sympathy for the downtrodden representatives of the race in the Colony itself.

A Long Struggle

From about 1820 to 1860 this struggle lasted. It weakened the hands of the Governors, who usually shared the Colonial view of the Kaffir wars, as against the missionaries. It injured the reputation of the Colonial Office throughout South Africa from the widespread belief that its officials were inspired, or guided, by the friends of the missionaries and by the impracticable sentiments of Exeter Hall, rather than by the wishes of the people of Cape Colony. It seriously affected the continuity of policy which should have marked the action of the British Government, in these regions of all others, and which, unfortunately, so seldom characterized their treatment of either Cape Governors or native questions. In 1846 commenced the seventh Kaffir or Kosa war. Sandili was the heir of Gaika, the Kosa chief who had figured in a previous conflict, and he had for some time prior to this date permitted raids upon the settlers of the Colony's eastern territory, and had entirely disregarded pledges and arrangements. Finally, Sir Peregrine Maitland sent a military force to occupy the region controlled by Sandili and bring him to terms. With incomprehensible but oft-repeated carelessness in South African warfare, a long ammunition wagon train following the expedition was left practically unguarded, and was, of course, surprised and seized by the Kaffirs. A Sweeping Raid The result of the ensuing retreat of the British troops was a combination of the Kosa and the Tembu tribes, a sweeping raid along the entire frontier, the murder of settlers, the capture of cattle, and the burning of dwellings. The local forces of the Colony were hastily got together, and operations carried on in a scattered sort of way for some months until the arrival of several British regiments from abroad. A temporary submission was then made by the natives with a view to the planting of their maize. As soon as this was garnered the war broke out again.

The province of British Kaffraria

The Governor had meantime been recalled, and was succeeded for a few months by Sir Henry Pottinger. Sandili, however, soon had enough of the struggle, and, in 1847, peace was made after an enormous cost to the British authorities and amid the clamor of ruined Eastern farmers. At the end of the year Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith came out as Governor and High Commissioner, with unusual personal powers and under the awakening perception of the Colonial Office that it was better to let the man on the spot guide affairs than to attempt the real government of South Africa from six thousand miles away. It was not a permanent awakening, but it was useful so long as it lasted. Sir Harry Smith adopted the repudiated native policy of Sir Benjamin D'Urban; proclaimed the territory between the Kei and the Keiskama as a British possession for the absolute use of the western clans of the Kosa tribe; appointed a Commissioner to exercise general authority over the Chiefs and sent a strong body of troops to garrison various forts; and named the region—which once for a brief season had been called after Queen Adelaide—the Province of British Kaffraria. A few years later the eighth Kaffir war took place. The tribes seem to have considered the peace as nothing more than a truce, and as soon as the British authorities began to suppress the worst of their savage customs—notably the murders and tortures arising out of the hunt for witchcraft—discontent very speedily developed into the war of 1850-51. The usual struggle followed, with surprises, raids, murders and the ravaging of the frontier. The war was the most costly of all the conflicts with these restless tribes, and was specially marked by an event memorable in the annals of British bravery—the loss of H. M. S. Birkenhead with 400 soldiers on board. It occurred near Algoa Bay, where the ship had struck a reef in the middle of the night. The women, children and sick people were sent away safely, in all the available boats, while the troops remained drawn up in line as though on parade, with the ship breaking up under them and a sea swarming with sharks around them.

An Extraordinary Incident

For two years a large force of soldiers, farmers and auxiliaries of various kinds were employed in trying to end a war with enemies who had the fleetness of the antelope and powers of disappearance equal to that of a bird. When their food was exhausted, and not before, the Kosas gave in and asked for peace. As usual in such cases, the Governor was recalled, and Sir George Cathcart appointed his successor. The government of British Kaffraria was reorganized and the region subdivided amongst the Tembus, a section of the Kosa tribe under a chief named Kreli, the western clans of the Kosa and the loyal Fingos. Several regiments of regular troops were maintained in the Province and a body of local police formed from amongst the younger white colonists. In 1857 there took place one of those extraordinary incidents which can only occur in a region such as South Africa. The Kosas, prompted by some wizard who professed to wield unknown and vast powers and to hold communication with the unseen world, destroyed all their cattle and stores of grain in the belief that their ancestors would, as a reward for their faith, join them in driving the white man out of the country and in creating for them a boundless stock of new cattle and a limitless supply of fresh crops. Famine naturally followed, and some 30,000 natives perished of hunger or disease despite all that Sir George Grey, who, in 1854, had become Governor at Cape Town, could do for them in a hurried supply of provisions and work. Some good came out of the evil. Large tracts of depopulated land were taken possession of by European settlers, peace came to the exhausted region, and in 1865 it was annexed to Cape Colony. It may be added here that some small risings occurred in 1877, termed the ninth Kaffir war, and that in 1880 the region held by the Pondos was formally annexed to the Colony, and its borders thus became coterminous with those of Natal.

Imperial Policy in South Africa.

The Early Governors of Cape Colony

Like most of England's Colonial Governors those of the Cape were, from the time of Lord Caledon's arrival in 1807, men of character, standing and ability. They might make mistakes in policy, they might occasionally be led astray by local advisers and they were always liable to censure or recall from a Colonial Office which too often judged local conditions from the standpoint of Downing Street rather than by a clear comprehension of the difference between struggling pioneer communities and a wealthy and matured home society. But their intentions were good, they were never known to be, or even charged with being corrupt, and they usually had a degree of experience in public life which was naturally useful to a new country with crude institutions. Lord Caledon improved the postal system and established Circuit Courts for the better administration of justice in outlying districts. Sir John Cradock, who came out in 1811, established schools in the country regions and tried to control the nomadic tendencies of the Dutch farmers by making them freeholders of farms ranging from 6000 to 20,000 acres in extent. Lord Charles Somerset—a brother of the Duke of Beaufort and of Lord Raglan, the well-known Crimean General of after-years—was appointed in 1814 and carried out many measures of value to the infant Colony. He founded new townships, promoted industrial development, encouraged the importation of sheep and himself brought out Merinos whom he established in sundry breeding-farms. At the same time he broached and carried out the important scheme of immigration known in its result as the Albany Settlement and as one of the chief factors in the progress of the period. His large salary of fifty thousand dollars, paid by the Local Government was, therefore, well earned and though an unpopular and arbitrary man he certainly appears to have done good service to the community.

Good Service to the Community

In 1826 Sir Lowry Cole succeeded to the position and attempted for a time the difficult and dangerous task of Anglicizing the population. Eight years afterwards General Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who had seen military service in Canada, and elsewhere, was appointed to carry out the slave emancipation policy. Then came Sir George Napier, under whose rÉgime a splendid system of roads was created and, in 1847, General Sir Harry Smith, a most popular and able Governor. He was followed by Sir George Cathcart in 1852. All of these rulers had to deal with native or Boer wars and none of them had much time to spare for the cultivation of material progress in the generally harassed country. From 1854 to 1862, however, Sir George Grey administered the affairs of the Colony and to this remarkable man South Africa owes much, and would have owed more had he not been hampered and overruled at every turn by Imperial fears of a policy of expansion and Imperial objections to the assumption of further responsibilities.

This was the period when Little Englanders abounded in the mother country; when Tories and Radicals were agreed in opposing any added links to the chain of Empire; when the masses believed that the manufacturing industries and commerce which they saw advancing by leaps and bounds on every side were entirely independent of political boundaries and national allegiance; when the markets of the world seemed for a time to belong to England, and the markets of the Colonies were in comparison absolutely insignificant; when public men like John Bright and Richard Cobden, Cornewall Lewis and Sir William Molesworth, Lord Brougham and Lord Ellenborough, Robert Lowe and even Lord John Russell, spoke of a future in which the Colonies would be independent, and of a present which was simply preliminary to a destiny which they did not regret. The popular idol of that day was Trade, as the popular idol of the last days of the century is Empire. The swing of the pendulum has come indeed, but it has brought with it a war which the acceptance of Sir George Grey's policy at this time would have prevented.

England's Unsettled Colonies

There is, of course, much to excuse this view of the Colonies in, and about, 1850. The British-American Provinces were still in a dissatisfied and disorganized condition from the Rebellion of 1837, the racial troubles of 1848, and the fiscal difficulties which followed the repeal of the Corn Laws and Preferential duties by England. The value and resources of Australia were practically unknown. It was still the home of convicts, and had only just entered upon a period of rushing settlement and turbulent mining successes in which the problems of government were extremely complicated. South Africa had been the scene of nothing but war and trouble. All the later Governors had been recalled one after the other, and their policy frequently reversed without either conciliating the Colonists or controlling the restless masses of native population along the ever-changing frontiers. As a rule the earlier policy toward the Kaffirs had been one of half-measures. The first plan of alliances with native chiefs broke down, and in Lord Charles Somerset's time had ended in conflict. Then came the Boer wars with the Zulus in Natal and a British effort to protect the natives against the invaders' onslaughts. Sir Benjamin D'Urban's policy in 1835, after the Kaffir war of that time, was the establishment of a living frontier along the east of Cape Colony, which should be sufficiently strong to resist the pressure of the savage masses from beyond. A line of European settlers was to be established, and beyond that a body of loyal Kaffirs supported by a string of forts. Before a Committee of the House of Commons this was afterwards declared by D'Urban's successor, Sir G. Cathcart, to have been a wise and necessary policy. But, unfortunately, it involved an advance from the Fish to the Kei River, and such a thing the Colonial Office would not tolerate. The policy was reversed and the territory in question given back to the Kaffirs.

England's Unsettled Colonies

Sir George Grey (1854-61) took a different line of action and policy. Everything that he did was bold and determined. He acted first, assumed the responsibility next, and made it necessary for the Colonial Office to either approve, or else recall, a Governor who had for the first time in a quarter of a century proved a successful South African ruler. This statement is not necessarily a reflection upon previous Governors. Sir Benjamin D'Urban was overruled by Downing Street. Sir George Napier went out simply to reverse a certain policy under detailed instructions. General Sir Peregrine Maitland had distinguished himself as a soldier, had made an excellent Governor of Upper Canada and of Nova Scotia, and was no more responsible for the Kaffir war which caused his inevitable recall than was the Premier of Great Britain. General Sir Harry Smith, the victor of Aliwal in India, and the only British officer who before 1899 had won a direct victory over the Boers, had in him the making of a statesman, as his annexation of the Orange River region proved. But the war with Sandili brought about his recall, and a very few years also saw the reversal of his policy toward the Boers, the creation of the independent Free State, the establishment of the Transvaal, and the foundation of endless opportunities for trouble in the future. For these actions the Government of the Earl of Aberdeen and the Secretaryship of the Duke of Newcastle must always hold an unpleasant responsibility. Sir George Grey did what he could to rectify the errors which had been made. He was instinct with the Imperial idea, and, although doomed to fail in some measure in the attainment of his great ambitions, none the less did splendid work for the Empire. The men at the Colonial Office were constantly changing, and the only continuity in their policy was a common desire to be relieved from any new developments and fresh responsibilities. Politics did not come into the matter at all, as one party was then as ignorant of Colonial requirements and as indifferent to Colonial possibilities as the other.

The Native Races of South Africa.

The Bushmen

The physical and mental differences between the three chief native races of South Africa have been very great. The genuine aborigines, or Bushmen, ranked amongst the lowest of human races, and maybe placed upon much the same level as the Fuegians or the Black-fellows of Australia. Though primarily natives of the coast they seem to have become scattered in after times throughout the region from the Cape to the Zambesi. Nomadic by nature, knowing nothing of agriculture, and not even owning cattle, they wandered here and there, living upon such wild animals as they could kill with poisoned arrows, or upon wild fruits and the roots of plants. They were small in stature and untamably savage, swift in passage from place to place, and capable of enduring the severest fatigue. Almost inevitably, the pressure of a civilization which had to often shoot them in self-defence, the influence of progressive settlements which destroyed the game upon which they lived, and the force of stronger types of savagery which bore down on them from the north, have in the end blotted the Bushmen out of existence.

The Hottentots

Superior in some respects were the Hottentots. Though small in stature they were not by any means pygmies, and they lived in a better manner than the Bushmen knew anything of. They possessed sheep and many lean cattle, which they drove hither and thither over vast tracts of country, doing a little intermittent hunting, fighting occasionally with one another and living in a tribal system which the lower racial type found it impossible to emulate. Like the Bushmen their muscular power was slight, their hair grew in woolly tufts upon the skull, and they were of a yellowish-black colour. They made fairly good servants after a period of subjugation, but suffered in numbers very greatly from the spread of small-pox and similar epidemics, which were at times introduced into the country from the ships of the white man. In 1713 immense numbers perished from this cause. The Hottentot was for many decades in the succeeding century a favourite subject of missionary labour in Cape Colony, but it is to be feared that the degraded elements which are to be found in every white community, with the additional factor of an absolute contempt for all natives amongst the Dutch of South Africa, had far greater influence for evil upon the unfortunate tribes than English legislation and Christian efforts had for good.

The Bantu and its Sub-Divisions

A far more important native race than either of these, and one which has taken a place in history as distinct as that of the Indian in America or the Maori in New Zealand, is the Bantu, with its many tribal sub-divisions. Popularly known as Kaffirs from the earliest days of Portuguese discovery and slave raids, there seems little reason to doubt that they have gradually drifted southward from the Upper Nile and the Nyanza Lake region; while the brown colour of many of them would appear to indicate an admixture of Arab blood from settlers and traders along the coast of the Indian Ocean, the majority are black and they all possess the thick lips, woolly hair and scanty beard of the typical negro. Usually they are strong and well-made, fierce in battle, savage in their punishments, brutal in many of their customs. Their bravery is of a high order, as a rule, but has varied somewhat in quality, and the various tribes in later days have developed special lines of intelligence. At the present time, for instance, the Zulus and the Matabele are the most noted for courage and for fighting skill of a savage sort, the Fingoes show some natural adaptiveness for trade and barter, and the Basutos, under the influence, no doubt, of English contiguity and friendliness have given distinct indications of steady industry—a most unusual quality amongst natives.

Civilization Helping the Natives

Character of the South African Boer.

A Peculiar Type

The Dutchmen of South Africa present in character and type one of the most peculiar racial results of all history. They came originally of a people who had proved its love of liberty and its faith in religion on many a well-fought field and in the pages of noble national annals. Yet they did not carry their qualities with them to the new land in any sufficient measure to overcome surrounding influences of a pernicious nature. They were raised from the lowest class in the home community and migrated practically for the wages offered them by the Dutch East India Company. In this respect the origin of the Colony was greatly different from that of New England, to which men of high character and earnest thought had migrated in order to obtain religious freedom; of Virginia, where men of the best English families and culture came in that adventurous spirit which has made the British Empire or the United States a present possibility; of French Canada, where Jesuits roamed the vast forests in a spirit of intense missionary zeal and where the scions of noble French families hunted in the wilderness of the West, or fought the Iroquois on the banks of the St. Lawrence; of English Canada, to which the United Empire Loyalists came from motives of loyalty to King and country.

Their Religious Life

As these Dutch settlers drifted into the Colony, over a period of a hundred years, they left every source of knowledge, refinement and high principle behind them. It is true they had their Bible. Upon its interpretation depended greatly their future development of character amid surroundings of absolute isolation, and it has been a permanent misfortune that they chose the natural view of narrow and ignorant men, and made their religious life one of practical devotion to the Old Testament dispensation in a most crude and sometimes cruel application. Around them on all sides were the moral laxities of savage life, the dangerous powers of slavery, the looseness incident to any small population of whites in the midst of great numbers of ignorant and superstitious natives. Their Government was intolerant in the extreme, they had no books or newspapers, they saw no intelligent visitors, and the naturally somewhat sombre character of the Dutchman developed under these conditions into a unique mixture of religious zeal, intolerant ignorance and qualified immorality. To this character was added the quality of undoubted bravery and into the general melting pot was thrown the further attributes, as time went on, of intense dislike and distrust of the Englishman and of absolute confidence and belief in themselves.

Mixture of Huguenots and Dutch Culture

The Huguenots, who joined the small Dutch population of 1689, brought a considerable element of culture and liberality of thought with them, but although many of the best families in Cape Colony, and South Africa generally, to-day trace their descent from these settlers, the effect upon the scattered masses of the people was very slight. The distinctive language and religion and culture to a large extent disappeared under laws which enforced uniformity and in time merged the Frenchman in the Boer. Of course, the influence was to some extent a good one and it yet dwells on the surface of affairs in such names as De Villiers and Joubert, Du Plessis and Le Seuer, or their local corruptions. A more potent factor in this evolution of character was the solitary nature of the settler's life. Boer and American Colonist Pioneers on the American continent were often alone with their families for a time in some advanced frontier location, but it was not usually a continuous isolation. As the years passed on other families joined them, settlements grew rapidly, and with these villages came the various amenities of social and civilized life. But the Boer seemed to catch from the wandering savages around him something of the spirit of their roaming life, and in this he was encouraged by the nature of his occupation and by the Government regulations, which simply charged him rental for three thousand acres of grazing ground without confining him to any specific location. He did not carve his farm out of some primeval forest, build a permanent home for his family on his own land, or cultivate the soil with the strenuous labor of his hands. During the century in which his racial type was developing the Dutch settler moved from point to point with his cattle in accordance with the season and the pasture, and lived an almost nomadic life. His covered wagon was to him what the wigwam has been to the savage of the American continent, while his skill in shooting held a somewhat similar place to that of the bow and arrow in Indian economy. Hence the accentuation of his intellectual narrowness by continued isolation and the strengthening of the physical frame at the expense of mental power.

Boer Characteristics

As the years passed on, however, and settlement increased; as the effects of English administration and laws were felt more and more throughout the regions owning the authority of the Cape Government; as, unfortunately, the growing inroads of the Kaffirs and their continuous raids made combination necessary amongst the Dutch farmers; as villages grew more numerous and occasional schools were to be found in the communities; some modification of these personal conditions might have been expected. Amongst the Dutch farmers of Cape Colony changes of this kind did occur. They adopted some of the customs of civilization, they lost a part of the more intense Boer narrowness and ignorance of the past, they developed a qualified interest in education of a racial character, they lived upon terms of slightly freer intercourse with their neighbors of both races, they had drilled into them a wholesome respect for the law and a more humane, or, at any rate, legal view of the natives position. But to the emigrant farmers of Natal, of the Orange River and the Vaal, these modifications of character were long indeed in coming, and to a great mass of them have never come at all. In their main pursuits the Boers of all South Africa are the same—owners of cattle and horses and dwellers upon ranches as widely separated from each other as conditions of population and law will permit. Of course, in Cape Colony and Natal, there are town and village Dutchmen sufficient to constitute a small class by themselves; and the slow-spreading influence of a persistent educational system is having its effect in other directions; while the natural increase of population has been doing its work in lessening the isolation of the farmers. So to some extent in the Orange Free State. Physically and mentally, however, the Dutch farmer is much the same everywhere in South Africa—tall, raw-boned, awkward in manner, slow of speech, fond of hunting whenever and wherever possible, accustomed to the open air, lazy as regards work, but active in pursuits involving personal pleasure. Especially has this latter quality been apparent in such amusements as war with the natives, or the English, or in predatory excursions into alien territory and the shooting of big game.

Livingstone's Description of the Boers

The Annexation of the Transvaal.

Dangers Without, Difficulties Within

In the years immediately following 1872 the disorganization and public weakness of the Transvaal Boers became dangerous to themselves and inimical to the peace of all South Africa. The emigrant farmers had for two decades been living in a chronic state of war with the ever-increasing number of natives around them and, while successful in their raids upon individual Bantu kraals, were entirely unsuccessful in the subjection of the tribes as a whole. They would not submit to taxation, what little paper money they possessed had in 1870 depreciated to a quarter of its face value, and the few business transactions indulged in were carried out on lines of barter not dissimilar to the aboriginal customs around them. No public improvements were made and no administrative system existed further than a nominal Presidency which was helpless in the face of the surrounding disorganization. The accession of Mr. Burghers to the position, in 1872, did not remedy matters and the repulse of the Boers from the stronghold of Sekukuni on their north-eastern border, in 1876, precipitated a situation which resulted in the British annexation of the Republic.

Authoritative Questions

So much of the subsequent discussion regarding this policy turns upon the then existing internal situation of the Transvaal that a couple of authoritative quotations may be given here. Mr. James Bryce, who has since made himself unpopular in England by his opposition to the War of 1899, states in his Impressions of South Africa that: "The weakness and disorders of the Republic had become a danger not only to the British subjects who had begun to settle in it but also to the neighbouring British territories and especially Natal." Dr. George M. Theal, a recognized authority upon South African affairs, despite a pronounced tendency to sympathize with the Dutch, refers in the Story of the Nations Series, to the troubles with Sekukuni and then proceeds; "But the country was quite unable to bear the strain. The ordinary charges of government and the interest on the public debt could not be met, much less an additional burden. And so the whole administrative machinery broke down. The Republic was really in a pitiable state, without money or an army, with rebellion triumphant and a general election approaching that was feared might be attended with civil war."

A Great Peril

National bankruptcy and the danger arising from 300,000 threatening natives surrounding, within the Transvaal, some 30,000 people of Dutch descent were also added to by the possibility of external attack from the Zulus. There can be no doubt of the reality of this peril although the events which followed led the Dutch to minimize its extent. Cetywayo, in 1876, had a large army of trained and physically powerful warriors numbering at least 30,000 men. He had immense reserves of savage population, in the event of war, both in the Transvaal and Natal, and all were bound together by a bond of hatred against the Boer—the only tie recognized by native tribes. He had his men in threatening positions upon the frontier from time to time and had announced that his Impis must have an opportunity of wetting their spears in the blood of an enemy. But at this point the Zulu chieftain touched British interests. If he attacked the Boers and was successful it meant a future onslaught with increased power upon Natal, and, in any case, might easily involve the hundreds of thousands of related tribes in the Colony. For the safety of the scattered British settlements it was therefore necessary to protect the now almost helpless Boer. Of course, the commandos of the latter would have put up a good fight against the invading hordes and the enmity of surrounding natives, but, without provisions, without ammunition, without fortifications, and without money (the Transvaal Treasury was so empty in 1876 that it could not pay for the transportation of some ammunition from Durban to Pretoria) the result must have been extremely disastrous.

The Federation Policy of Lord Carnarvon

It was at this junction that the Federation policy of Lord Carnarvon, Colonial Secretary in the Beaconsfield Government, combined with the apparent local necessities of the case to cause the intervention of the Imperial authorities. Lord Beaconsfield was an Imperialist of the strongest type, imaginative yet practical, initiative in policy and also courageous in execution. His Government had bought the Suez Canal shares in order to ensure the trade route of the Empire to India, and had made the Queen an eastern Empress and the Prince of Wales the centre of Oriental hospitality and magnificence, in order to appeal to the sentiment of those vast regions and teeming populations. Lord Carnarvon had, in 1867, as Colonial Secretary, presided over the Confederation of British America, and his present great ambition was to help in creating a federated South Africa. But it was too late so far as South Africa was concerned; too early so far as Imperialistic sentiment at home was concerned. When Sir Bartle Frere reached Cape Town he found that the Transvaal had just been annexed, and that one great apparent difficulty had been removed from his path. At the same time, however, he found the Orange Free State opposed to federation though ready for a customs union; and two years later the malcontents in the Transvaal, roused and encouraged by Mr. Gladstone's public sentiments as Leader of the Liberal Opposition and in defence of the Boer right to independence, were in rebellion and able to influence their racial allies at Cape Town in the vetoing of the Commissioner's general policy of federation. Such was the story in a brief summary.

Threatened Anarchy

The details are both interesting and important. In 1876 the Boer attack on Sekukuni—a not very strong Kaffir chief upon the Transvaal border—had, as already stated, been repulsed, and the High Commissioner of the moment in South Africa, Sir Henry Barkly, wrote to Lord Carnarvon, under date of October 30th, describing the ensuing situation of the Transvaal at some length, and concluded with the following expressive words:

"In short, the whole state of things borders very closely upon anarchy; and, although in other parts of the Republic lawlessness and inhumanity are less rampantly exhibited, the machinery of administration is everywhere all but paralyzed, and the Republic seems about to fall to pieces through its own weakness. In that event the Boers in each district would either have to make their own terms with the adjacent Kaffir tribes or trek onwards into the wilderness, as is their wont, whilst the position of the large number of British subjects scattered about on farms, or resident in the towns, or at the gold fields, might fairly claim the humane consideration of Her Majesty's Government even if there were not other reasons to save so fine a country from so miserable a fate."

There was more, however, to be thought of than the mere paralysis of the functions of Government, bad as it was. Then as now, the Transvaal was the Turkey of South Africa in its treatment of other races as well as in a Mahommedan-like superciliousness of religious view. Writing a few months after the above despatch from the High Commissioner, Lord Carnarvon—January 25, 1877—in referring to the Boer method of warfare on the native tribes as particularly illustrated in the Sekukuni struggle, declared that: "Her Majesty's Government, after having given full consideration to all the information attainable on the subject, and with every desire to view matters in the most favorable light, deeply regret that they are forced to come to the conclusion that the barbarities alleged to have been committed, though denied by the Transvaal Government, have, in fact, occurred."

Sir T. Shepstone's Arrival in Pretoria

Meanwhile, on October 5, 1876, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who, during forty years of life and administration in South-eastern Africa had won the general respect of Englishmen, Boers and natives, received a Royal Commission to inquire into the Transvaal disturbances and to exercise power and jurisdiction in the matter subject to the will and welfare of the people. He arrived at Pretoria on January 22d, after a slow progress through the country and accompanied only by a small personal staff and 25 Natal Mounted Police. He had, during this period, in different parts of the Transvaal and to various portions of the people, explained his policy of annexation and the necessity of doing something for the preservation of personal property as well as real liberty. Everywhere he had been well received, and, for a month after his Proclamation annexing the Republic to the Empire had been issued on April 12th, he remained at Pretoria without the support of a single soldier of the Queen. The general position of the country was well explained in a despatch to Lord Carnarvon dated at Pretoria on March 6th. The white population was made up, at the outside estimate, of 8,000 men capable of bearing arms, and of these more than 6,000 were farmers scattered in isolated homesteads over a surface equal to that of the British Isles. It was patent, he declared, to every observer that:

Boer Government's Weakness

"The Government was powerless to control either its white citizens or its native subjects, and that it was incapable of enforcing its laws or collecting its taxes; that the Treasury was empty; that the salaries of officials had been and are for months in arrears; and that sums payable for the ordinary and necessary expenses of Government cannot be had; that payment for such services as postal contracts were long and hopelessly overdue; that the white inhabitants had become split into factions; that the large native population within the boundaries of the State ignore its authority and its laws, and that the powerful ruling king, Cetywayo, is anxious to seize upon the first opportunity of attacking a country the conduct of whose warriors at Sekukuni's mountain has convinced him that it can be easily conquered by his clamoring regiments."

Kruger's Visit to London

President Burgers himself recognized the situation, and a month before the annexation was consummated told the assembled Volksraad that "matters are as bad as they ever can be; they cannot be worse." Practically, he supported the policy of Sir T. Shepstone, and shortly afterwards retired on a pension to live at Cape Town. The Hollanders, who stood to lose heavily by the supremacy of British ideas and intelligence in the country, did their utmost to arouse the fanaticism of the farmers by printed manifestoes and memorials of the most inflammatory character, but without much success. In the end the only practical opposition made was the appointment by the expiring Executive Council, on the day before the Proclamation, of a delegation to England composed of Mr. Paul Kruger, Vice-President, and Dr. E. J. P. Jorrissen, Attorney-General. These gentlemen went to London and were well received personally, and a similar result followed from a second deputation headed by, Mr. Kruger in 1878. One evil, however, came from these visits. Instead of the astute Paul Kruger being impressed by the power of Great Britain, or conciliated by the courtesy of political leaders, he seems to have been interested chiefly in the study of party tactics and of the disintegrating influence of politics when carried into the field of Colonial government and foreign affairs. Coupled with the knowledge thus gained of a Radical faction which was already denouncing Lord Carnarvon's Confederation scheme, and of the anti-expansion views of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Morley and Sir William Harcourt, was a keen appreciation of the strength of the Home Rule issue then evolving such incipient power in the field of partisan battle. It was not hard for Mr. Kruger to discern, or hope for, the coming fall of the Beaconsfield Government; the growing power of a Radical element which would parallel the case of the Transvaal with that of Ireland; and a future in which some strong movement in the now quiet and peace-environed Boer country would result in a reversal of British policy.

But the annexation was now a fact. In England it was received with comparative indifference by the Tories and with a sort of passive hostility by the Liberals. No one seemed to know very much of the real state of affairs, and when, in the autumn of 1879, Mr. Gladstone practically urged the independence of the Boers as a portion of Liberal policy, his party opponents did not themselves realize the greatness of the issue involved or the inevitable consequences of playing with Empire questions as with measures for the building of a local bridge or the amending of some local law. In South Africa the English element rejoiced greatly at the annexation, and never dreamt of its reversal.

Dr. Moffat's Joy Over Annexation

Natal and the Zulu Wars.

Population, Climate, Resources, etc.

During these varied ups and downs of racial life and rivalry the progress of Natal had not been very great. Like Zululand, to the east, it lies on the sea-slope of a mountainous range and is undulating in surface with an alternation of hills and valleys. The latter have numerous and permanent streams, grass is plentiful, and in the coast region there is abundance of wood. It is much more favoured by nature than Cape Colony and, as a whole, its soil may be described as rich, its appearance as charming and its climate as temperate. Yet, at the end of the century, Natal has not more than 50,000 white residents within its bounds, although before the War of 1899 commenced it was making new and vigorous progress. Durban has become a beautiful, well managed and growing town of 30,000 people—half natives and coolies from India—while Pietermaritzburg is a small but pleasant capital with a cultivated society and agreeable natural surroundings. The population of the Colony includes nearly half a million Zulus, who are increasing in number by leaps and bounds; 50,000 immigrants from India of the coolie and artisan type, with an intermixture of Mohammedan traders from Bombay or Zanzibar who conduct a prosperous retail business with the natives; and about the same number of whites, of whom some nine or ten thousand are Dutch.

Progress of Natal

The progress latterly visible in Natal dates from the close of the Zulu war of 1879. Prior to that time the discovery of the Kimberley diamond fields had drawn away many of its more active spirits and, afterwards, the shadow of Cetywayo for some time loomed large upon the eastern border. After that cloud was dispelled the Transvaal War took place, and in 1886 the phenomenal growth of the Witwatersrand gold mines again drew away from the English population. As a whole, however, the people of the Colony have been very comfortable in their circumstances, and the bulk of the white settlers, outside of the villages, occupy large and prosperous cattle farms in which little of the soil is cultivated, and where the work is largely performed by coloured labourers. Sugar and tea plantations are, however, growing in numbers of late years. Politically, the Colony was governed directly from London during the years immediately following its British occupation in 1842 and latterly its Governor has had a curiously complicated position in relation to the Colonial Office and the High Commissioner for South Africa who dwells at Cape Town and acts as Governor of Cape Colony. Self-Government given to the Whites In 1893, with some hesitation and natural doubtfulness, the 15,000 adult white males of Natal were given self-government with almost complete control over hundreds of thousands of natives. There is now a Cabinet of five members, a House of Assembly and Legislative Council—the former elected for four years and the latter appointed by the Governor for ten years. It is greatly to the credit of these new institutions and the electorate generally that no trouble has occurred with the surrounding Zulus; that the law is easily enforced and thoroughly respected; and that the loyalty of the tribes has been pronounced and sincere.

But in 1876 this latter condition had hardly begun to develop, the natives were still a source of fear and natural suspicion, the Zulu impis of Cetywayo were darkly threatening, and the country was held back from settlement and progress by the encircling shadow of savage life. In the year 1877 Sir Bartle Frere, as Cape Governor and High Commissioner, had received a genial and not uncommon welcome to South Africa by a Kaffir war on the eastern frontier where two Kosa chiefs, Sandilli and Kreli, had revolted. Owing to the prompt action and wise measures taken the area of disturbance was limited and Cape Colony saved from those horrors of savage border warfare to which it had been so accustomed in the past. Satisfied with the result, Sir Bartle Frere turned to the northeast and found himself face to face with the menacing Zulu question and with the growth of a native power which had been practically encouraged by British policy to develop itself along the frontier of Natal.

A Review of the South African Question.

Religious Intolerance of the Boers

The Colonies and the War.

One of the most striking and perhaps important historical features of the South African crisis of 1899 was the sentiment of sympathy expressed by other parts of the Empire and the co-operation offered, or given, by the Colonies in the ensuing conflict. The number of men who actually participated from Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand was not great. But the possibilities of aid shown by the enthusiasm in despatching the Contingents, the keen interest taken in the origin and nature of the war, the sudden recognition of Colonial responsibilities for the defence of the Empire, and the fresh and vivid appreciation of the vast Imperial burdens of Great Britain, were exceedingly and vitally important. Some three thousand men went from Canada and over five thousand from the Australian Colonies and New Zealand. Ceylon contributed Contingents and troops were offered by the Malay States, Lagos, Hong Kong, the West Indies and the leading Princes of India. When it was found that colored forces could not well be accepted the various native Governments of India proffered money, armament and horses; while Lumsden's Horse was raised and equipped amongst the white population.

Australians and Canadians in the Soudan

The history of the sudden movement which resulted in the sending of these Contingents from the Colonies is most interesting. To participate in the defence of the Empire was not, it is true, an absolutely new thing. In 1885 New South Wales had sent some troops from Sydney to share in the Soudan campaign for the relief of Gordon and they had duly received their baptism of hardship and disappointment. They left Australian shores amid scenes of wild enthusiasm and under the initiative of Mr. W. Bede Dalley, an eloquent Irishman who was then Acting-Premier of New South Wales; and they were received in a similar manner on their return. At the same time there had been carping criticism of the action taken, a certain amount of political discontent amongst the Radical element in the Colony had existed, and in some measure a reaction took place after the war was all over. There were not wanting bitter opponents of Imperial unity to prophecy that it was the last force which would ever leave Sydney to fight the battles of Britain. But there were other Colonies in Australasia besides New South Wales and, even there, the little wail of the pessimist was soon neutralized. Dalley died shortly afterwards, though he had lived long enough to receive the blue-ribbon of political honour—a place in the Imperial Privy Council; and to be given after his death a commemorative tablet in St. Paul's Cathedral and a lasting place in British history. At this time, also, Canada sent a small force of voyageurs or boatmen, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Denison, to help Wolseley's troops in their difficult expedition up the Nile. But it was neither a Government action nor one which the public had thought much about, and it consequently wielded little influence, although the Canadians did their duty well and received the warm approbation of Lord Wolseley.

Canadians in the Wars With the United States

Of course, the country had fought for the Crown in days of war with the United States, and in 1812-14 nearly every able-bodied man in the British Provinces had stood beside the scattered line of British regulars in defence of their hearths and homes. They were doing then what 10,000 Cape Colonists and 5000 of the men of Natal are doing in the present war. But it was, of course, a struggle upon Canadian soil just as the little rebellions of 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, the Red River troubles of 1870, the Saskatchewan rebellion of 1886, or the Fenian Raids of 1866, had been. So far as Canada was concerned, therefore, no real precedent existed for the Imperialist demonstrations of 1899. Large numbers of Indian troops—chiefly Sikhs and Ghoorkas—had, it is true, been brought to Malta in 1878 by Lord Beaconsfield and Europe in this way electrified by a revelation of unexpected British military resources; while similar Contingents had been used against Arabi in Egypt and during the expedition up the Nile. In a naval sense too, the Australian Colonies had led the way in contributing to the Imperial defence system of the seas by paying for the maintenance of a British fleet on the Australasian station from 1887 onwards. But this exhausts all possible comparisons, or partial precedents, and to those who know the Canadian sentiment of a few years since regarding Imperial armaments and the assumption of increased defensive responsibilities the present situation seems very striking.

Change of Sentiment in the Dominion Since 1885

I had something to do with the movement for Imperial Federation which commenced in the Dominion in 1885, and, with many others, shared in the missionary work done during succeeding years. It is without hesitation, therefore, that I assert the greatest of the early obstacles, experienced by the advocates of closer union with Great Britain, to have been the fear of compulsory participation in wars of all kinds and in all parts of the world with which, perhaps, Canadian interests might have little connection and Canadian feeling no particular sympathy. The change of sentiment since then has been very great. It had already been shown in other ways by such official action as the granting of a tariff preference to the Mother-Country, in 1898, of twenty-five per cent. The war with the Boers, it should be also remembered, was a Colonial war in which British subjects had been attacked as they had for years been insulted and menaced and in which the general supremacy of the Crown in an important part of the Empire was threatened. Moreover, the liberties and equality of position asked for by the Uitlanders in the Transvaal were of a kind which Great Britain and Canada had a century since given to the French population of British America with the greatest eventual success. The diplomatic contest was, therefore, watched with continuous interest in Canada, and local talk of volunteering for the front was only checked by a mistaken feeling that if war came it would be but a small and insignificant struggle.

The Premier and Parliament

But amongst military men there was a strong undercurrent of desire to raise some kind of volunteer force for active service. In this connection Lieutenant-Colonel S. Hughes, M.P., was particularly enthusiastic. He introduced the subject in Parliament, on July 12th, while negotiations were still pending between President Kruger and Mr. Chamberlain. The result was that, despite the fact of Queensland having already offered troops and his own expression of opinion that five thousand men would readily volunteer in Canada, it was thought best not to take any immediate action, and the Premier, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, expressed the hope and belief that in view of the absolute justice of the Uitlanders' claims, recognition would eventually be given them and war averted. On July 31st more definite action was taken, and the following Resolution moved in the House of Commons by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and seconded by the Hon. G. E. Foster in the absence, but with the approval of, Sir Charles Tupper as Leader of the Opposition, was carried unanimously:

"That this House has viewed with regret the complications which have arisen in the Transvaal Republic, of which Her Majesty is Suzerain, from the refusal to accord to Her Majesty's subjects now settled in that region an adequate participation in its Government.

"That this House has learned with still greater regret that the condition of things there existing has resulted in intolerable oppression and has produced great and dangerous excitement among several classes of Her Majesty's subjects in Her South African possessions.

"That this House, representing a people which has largely succeeded, by the adoption of the principle of conceding equal political rights to every portion of the population, in harmonizing estrangements and in producing general content with the existing system of government, desires to express its sympathy with the efforts of Her Majesty's Imperial authorities to obtain for the subjects of Her Majesty who have taken up their abode in the Transvaal such measure of justice and political recognition as may be found necessary to secure them in the full possession of equal rights and liberties."

Popular Enthusiasm

Cape Colony Forces

Cape Colony, with its larger population, had, however, greater local dangers to face from possible rebels, and men were anxious to organize for local defence as well as for service at the front. But at the same date as the above figures are given for Natal the mother Colony had ten thousand men at the disposal of the General commanding the forces. They included the Kaffrarian Rifles, with 600 men; the Queenstown Rifles, 200 men; the Port Elizabeth Guards, 520 men; the Grahamstown Rifles, 310 men; the Cape Town Volunteers, 3,000 men; the Kimberley Volunteers, 200 men; and the Protectorate Regiment, 800 men. Of Mounted Infantry there were the Cape Mounted Rifles, 800 men; Brabant's Horse, 800 men; Cape Police, 600 men; Kaffrarian Mounted Infantry, 100 men; Frontier Mounted Rifles, 200 men; Diamond Fields' Horse, 400 men; Mafeking Mounted Infantry, 500 men; South African Light Horse, 800 men; Grahamstown Horse, 120 men; Rimington's Scouts, 350 men.

Future of the Colonies

Such was the remarkable military development, in a Colonial sense, which has arisen out of the Transvaal trouble of 1899 and the ensuing war. Its result is in the womb of the future, but there can be little doubt as to the important effect which the evidences of loyalty and unity thus produced must have, not only upon the constitution of the Empire, but upon its prestige and practical power. The day, indeed, is not far distant when the Colonies will have their full share in the Councils as well as in the defence of British dominions. The voice of Canada in the control of matters affecting the British West Indies and Newfoundland and Alaska, or other American interests touching the Empire, will be then as fully understood by foreign nations to be a great and permanent factor as will be that of Australasia in matters connected with the Indian Empire, the New Caledonia question, or the islands of the Pacific generally. A new and greater power in the world's history is, in fact, being born amid the throes of South African warfare, and the incoming century must witness developments in this connection even more marvellous than those of the one which is passing.

The Origin of the Recent War

The origin of the war breaking out in the later months of the last year of the nineteenth century between the Boers and the British may be traced to the famous defeat of the latter at Majuba Hill in 1881, the influence of which was intensified by the failure of the Jameson Raid, that had a good cause, but was irresponsible and disorderly. The Boers were entirely persuaded by these incidental successes of their army that they could always get the better of those they called intruders into their own country, which they had made a long journey to find and shed a great deal of blood of the natives to conquer. Their preference in the two pilgrimages away from the Cape country was to become herdsmen, raising cattle, shooting game, farming in a rude way, and enjoying the right to which they attached great importance to hold property in man. The first chief objection they had to the English, who superseded the Dutch at the Cape, was that they had prejudices against human servitude, and the slaveholders were sensitive as to interference with their high privileges and thought themselves greatly aggrieved that their scriptural institution was disapproved. It is true the Boers established a civilization immensely superior to barbarism of the natives, but they indulged all the passions of slaveholders, and were but little advanced in civilization. Something akin to semi-barbarism seemed the normal condition of Africa for countless centuries, and the light dawned gradually in South Africa from the occupancy of territory by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the English successively, and it may be fairly said that broad daylight came with the English, who in the lower regions of the Dark Continent were the stronger and the more persevering antagonists of barbarous peoples and made the greatest advancements to civilization. It was the nerveless policy of dealing with South Africans following the British defeat at Majuba Hill that produced in the Boers contempt for English military capacity and the personal courage of English speaking people, and led them to enter upon the policy of restriction of English speaking immigrants that appeared in great numbers after the discoveries of diamond mines and gold mines, assuming indeed that new comers had no rights, civil or military, as citizens or squatters, that the Boers were bound to respect. Boers' Policy Against Immigrants So distinct was the impression the Boers made of their exclusive policy to govern the immense territory upon which they had settled for the purpose of raising cattle and ruling the natives, that the circulars sent abroad in the United States by the enemies of England to form public opinion favorable to the presumption of the Boers, presented the specific complaint urged on behalf of the Transvaal people and government that the British would not cease to be subjects of their "Empire," and must not be allowed a share in local government, because in the gold country they were three times as numerous as the Boers themselves. It seems reasonable to say the English had as good a right to improve upon the Transvaal methods of aiding the good works of progressive humanity beyond the Boer limitations as the Boers had to take grazing land and game and forests from the original savages. The Boers made war upon the savagry and therefore upon the natives and were intolerant in the extreme in their exactions. There were between the original African tribes and their earliest invaders many wars and constant rumors of wars, and bloodshed frequently and profusely. When the diamond and gold mines that interested the whole world were discovered, it was as righteous to work them as it was for the Boers to open farms where there had been only hunting grounds. The great cause of South African advancement demanded British organization then just as it had required Boer enterprise in the beginning.

The Centre of the Diamond Mine Country

It should be well understood for the location of influential events that the city of Kimberley is the center of the diamond mine country. The Boers do not seem to have had the spirit of adventure, the breadth of understanding and the executive faculty to interest themselves largely in the development of the unparalleled riches found under their feet. They parted with the farms containing gold in such quantity that they are believed to be the Ophir Land of Solomon, of which the Bible contains a specific and most interesting account, and they, disgusted with the discovery of this wealth, that they had the shrewdness to see threatened their supremacy, were resentful toward the immigrants—the gold and diamond seekers that poured into the Transvaal impetuously, as the Americans crossed the deserts and the mountains to possess California fifty years before.

Characteristics of the Boers

The Boers are people whose hardihood, bravery, manliness, high spirit, marksmanship with the rifle, attachment to the soil, and content as farmers, fortified with solemn appreciation of religious duty, compel respect, but they are at fault in their attitude of determined obstruction of progress in the Dark Continent that is chiefly committed to the English. They interfere not merely with the people who have found and worked the most productive mines of diamonds and gold ever known, they have held those who have done in Africa what the Americans did in their acquisitiveness in Mexico in contempt, and in the name of a "free republic" have been apostles of class and personal tyranny and ruthless in regard to the rights of those who have enriched their country and the world with their adventurous industry—with their organization of prospecting, engineering machinery, chemistry, transportation and mastery of the elements and forces that have in great and good works in Europe and America crowded a millennium into the nineteenth century.

It is easy to assert that as people cannot eat precious stones and metals, the things that are most beautiful and costly are less useful than corn and potatoes, and yet the human race for several thousand years has attached importance to the sands and rocks that have yielded diamonds in Golconda and Brazil and gold in California and Australia; and it is a record and tradition that the gold of California gave the nations of the earth "Californian good times," a phrase that was historical and an inspiration, and significant of the prosperity of the people of the generation that had its enjoyment. The diamond cannot be converted into food save by exchange, for the dust of the ground stone is rather imperishable than palatable and nourishing, but it is "a thing of beauty" that is "a joy forever;" and even if the prejudices of the Boers were inflamed against the most beautiful and enduring forms of value, that should not commend them as heroes of civilization; and it does not prove their Republicanism to refuse the rights of self-government to a people certainly among the most enlightened on the earth because they are in the majority in the great and flourishing communities, where they founded splendid cities, opened railroads and established a commerce additional to the world's wealth of more than one hundred millions of dollars a year. Whatever may be said to the contrary, these achievements should command the respect of all nations and peoples.

Antagonism to English Rule

The English speaking inhabitants of the gold and diamond country of Africa are treated as hostiles by the Boers who were the first settlers and slaughtered the natives, and the English are held out of favor because they are so numerous and prosperous, and, it may be added, so superior in their intelligence and elevated in their purposes and resolute in their determinations, that the Boers must keep them disarmed and deny them the ballot and all consideration in local affairs. The English offense is that they have made the country flourish, have built cities in deserts, spanned rivers and penetrated mountains with roads of steel. These improvements may be bad for the peculiar civilization and hardy endowments of the Boers, but do not seem to vindicate the belligerent rancher in his ferocious antagonism to those who are leading in their day and generation those affairs that are working out the betterment of the race of man. There are boundaries that must be removed for the broad benefits of the general welfare of mankind that the forces of the age may overcome the most stubborn resistance to the triumphant processes by which civilization spreads abroad and acquires stability.

It is the semi-barbarous theory that gold and diamond hunters are offenders against liberty, that it is the holy duty of the Boers as cattle drivers and stalkers of game, to reduce intrusive English speaking people to a subordination down to the level of the native tribes, so that they may not become masters over the aristocracy of the African cowboys. What better title is there anywhere for self-government than a people in the majority? This is most obvious where racial questions arise, and there is more and more declared the rights of men under the sanction and rule of the majority to govern themselves. A higher civilization, greater property and educational qualifications and the output of "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice," are incidental to and co-operate with majority government in South Africa. But all this on behalf of Boerdom is denied.

The English have possessed a great quantity of land in Africa, and they are justified by the establishment of comparative peace under stable form of government, by the increase of prosperity of the people, irrespective of race or previous condition of servitude or of shades of color. The ancient despotism at the Cape which was a prohibition of progress, for it was the tyranny of an absolute monopoly, has been swept away; and there has been growth in human liberty as well as augmentation of wealth and comfort, and there is white light on the dismal shores of the Dark Continent.

English Government in South Africa

It has been the English policy to form a federation of colonies pressing by steady and encouraged advancement of the sovereign rights of intelligent people, forming states in South Africa. The objection to this first urged is that the British have insisted upon the flag of the Empire over the movement. That flag has not prevented the wonderful growth of Australia, for that world newly risen from the seas has become of imperial proportions. Under that flag in this new world are more remarkable experiments undertaken, testing the theories of municipal socialism and industrial unity than in any other part of the globe. Under the same flag the population of India has doubled. The inference is that it would not blast the bloom of Africa.

The racial complications on South Africa demand for the greatest good of the people at large (and we include in that phrase the greatest number of people) that the best form the rule of the land can take is that of British supremacy—this positively for an indefinite period of transition. It has been the British policy to set apart for natives a vast tract of good land, and that would seem to be better and more human than to devote them to extermination, unless they themselves insist upon exterminating others. In Natal over 500 miles of railroads have been constructed. These roads connect with harbors at Cape Town and Durban. The improvement of the country has turned out to the advantage of the military operations of the British. Good roads are a great help to a people, but, it must be admitted, they do favor the rapid movement of masses of armed men in these days as they did in those of the Romans.

A Few Telling Statistics

Consider the simple statistics of the productions of the territory contested between the British and the Boers. The yield of the diamond mines in 1897 was valued at $21,676,776, and the gold of the White Water range region in 1899, if the output continued as in September, was closely estimated at $76,647,375, putting that territory at the head of the gold producing regions of the world. With order, security for industry and its varied fruits, fair play for men of all races, the gold yield by the Transvaal would speedily equal one hundred millions annually. It is the result of an investigation by the use of the drills and the chemistry of experts that there is a certainty in the soil of an amount of gold equal to 3,500 millions of dollars, and probably a great deal more; and this addition to the metal that is the world's standard of value in the greater commercial and military transactions would, according to the logic of all examples in history, be a guarantee of good times for those identified with all the productive industries in the shops and on the farms. The yield of diamonds will be equal to the demands of trade, whatever it is. The store of them in the soil about Kimberley seems to be inexhaustible. It is these tremendous endowments of nature in the heart of South Africa that caused the immigration there, and has aroused the cupidity and excited the ambition of the Boers, causing them to array themselves against the growth of communities whose importance has been increasing so fast as to threaten the rule of the caste that has held the Transvaal with an iron hand.

A Plea Unworthy of Consideration

The very plea of the Boers that the English speaking people are too numerous to trust with the right of suffrage and too rich to be allowed a share of self-government, and that the discovery and developments of mines of gold and diamonds, the most concentrated and attractive forms of the wealth of Nature, is unworthy not only of deference but of consideration. It is opposed to the spirit and substance of the surprising realizations of the century that have made it the most memorable epoch in the history of man in the appropriation of the resources of the earth he inherits. Never until now has mankind had the labor and capital, the courage, the machinery, the intelligence, or the tools provided by marvelous inventions—the conquering capacity to give the gigantic continent of Africa—nearly 12,000,000 square miles—into the hands of the people who need room for industry, thus making an addition to the good land available for the lucrative employment of countless millions through the coming ages.

A Magnificent Project

There is one people, and one only on earth, that has the ability and the purpose, the will and the force, the experience and the energy to make this gift to mankind, and that power is the British Empire. Whatever the resources or the ambition or the faculties of other great nations, none with the exception of Great Britain is so situated as to make it possible to do this. British influence and territory, from the Cape of Good Hope to the mouth of the Nile, are interrupted by a space less than 600 miles, and 480 miles of that are navigable water! The British have thousands of miles of railroad there now, and the work to pierce Africa with lines of steel, on the lines of longitude, is under way. Less than the cost of the war caused by the obstruction of English enterprise in Africa by the boorishness of the Boers would have completed a safe and magnificent highway from Cape Town to Alexandria. After all, war will not stop, but will promote that project. The study of the war history will so advertise the marvels of Africa that the money will be found to build the road and its branches from the Mediterranean to the South Sea, and that speedily; and this will be recorded as one of the mightiest works of man—one that profoundly interests all nations and all races.

England cannot Give up Africa

England cannot afford to give up Egypt or South Africa, and, of course, will not do it, for there she fights for India, and for every form and feature of her imperialism. The world could not afford to have her give up Africa. If she was weak enough to be willing to do it, that weakness would mark her decline and declare her fall. The British Empire is the chosen instrument of Providence that rough-hews the ends of the earth, and that includes the conquest of Africa, for the sake of mankind. That Empire is the only one that has the enabling equipment to do the work, and the advancement will be the achievement of one of the proudest and most beneficent of all victories of men for man.

A great deal of the journalism of the world is wickedly and wretchedly wrong and extremely misleading in its treatment of this superb and lofty theme. The Boers have been cruelly deceived by interludes of feebleness displayed in the government of England, permitting a halting interference with the perpetuation of the policy that has made the British Empire what it is. It was this unfaithfulness that sacrificed Gordon at Khartoum. It is the same sort of moral malady, a choice of that which is inadequate, that would have surrendered the Philippines to an impostor and prevented the expansion of American commerce in Asia.

The Boers are men of strength and generously sustained with many virtues, but they have had the misfortune to be trained in narrow ways and are forced by deplorable circumstances of environment to fight for a cause without hope, for it is one that is against the courses of the stars and the irresistible currents of the forward movements of our generation—against the mastery of the world by man for man's own sake. This awful war is the bitter fruit of a want of candor among the nations and the races that have enlightenment, and of the incapacity of the obstructionists in South Africa to resist the blandishments of the crude vanity and the criminality of the tyranny that is based upon the ignorance whose violent presumption sheds the blood of heroes, but may not change the majestic progress of the twentieth century, in which all the living nations and vital people, the Boers and the British, shall participate—for it is duty and destiny.

Opinions of the Canadians

The substantial unanimity of the Colonial people in the support of the British Empire in asserting the rights of British civilization in South Africa as imperative, is an impressive circumstance and shows the solidity of the people of English speech—when the intense advocacy of the independent nationality of Ireland is eliminated—in support of the African policy of the British government. In the Dominion the contention between the party of the Administration and that of the Opposition is whether the one or the other has been the more zealous and practical friends of the Empire. There is not as much diversity of opinion and heat of political friction in British Africa over the continuance of the colonial system, supplemented by conquest, if needful, in the African crisis of the Empire, as there is in the United States in applying to the Philippine Archipelago, the great principles of the fathers that the Republic shall grow continuously as the generations come and go. The people of the United States, however, can better afford to refrain from accepting the goods the gods have provided for them in Asiatic waters and for the expansion and cultivation of our commerce with Asia and the increase of our puissance on the Pacific—than England can to be balked, beaten and discredited in Africa, which is the land of the great hereafter of Europeans, next to Europe itself.

The people of the United States can put aside their sublime opportunity of gaining at a stroke advantages on the greater ocean of the globe, that any other people would consider it irrational and suicidal to abandon, and yet go on, though it would be a collapse of ambition for Americans to acquiesce in conservative stagnation instead of moving on ever westward. They have possessions on and in the Pacific, including the states of California, Oregon and Washington, the territory of Alaska and the Aleutian, Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, greater than any other people. Why should they be bounded in enterprise in the way all the stars have led, any more than eastward whence comes the light of day? England can no more consent to give up Africa than yield India, Egypt, Malta, Gibraltar, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Wight. Indeed the greater growth of England's hereafter is in Africa, or the end of her greatness and the grave of her glory is there.

MURAT HALSTEAD.

The Battle of Majuba Hill.

Lord Rosebery's Reflections

The Earl of Rosebery, under date of October 11, 1899, wrote that he could speak "without touching politics, for a situation had been created beyond party polemics, and it was needless to discuss how we could best have attained our simple and reasonable object of rescuing our fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal from intolerable conditions of subjection and injustice, and of securing equal rights for the white races in South Africa, for an ultimatum has been addressed to Great Britain by the South African Republic which is in itself a declaration of war."

Lord Rosebery continued that the people would close their ranks and relegate party controversy to a more convenient season, and there was in addition this to say: "Without attempting to judge the policy which concluded a peace after the reverse at Majuba Hill, I am bound to state my profound conviction that there is no conceivable Government in this country which could repeat it."

In a speech at Bath, unveiling the mural tablets to the Earl of Chatham and William Pitt, Mr. Gladstone's brilliant lieutenant and successor said of the Boer ultimatum, it was such as, he thought, the proudest empire in the world would have hesitated about sending. But since the commencement of the war the Boers had engaged in the strange policy of issuing decrees of annexation of British territory, which were, apparently, desirable additions to the Republic of the Transvaal.

Lord Rosebery's Speech at Bath

There had been a great misunderstanding about the Majuba Hill transaction. It was a mere skirmish, and concurrently with that there was an attempt on the part of the then Government to settle peaceably the issue in the Transvaal. Now, whatever they might think of the result of that attempt, the thing in itself was a sublime experiment. Mr. Gladstone, with his overpowering conviction of the might and power of England, thought that she could do things which other nations could not do, and, therefore, endeavored to treat with the Boers after the reverse which took place. We knew how Mr. Gladstone's magnanimity was rewarded. He (Lord Rosebery) felt a deep misgiving at the time in respect to this course of policy, and his fears had been realized in the result. The Boers had regarded that magnanimity as a proof of weakness, and they rewarded Mr. Gladstone's magnanimity with a deliberate and constant encroachment on the terms of the settlement. Then there came the discovery of gold. If they might judge from all that they had read, the income secured by the discovery of gold produced great corruption in the Transvaal. The bill of salaries—public salaries in the Transvaal—amounted, on a calculation, to about £40 a head of the population, and it could not but be considered that that was a liberal allowance for the working of so simple a republican Government. The Jameson raid was not merely a deplorable incident from a diplomatic point of view, but it was also the symptom of a deplorable state of things. They might be quite certain that no English gentleman would have engaged in what might be called a filibustering raid had it not been for the strong cry of distress that proceeded from within the Transvaal.

But it was unfortunate from many points of view. In the first place, it gave the Transvaal Government very much the best of the argument. They had then a great grievance to complain of, and we in those circumstances could not urge those grievances of which our subjects had to complain. In the meantime, almost all the taxation of the country was drawn from our fellow-countrymen—the very people who were not subjects of the Transvaal. Our fellow-subjects combined in vain for the most elementary form of education. They were losing face, so to speak, in the eyes of the natives and of the world at large. And the most important element of all was beginning to attract attention—which was that with the money derived from the gold the Transvaal Government was gradually piling up a great military power, armed to the teeth. That was a standing menace to to our dominion. If it had continued we should have had to consider whether we who rule so many nations were to become a subject nation in our turn in South Africa; and had we become a subject nation, or remained even in the position in which we were, it was scarcely possible to doubt that we should have lost South Africa itself.

The Sting of Majuba Hill

Nothing has happened showing more distinctly than Lord Rosebery's utterance, the sting that has rankled in England of the unfortunate campaign that closed in the surrender at Majuba Hill; and the history of that event, with the influential circumstances before and after, has been obscured rather than cleared by the strenuous spirit of controversy on both sides. Every point is contested except the defeat of the British. The Boers claim that 120 of their riflemen assailed the British soldiers and made prisoners of them, though they were 600 strong. The British version is that they were caught in an untenable position and overwhelming forces, outnumbering them four to one, were their assailants. There is bitter feeling in the British Army on the relative responsibilities of disaster, and the reinforcements sent from England, arriving at Cape Town soon after the battle were in a desperate state of dissatisfaction with the peacemaking that followed, and felt themselves not only aggrieved but insulted. The Gordon Highlanders at Majuba Hill A despatch from Bombay about the embarkation to take part in the present Boer and British war of the Gordon Highlanders, contained the following: "The stern, grim Highlanders were curiously quiet. Every Englishman who saw them knew the reason. The Gordons are one of the finest regiments in the army. They have a splendid fighting record. But in the last Boer war a strong detachment of the Second Battery broke and turned on the bloody hill of Majuba. It was an inexplicable occurrence, for the men were bronzed veterans who had just fought their way through Afghanistan and made the famous march with Lord Roberts from Kabul to Kandahar. The regiment has brooded over the stain for nineteen years. No man has ever dared to mention Majuba before a Gordon Highlander. Everyone who saw them embark this morning knew what their rigid faces portended. Their chance had come. This time there would be no mistake. Highlanders have long memories and the 'Gay Gordons' are in the mood to allow themselves to be hewn to pieces rather than take a single step backward before the Boers or any other foe."

An Eyewitness About Majuba Hill

John Boyd of Galt, who was of the Gordon Highlanders Regiment for 21 years, regards this as a "foul aspersion." He says of his old regiment:

"Its reputation can dispense with both personality and egotism. Its deeds speak for themselves, and at Majuba Hill the bonnie Gordons upheld their honor and glory. I was there, and I know that I speak truth. As distinctly as if the events took place yesterday, I remember all that occurred on that awful night, when 121 Gordon Highlanders braved thousands of enemies in ambush. I am not exaggerating. Hundreds of Boers were concealed on the hill, while 2000 lay hidden across the nek, and pitted against such overwhelming odds were 100 Highlanders, and barely 300 other troops.

"And the writer of that London dispatch says that we 'broke and turned'; that, in short, we retreated. Let me tell you that of the 121 Gordons, 60 were killed or wounded, and 27 were taken prisoners. And these men who fought against fate, yet who—I solemnly declare—stood their ground to the last, are accused of showing the white feather. Dead men tell no tales, nor can they defend themselves from such calumnies. But how, I ask, could they play the craven when one-half were stark and stiff, dying, as they had lived, for their country? And of the handful who escaped the Boers and their bullets all were on the hill when morning broke. I was one, with a wounded comrade at my side.

"I am not in the habit of talking of what I have or have not done, nor do I proclaim from the housetops the Gordons' enviable past. But I was with them at Majuba Hill; in spirit I am with them now; and the man who says that the Ninety-second ever disgraced its colors or its Queen, does the regiment a grievous wrong, and himself a greater one."

The claims of Great Britain to sovereignty in the Orange Free State were withdrawn in 1854, and this seemed to give additional force to the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, and that, it must be admitted, was in a sense a mistake, because it was done under the impression that the Boers really desired it. That was evidently an error when the time came for the fulfillment of the policy, but what amount of demagogy occurred in the meantime to change the sentiments of the ruling class of the Transvaal is a matter of doubt; and there are other difficulties that do not necessarily enter into the consideration of the subject.

Proclamation of President Steyn

The proclamation of President Steyn of the Orange Free State entering unreservedly into an alliance, defensive and offensive, with the Transvaal Boers, states with vehemence the principles contended for and the attitude assumed in antagonism with the British during the present conflict. President Steyn said that the Orange Free State was bound "with the sister republic not only by ties of blood, of sympathy and of common interests, but also by formal treaty, which has been necessitated by circumstances. This treaty demands of us that we assist her if she should be unjustly attacked, which we unfortunately for a long time have had too much reason to expect;" and President Steyn added:

What the Proclamation Charges

"Our own unfortunate experiences in the past have also made it sufficiently clear to us that we cannot rely on the most solemn promises and agreements of Great Britain when she has at her helm a Government prepared to trample on treaties, to look for feigned pretext for every violation of good faith by her committed. This is proved among other things by the unjust and unlawful British intervention after we had overcome an armed and barbarous black tribe on our eastern frontier, as also by the forcible appropriation of the dominion over part of our territory where the discovery of diamonds had caused the desire for this appropriation, although contrary to existing treaties. The desire and intention to trample on our rights as an independent and sovereign nation, notwithstanding a solemn convention existing between this State and Great Britain, have also been more than once and are now again shown by the present Government by giving expressions in public documents to an unfounded claim of paramountcy over the whole of South Africa, and therefore also over this State."

The President of the South African Republic.

Birth, Education Etc.

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, President of the Transvaal—the other side of the Vaal River, is the name of the country—was born in the Cape Colony, October 10th, 1825. It is the commendation of the naturalist Mr. Distant, that Mr. Kruger has a "very large amount of natural wisdom," which is the softer way of saying that he is not an educated man, but one of the statesmen of Nature. He is, on the authority already quoted, "undistinguished in appearance," but has "a prodigious memory;" and "a weakness in resisting flattery and adulation which is not good for him," because, as his will is so pronounced and his authority so absolute, he is perpetually surrounded by the representatives of the rascalities in a strange variety of "concessions." The flattering description of this historical personage is that he is "very pious and self-reliant, which is provocative of bigotry and hot temper," and he is also "a rough diplomat of no mean rank."

A Story Picture of President Kruger

In Fitzpatrick's "The Transvaal from Within" we find this strongly drawn picture of Mr. Kruger:

"To an English nobleman, who in the course of an interview remarked, 'My father was a Minister of England, and twice Viceroy of Ireland,' the old Dutchman answered, 'And my father was a shepherd!' It was not pride rebuking pride; it was the ever-present fact which would not have been worth mentioning but for the suggestion of the antithesis. He, too, was a shepherd, and is—a peasant. It may be that he knows what would be right and good for his people, and it may not; but it is sure that he realizes that to educate would be to emancipate, to broaden their views would be to break down the defences of their prejudices, to let in the new leaven would be to spoil the old bread, to give unto all men the rights of men would be to swamp forever the party which is to him greater than the State. When one thinks on the one-century history of this people, much is seen that accounts for their extraordinary love of isolation, and their ingrained and passionate aversion to control; much, too, that draws to them a world of sympathy. And when one realizes the old Dopper President hemmed in once more by the hurrying tide of civilization, from which his people have fled for generations—trying to fight both Fate and Nature—standing up to stem a tide as resistless as the eternal sea—one sees the pathos of the picture. But this is as another generation may see it. To-day we are too close—so close that the meaner details, the blots and flaws, are all most plainly visible; the corruption, the insincerity, the injustice, the barbarity—all the unlovely touches that will by and by be forgotten, sponged away by the gentle hand of Time, when only the picturesque will remain."

Paul Kruger at ten Years

In 1836 a company of trekkers about 300 strong, the second that crossed the Orange River, was under the command of Hendrick Potgeiter and attacked by native warriors, twenty-five trekkers were killed, but the main body were warned and forming a laager of wagons with barricades of thorn bushes. They were able to beat off the assailants. Paul Kruger, a boy of ten years, was one of the defenders.

Henry M. Stanley, M.P., the famous African explorer, writing at Pretoria in November, 1897, gives a graphic sketch of President Kruger, "fully dressed in the usual black suit and little old-fashioned top hat, smoking on the veranda of his house." This was the first glimpse Mr. Stanley had of the great ruler upon whom he was calling, and the historical correspondent was shown into the spacious saloon, finding opposite to him "a large and coarse oil painting" of Kruger. Stanley says in his striking and unreserved way:

Not a Bad Likeness of President Kruger

"The history of the painting I do not know, but as it is permitted to be hung so prominently in the reception room, it is to be presumed that the President and his friends regard it as a faithful likeness, and are consequently proud of it. This small fact proved to be the ABC of my study of the man of destiny of South Africa. It was clear that neither Kruger nor his friends knew anything of art, for the picture was an exaggerated reproduction of every defect in the President's homely features, the low, narrow, unintellectual brow, over small eyes, and heavy, massive expanse of face beneath. The man himself was almost beautiful in comparison with the monster on the canvas, and I really could not help pitying him for his innocent admiration of a thing that ought to be cast into the fire. But presently the President spoke—a mouthful of strange guttural sounds—in a voice that was like a loud gurgle, and as the great jaws and cheeks and mouth heaved and opened, I stole a glance at the picture, and it did not seem to me then as if the painter had libeled the man. At any rate, the explosive dialect so expanded the cheeks and widened the mouth, that I perceived some resemblance to the brutal picture."

Mr. Stanley made his call, according to information about the habits of the great natural statesman, very early, but the President of the South African Republic had already prepared himself for the day by reading a chapter of the Bible, and when he remarked to his visitor, "What I have said shall be done," Stanley naively remarks he discovered in the manner of the words, "When I learned how he had been engaged, I knew he had been infected with the style of the Pentateuch," adding, "He has fully arrived at that stage of life that made Mr. Gladstone so impossible in the Cabinet. There is abundance of life and vitality in the President, but he is so choleric that he is unable to brook opposition. Any expression suggesting him to be mistaken in his views or policy arouses his temper, the thunderous gurgle is emitted, the right arm swings powerfully about, while the eyes become considerably buried under the upper eyelids, I suppose from the photograph of him now on sale at Pretoria, which represents his eyes looking upward, he fancies this to be his impressive gaze. He receives a stranger with the air of a pedagogue about to impress a new pupil, and methodically starts to inculcate the principles of true statesmanship; but soon heats himself with the dissertation, and breaks out in the strong masterful style which his friends say is such a picturesque feature in his character, and his critics call the 'humbug pose'. If by the latter is meant the repetition of stale platitudes, and the reiteration of promises which will never be carried out, I fear I must agree with the critics."

His Appearance and Manners

Mr. Stanley continues: "In appearance he is only a sullen, brutal-looking concierge, dressed in old-fashioned, ill-made black clothes. He appears to know absolutely nothing outside of burgherdom; he has neither manners nor taste; his only literature seems to be limited to the Bible; he has no intrinsic excellence of character that should appeal to the admiration of the public; but what he does know, he knows well. He knows the simplicity of his rude and bearded brethren of the veldt; he can play upon their fears and their creed, with perfect effect, and it is in the nature of his ill-conditioned personality to say 'no.' All the rest has fallen to him because he is so stubborn, so unyielding, and others so vacillating and so pitifully weak.

The Boer of Boers

"I do not suppose there are any people in the world so well represented by a single prominent man as the Boers of South Africa are by Mr. Kruger. He is pre-eminently the Boer of Boers in character, in intellect, and in disposition, and that is one reason why he has such absolute control over his people. His obstinacy—and no man with a face like his could be otherwise—his people call strength. Age and its infirmities have intensified it. His reserve—born of self-pride, consciousness of force—limited ambitions, and self-reliance, they call a diplomatic gift. His disposition, morose from birth, isolation fostered by contact with his kind, is unyielding and selfish, and has been hardened by contempt of the verbose weaklings who have measured themselves against him."

Mr. Howard C. Hillegas is a singularly specific writer, and in his instructive volume, "Oom Paul's People," is careful to say, and it is a point worth making, that the President is "less than five feet seven inches in height, body large and fat, legs thin and short, eyebrows bushy, white and projecting half an inch. * * * When he smiles the big fat circles above his cheeks are pushed upward, and shut his small gray eyes from view. When pleased the President generally laughs hilariously, and then his eyes remain closed for the greater part of a minute. Mr. Kruger's nose and mouth are the chief features of his face. Both are more extensive than his large face demands, but they are such marvels in their own peculiar way as to be distinguishing marks. The bridge of the nose grows wide as it goes outward from the point between the eyes, and before it reaches the tip it has a gentle upheaval. Then it spreads out on either side, and covers fully two inches of area above his upper lip. It is not attractive, but in that it follows the general condition of his facial landscape.

"The mouth is wide and ungainly. The constant use of a heavy pipe has caused a deep depression on the left side of his lower lip, and gives the whole mouth the appearance of being unbalanced. His chin is large and prominent, and his ears correspond relatively in size and symmetry with his face. When in repose his features are not pleasant to look upon, but when lighted up by a smile they become rather attractive, and generally cause his laughter to be contagious among his hearers.

"The thin line of beard which runs from ear to ear combines with the hair on his head in forming what is not unlike a white halo around the President's face. The lines in the man's face are deep, irregular, and very numerous."

His Daily Life and Family

It is said this great man takes particular care of his health which is an affair of international importance. He rises at half-past five and drinks several cups of "intensely black coffee," and smokes several "full pipes of very strong tobacco," reads the Bible for half an hour, and goes to work.

Mrs. Kruger is the President's second wife, the niece of his first wife. The first wife had one child, who is dead, and the second wife is the mother of sixteen children, nine of whom are dead. Two sons are living, one acting as the President's private secretary, the other one in a responsible government position, and the President has a son-in-law, Captain Elopp, described as several times a millionaire, living in a $250,000 house.

In his proclamation after the Jameson Raid, President Kruger said: "I am inexpressibly thankful to God that the despicable and treacherous incursion into my country has been prevented, and the independence of the republic saved, through the courage and bravery of my burghers."

The famous telegram from the Emperor of Germany to Oom Paul is highly prized by the President. It is considered a priceless treasure, and runs as follows:

"Received January 3rd, 1896. "From William I.R., Berlin.

"To President Kruger, Pretoria.

"I tender you my sincere congratulations that, without appealing to the help of friendly powers, you and your people have been successful in opposing with your own forces the armed bands that have broken into your country to disturb the peace, in restoring order, and in maintaining the independence of your country against attacks from without. "WILLIAM I.R."

President Kruger's Grand Passion

President Kruger's grand passion is hatred of the British, and he holds them in such distrust and contempt that he refuses to see the accredited correspondents of the principal London newspapers, but will see an American newspaper man, emphasizing the reason why by the statement that "they do not lie" about him and that the English do, and he desires Americans to hear the inside of things from himself. The first thing he asked the author of "Oom Paul's People," himself an American newspaper correspondent, whose valuable letters were published by Appleton & Company, was, "Have you any English blood in your veins?" This was delivered in the Boerish dialect, and the correspondent had been told the President always opened a conversation by inquiring as to the health of the person introduced, and this time he got the answer back that the English blood was abundant and good. This was considered a portentous joke, and struck Oom Paul as extraordinarily funny. The story of the expression of his delight is useful in its disclosure of character. Then the correspondent was informed the old statesman was in a better humor than he had been seen for some time, and that anything could be got out of him. An extremely interesting conversation followed.

The majority of the people of the United States have accepted the newspaper celebration of President Kruger as a wonder in courage, diplomacy, integrity, piety, and all that makes up excellent manhood. The record of his duplicity, cunning, evasiveness and crooked selfishness is practically excluded from those journals, and even headlines that approximate to the truth are confined to a few papers that care for international commentary. It is supposed that our local market for intelligence desires a constant flavor of Boerdom.

Fair Summaries of Both Sides

The collection of historical matter—"The Transvaal from Within"—is in terms and tone very persuasive that it has unusual merit as truthful—giving from the records fair summaries of both sides of disputed questions, whether they are commercial, political, racial or personal. The author is Mr. J. P. Fitzpatrick, the publisher Mr. William Heineman, London, and the work is brought well up to date. It opens with a note that shows a spirit of consideration for all that is admirable; and it is the desire of the author of this book that it should apply thoroughly. We quote:

"It has been found impossible to avoid in this book more or less pointed reference to certain nationalities in certain connections; for instance, such expressions as 'the Boers,' 'the Cape Dutch,' 'the Hollanders,' 'the Germans,' are used. The writer desires to say once and for all that unless the contrary is obviously and deliberately indicated, the distinctions between nationalities are intended in the political sense only and not in the racial sense, and if by mischance there should be found something in these pages which seems offensive, he begs the more indulgent interpretation on the ground of a very earnest desire to remove and not to accentuate race distinctions."

A Few Facts of History

President Burgess, the predecessor of Kruger is described in this work as leaving the Transvaal "brokenhearted by the cruelty and mean intrigue, the dissensions among and disloyalty of the people." He left a statement denouncing Kruger for his intrigues to secure the presidency for himself, and charges and proves Kruger to have been a leader in breaking promises and betraying where he had promised support. When the Transvaal was annexed after President Burgess' pathetic retirement before the rising tyrant, Kruger calmly took office under the British government, and resigned the dignity and emolument only when refused increased remuneration for which he repeatedly applied. The English authority during this time was undermined by rumors incessantly circulated among the sentimentalists of English statesmen, and having some foundation that the Transvaal would be given up. This was preparing the way for trouble, and the weakness displayed in England was met by what amounted to a conspiracy in the Transvaal. Kruger's point was an artful though crude demagogy of violence against taxation.

It was about taxes that the first English war was finally started, and the Majuba Hill incident was preliminary to a complacent accommodation, glossed in England as magnanimity and exalted expression of the overwhelming power of Great Britain, but perfectly understood in the Transvaal to mean that the British Empire was whipped and could be kicked about at the pleasure of the powerful President.

Outrages Perpetrated by Boers

It was during the war leading down to this inglorious surrender and false peace, that many murders were committed by Boer assassins, who used white flags and Red Crosses to lure victims. A few incidents of this treachery are thus specified:

"There was the murder of Green in Lydenburg, who was called to the Boer camp, where he went unarmed and in good faith, only to have his brains blown out by the Boer with whom he was conversing; there was the public flogging of another Englishman by the notorious Abel Erasmus because he was an Englishman and had British sympathies; and there were the various white flag incidents. At Ingogo the Boers raised the white flag, and when in response to this General Colley ordered the hoisting of a similar flag to indicate that it was seen, a perfect hail of lead was poured on the position where the General stood; and it was obvious that the hoisting of the flag was merely a ruse to ascertain where the General and his staff were. There was the ambulance affair on Majuba, when the Boers came upon an unarmed party bearing the wounded with the Red Cross flying over them, and after asking who they were and getting a reply, fired a volley into the group, killing Surgeon-Major Cornish."

These are facts of history, and the Boers have played the same savage game in all their wars with the English. The policy of Kruger has from the first been engineered to exclude immigrants, to repel all foreigners especially held in abhorrence by the Transvaal government, and constantly denied civil rights associated with civilization.

After a naturalized subject "shall have been qualified to sit in the Second Volksraad for ten years (one of the conditions for which is that he must be thirty years of age), he may obtain the full burgher rights or political privileges, provided the majority of burghers in his ward will signify in writing their desire that he should obtain them, and provided the President and Executive shall see no objection to granting the same! It is thus clear that, assuming the Field-cornet's records to be honestly and properly compiled, and to be available for reference (which they are not), the immigrant, after fourteen years' probation during which he shall have given up his own country and have been politically emasculated, and having attained the age of at least forty years, would have the privilege of obtaining burgher rights should he be willing, and able to induce the majority of a hostile clique to petition in writing on his behalf, and should he then escape the veto of the President and Executive.

The Copingstone to Mr. Kruger's Chinese Wall

This was the coping-stone to Mr. Kruger's Chinese wall. The Uitlanders and their children were disfranchised forever, and as far as legislation could make it sure, the country was preserved by entail to the families of the "Voortrekkers." The measure was only carried because of the strenuous support given by the President both within the Raad and at those private meetings which practically decide the important business of the country.

The great statesman Kruger, when asked just to "open the door a little" to outsiders, began an address in a village near Johannesburg by saying, "Burghers, friends, thieves, murderers, newcomers and others." The particular propriety of this was that for a long time Kruger could not be persuaded to visit Johannesburg. He hated the flourishing, stirring and steadily increasing city, and mistrusted the people, because he knew that his methods could not for a great while be submitted to by an enlightened community. He relaxed his vigilant attitude of hostility at last so far as to become the guest of the people of the city, and when he was civilly treated, and the fact that the Johannesburgers had been handsome in entertainment, he reviled them as "a set of lick-spittles."

The Wise Man's Treatment of the Natives

The style of the wise man's treatment of the natives appears in this:

The "April" case was one in which an unfortunate native named April, having worked for a number of years for a farmer on promise of certain payment in cattle, and having completed his term, applied for payment and a permit to travel through the district. On some trivial pretext this was refused him, his cattle were seized, and himself and his wives and children forcibly retained in the service of the Boer. He appealed in the nearest official, Field-cornet Prinsloo, who acted in a particularly barbarous and unjustifiable manner, so that the Chief Justice before whom the case was heard (when April, having enlisted the sympathy of some white people, was enabled to make an appeal), characterized Prinsloo's conduct as brutal in the extreme and a flagrant abuse of power perpetrated with the aim of establishing slavery. Judgment was given against Prinsloo with all costs. Within a few days of this decision being arrived at, the President, addressing a meeting of burghers, publicly announced that the Government had reimbursed Prinsloo, adding, "Notwithstanding the judgment of the High Court, we consider Prinsloo to have been right."

A Misleading Reputation

President Kruger has had provided for him a reputation that is astonishingly misleading. His part in public affairs has been one of vehement and vindictive self-assertion, participation in intrigue for office and for salaries—the constant intrusion of his personality in the rudest and most selfish ways into everything that concerns the state, disregarding the law, and with complete indifference to the rights of all persons except those who recognize him as their master. Abstaining himself from intoxicating drinks, he has long sustained a liquor ring in dispensing horrible drinks at scandalous profit. Given to self-praise for lofty purity in matters of state, he maintained a dynamite ring that cut off a large revenue, seemingly for no better reason than that his friends—his sycophant friends—were of it, and he has stooped to studied interference between employers and employed, that he might break up reasonable relations, believing himself in a position to profit by agitations; and in this insidious proceeding he has used secret service funds in the organization of hostilities for the embarrassment of employers, not because they had wronged the laboring man, but for the reason that they were not on their knees to him.

All this the world has accepted as manifestations of virtue, domestic kindliness and the religious sensibilities that are always in the public eye, that the multitude may gaze upon the goodness of the great and good man. The sincerity of his character as a professor of piety is not doubtful, but he carries into that, as into everything else, an ostentatious egotism, that among some nations and peoples is regarded as unbecoming a Christian statesman. It is fair to say of him that the one thing in which he seems to have profound convictions in addition to his self-esteem and hatred of English-speaking people, is in his devotion to the doctrines of the Old Testament. He does not seem to have made the acquaintance of the New Testament.

Racial Prejudices, Racial Hatreds

He has sought to keep apart the merchants and the miners, fearing their united power might interfere with his characteristic proceedings. He has lost no opportunity to promote belligerency among white laborers, and utterly and always ignores the rights as men of the natives. When intriguing with organized labor he has shown all the surface indications of partnership in carrying on, as the inside historian Fitzpatrick says, "an anticapitalist campaign with the Government press," and also "fostering the liquor industry with its thousands of reputable hangers on"; and more than all, he has without hesitation or variation flagrantly indulged racial prejudices and incited racial hatreds in South Africa, the most deplorable and dangerous possible use of power, and he has found constant consolation and been greatly sustained in his public pursuits by the hatred of the Whites against the Black and Brown people. But his favorite investment and educational enterprise is in arousing the animosities of the Boers against the British, that they may be at the same altitude with his own.

It is to the rough violence of President Kruger, his disregard of the laws, studied demoralization of his own courts, that he has repeatedly, recklessly overruled with sheer brute force—his heedless refusal to aid in the prosperous development of his own country, his gross and violent opposition to progress of all kinds—to the extension and protection of legitimate industries, and steadfast cares for those that are illegitimate, and sinister participation in corrupting schemes surrounded and inspired by the noisy congratulations of his habitual flatterers—all this afflicting him with the elephantiasis of conceit. It is to that and his effusion of arrogance to which we trace with certain steps the remote sources and the rampant rushing of the war, that is so destructive and wanton. There is no good in it, unless it involves the downfall of the Kruger tyranny, an example of individual caprice of a type of ruthless misgovernment, not surpassed in the self-indulgence of those who rule the barbarous tribes of Africa or sit on the gaudy thrones of Asia.

Illustrating Specifications

So much accusation must for full effect be illustrated by specifications. In 1897 the Burghers, the ruling class behind President Kruger, had heavy losses from the ravages of Rinderpest and there followed a great work of benevolence in the shape of purchases by the Government of a multitude of mules, to take the place of the oxen that had perished; and there was associated with this, provision made in "mealies," the corn of the country, to save the alleged starving. Under a form of favoritism by a Government that was the personal property of Mr. Kruger, anything could be done under the pretense of saving the rulers of the land said to be suffering by pestilence and famine. Government officials were greatly interested in the contracts for the salvation of the people. The historian Fitzpatrick says: "The notorious Mr. Barend Vorster, who had bribed Volksraad members with gold watches, money and spiders, in order to secure the Selati Railway concession, and who although denounced as a thief in the Volksraad itself, declined to take action to clear himself and was defended by the President, again played a prominent part. This gentleman and his partners contracted with the Government to supply donkeys at a certain figure apiece, the Government taking all risk of loss from the date of purchase. The donkeys were purchased in Ireland and South America at one-sixth of the contract price. The contractors alleged that they had not sufficient means of their own and received an advance equal to three-quarters of the total amount payable to them; that is to say, for every £100 which they had to expend they received £450 as an unsecured, advance against their profits."

Investigation of this scandal was hushed up, but the money payable under the contracts was all exacted and all lost. There is nothing to show that the people got any good of it. The shippers of mules persuaded the majestical President that the health of those animals demanded the ventilation of the upper decks, and that the vessels might not be topheavy there must be double cargoes, mules for the bereaved Boers on top, and food for the famine-stricken, none of whom were in actual want, carried in the hold as ballast. Here was a double stroke of the ingenuity of contractors, and the profit was swollen accordingly.

Free and Independent Krugerism

The benevolent President was a fierce defender of the money makers by this transaction. There are a few figures that indicate the scientific political economy by which the formidable President wins the affections of the populace and guards his free state from harm. His particular friends are in office, of course, and they have fixed salaries to a great extent. It shows the progress made by the Government, that the amount of those salaries was twenty-four times as great in 1899 as in 1886, having risen from £51,831, 3s. 7d., to £1,121,394, 5s. This is the revenue that goes to the promotion and perpetuation of free and independent Krugerism.

The Boers and British Gold and Diamonds.

Solomon's Ophir

Solomon obtained his supplies of gold, it is believed, from the Transvaal. There is something more in this than imagination and conjecture. There are two excellent harbors on the South African coast that confronts the Indian Ocean, and in Solomon's great days he was a "sea power" there and his ships were on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, so that his connection with African gold mining is not at all improbable. The Transvaal mines are neither remote nor inaccessible from the best ports on the coast of Eastern Africa. Solomon obtained the "gold of Ophir," and it was by making "a navy of ships in Ezion-Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold * * * and brought it to King Solomon." The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon in his glory is testimony of the familiar splendor of his fame in Africa.

How the Gold was discovered

The Leydenburg gold fields were first made definite and certain in the public eye by the writings of a German explorer, Herr Carl Mauch, which attracted adventurers from California, New Zealand and Australia. In February, 1875, the official reports in Pretoria stated that notice was given to the Landrost of Leydenburg of the discovery of alluvial gold between thirty and forty miles eastward of that town, which is situated 5,825 feet above the sea. In 1873 the Postmaster-General at Pretoria received a letter from the Landdrost of Leydenburg and with it two ounces and a half of gold. This had been found on a farm thirty miles from Leydenburg. Other gold discoveries were soon made and among them nuggets in the walls of mud houses. A letter was published in the "Transvaal Advocate" giving interesting incidents of gold finding. We quote as follows:

Reports About Early Gold Finds

"In the bed of a spruit running through the farm (Hendricksdale) alluvial gold was found in sufficient quantity to justify the opinion that it was present in paying quantities, and this opinion was confirmed from day to day by the following facts:

"1st. Messrs. McLachlan, Palmer and Valentine, with two Kaffirs, and without proper appliances, found in fourteen days the first sample of two ounces, among which is a nugget the size of a half sovereign, somewhat longer, but more flattened.

2nd. Mr. Valentine with two Kaffirs found and sent to the cashier of the Standard Bank of Natal a second sample of above two ounces, in which was a nugget as large as a middle sized bean.

"One of the farms distinguished by gold, that of Erasmus and Mullers, was at this time hired for thirty years at £200 per annum.

"Among these hills are caves, in one of which one might travel underground for hours, and here, in olden times, the natives sheltered themselves and cattle in many an inter-tribal war. Skulls and bones of men and cattle are found, and tradition, whether justly or not, brands the occupiers as cannibals. Near some of the southern sources of the Um Saabi, or Sabea, is the Spitz Kop, 100 feet high, under which the first gold in the district was found, and the gold district was in early times supposed to be about fifty miles long by eight broad, and six or eight farms were known to have gold upon them. The gold was found about three feet below the surface, the upper layer being red clay; then large gravel quartz in fragments, limestone and a cindery fused substance, like slag from a smelting furnace, but softer; below this is a soft black soil, which when put in the box reminds one of a mixture of tar and oil, and with this a soft white clay is found. The quartz when pounded proved also to have gold in it, and so did the cylinder layer, and the stones of which the cattle kraal was built contained gold. The best finds were usually under or between the large boulders.

The Most Interesting Specimen

"The latest testimony I can give is that I saw thirty-one ounces of gold a day or two ago brought from McMc and Pilgrim's Rest, and that one of my friends not long ago sent 145 ounces home. But to me the most interesting specimen was a half ounce obtained from the country to the southeast of Matabeleland, probably about half way between Hartley Hill and the ruins of Mazimboeye Zimboae—or Zimbabye—of Herr Mauch, in which direction I have reason to believe that alluvial fields as rich as and more extensive than those of Leydenburg await the coming of the explorer who shall unite to skill in prospecting patience, perseverance and tact in dealing with the various native tribes, whose friendship must be cultivated and assistance gained before the richest of all the districts of Southeastern Africa shall be ready to surrender its treasures to the enterprise and industry of Europe."

United States Consul Macrum writes from Pretoria to the State Department in regard to the gold production in South Africa in 1897 and 1898:

"The Rand has at last reached and surpassed the marvelous output of 400,000 ounces of gold as the production for a single month of twenty-eight working days. Every twenty-four hours, then, witness the recovery of 14,250 ounces of gold, worth rather over £50,000 ($243,325). The Rand total comprises only the output of mines along a stretch of some thirty miles of country. With this statement for the month of October, the gold winnings of the whole Republic for the ten months of 1898 amount to 3,700,908 ounces. At this rate the total for the whole of 1898 would be over four and a half millions.

Gold Production of South Africa in 1897 and 1898

The value of the October 423,000 ounces is £1,500,000 ($7,299,750), which may be compared with £11,653,725 ($56,162,743), the value for all in 1897, and £12,208,411 ($59,412,232), the value of the gold production of the United States in the same year. Although the combined mines of Colorado, California, Dakota, Montana, Nevada, and Alaska put out more gold last year than did the South African Republic, it is not likely that the Transvaal will take second place this year. Deep levels continue on the upgrade, as their production in October was 106,426 ounces—the first time that the hundred thousand has been exceeded. The average price of the September production was £3 16s. ($18.42) per ounce."

The yearly aggregate for eleven years was:

The price of gold is a few cents less than $18.50 per ounce. The figures $18.42 often occur. Consul Macrum sent from Pretoria December 31, 1898, a report of the gold production of the South African Republic—the Transvaal—saying:

"It must be remembered that this has been a remarkably dull year, so far as ordinary business is concerned, and the mining companies, it is freely said, are not working up to their full capacity; but, nevertheless, the production and profit have been greater this year than ever before. When the differences that are said to exist between the Government and capital have been removed or adjusted, the Transvaal, it is predicted, will see a most wonderful boom."

But it must be taken into account that the Boer has a soul above booms.

A Clear and Impartial Statement

Mr. O. P. Austin, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department of the United States, gives an admirable, impartial and clear statement of the matters of A clear and first importance in the Transvaal. A few official, Impartial indisputable figures and simple facts put the Statement question of the right and wrong of the bloody war in South Africa in the right way and yield the correct answer unmistakably. He says:

"The laws of the State are enacted by a Parliament of two chambers, the first or higher chamber enacting a large share of the laws independent of the lower house, which only originates measures relating to certain subjects of administration, and which cannot become laws without the approval of the upper house. Members of the first chamber are elected from and by the first-class burghers, who comprise only the male whites resident in the Republic before May, 1876, or who took an active part in the war of independence in 1881 or subsequent wars, and the children of such persons over the age of sixteen. This condition would deprive persons natives of other countries of becoming "first-class burghers," and thus obtaining the privilege of participating in the election of the President or the house which enacts the most important of the laws and has a veto power upon all measures originating in the lower house. The second-class burghers may become members of and participate in the election of the second chamber, the second-class comprising the naturalized male alien population and their children over the age of sixteen. Naturalization may, according to the Statesman's Year Book, 1899, "be obtained after two years' residence and registration on the books of the field cornet, oath of allegiance and payment of £2, and naturalized burghers may by special resolution of the first or higher chamber become first-class burghers twelve years after naturalization."

Boss and Caste Government

This is the rarest combination known of Boss and Caste Government. It is an unrestrained despotism designed to perpetuate itself by favor and force, regardless of everybody not of the ruling race and condition, and the Englishman who would give up his rights in the Transvaal as a British subject for the privilege of ultimate participation in the government, even of his own town, if that town contained ten Englishmen to the people of all other nationalities, would have to be "a man without a country" for seven years. It was at this point that Mr. President Kruger stood fast, peremptorily refusing the reduction of the period of probation even two years—leaving it five, and yet the probability is a very large number of the naturalized citizens of the United States who would regard such a restriction in this country as a bitter and remorseless discrimination against the foreign born, are sympathizing with the unrelenting attitude of the Boers upon this subject. Apply to this condition of things in the Transvaal the facts and figures following:

Facts and Figures

The area of the Republic is 119,139 square miles; the white population, according to the State Almanack for 1898, is 345,397, and the native population, 748,759. The seat of government is Pretoria, with a white population of 10,000. The largest town is Johannesburg, the mining center of Witwatersrand gold fields, having a population within a radius of three miles, according to the census of 1896, of 102,078 persons, of which number 50,907 were whites, 952 Malays, 4,807 Coolies and Chinese, 42,533 Kaffirs, and 2,879 of mixed race. One-third of the population of the Republic is estimated to be engaged in agriculture, the lands of the Republic generally, outside the mining districts, being extremely productive, and the demand for farm products in the mining regions very great, even in excess of the local products at the present time."

It does not in the least soothe the Boers that they have a good market for their farm products, for which they are indebted almost exclusively to English enterprise in great feats of engineering, in the application of the most modern methods of mining, and to immense investments, in the cheapening of transportation, and extending the capacities and facilities of the poor as well as the rich, for swift and easy communication with neighbors.

Boer Prejudice and Intolerance

The chief care, concern and anxiety of the Boer is that a government of the people must not by any chance be established in Transvaal. It is the elementary principle of the Boer disposition and government, that there are no real "people" except Boers, who place the Hottentot, the Englishman, the Zulu and the Kaffir, the American, the German and the Frenchman on the same level. He will have none of them except in the capacity of subordinates, and when it suits his humor, servants of the established class that dominates. The native population is double that of the number of whites, but that does not concern the Boer. His Republicanism takes no account of people with darker skins than his own. In the most important part of the Transvaal, the Boers themselves are in a pronounced minority, if we take into account only the white folks. The Boer capital, Pretoria, has a white population of 10,000; the white population of Johannesburg is 50,907; and the great political task and vindictive occupation of the Boers of Pretoria, the political capital of the alleged free country, is that the select few of the 10,000 whites in that town shall rule it and Johannesburg also at their pleasure, and according to the obstinate caprices of their will. There were 50,000 whites in Johannesburg, and the argument the Boer advocates have advanced in America is that the whites of that city, five times as numerous as those of Pretoria, must not be allowed even the shadow of the right of suffrage, because they would outvote the chosen people who have taken the course of government upon themselves in the political capital. It is this insistence upon an atrocious inequality that is the elementary cause of the war. Such an oppression becomes an intolerable condition, and there is no cure for it but the sword. Of course, it has been a characteristic of this situation that it is associated with a systematic tyranny at once insulting and extortionate. The "Dog in the Manger" The Boer policy is moderately described as that of the "dog in the manger." The 50,000 white people of Johannesburg, are disfranchised, first, because they under the rule of the majority would be at least their own rulers and exercising an important influence in the government of Johannesburg, would impair the authority and destroy the prestige of the oligarchy at Pretoria. We do not urge the fact that this majority at Johannesburg are also the creators and possessors of the greater wealth of the Transvaal. Property has the right of recognition as the result of investment and industry, but it is not necessary that to protect itself it must have political advantages out of proportion to the number of the electors who are the property holders. So the argument for the enfranchisement in a reasonable time of the Uitlanders of Johannesburg rests primarily and safely upon the proposition that they could cast a majority vote, and we do not need to call in the merits of the property qualification or the question whether the natives have by possibility any rational right to consideration because about sixty years ago they were crowded out of their hunting grounds by the Boers, seeking a country where they could own labor and assert mastery over all others, instead of being second in importance as a people to the English of lands further South.

The Commerce of the Transvaal

The Johannesburghers are not merely disfranchised; they are, by a vengeful and grasping minority, excluded from the right to protect themselves in persons and property. It is a great fault in them that they did not arm themselves and march to Pretoria to receive and reinforce the Jameson raiders as deliverers. They are justly punished for this sin of omission. The statistician of the United States Treasury Department says: The gold mines are now the most productive in the world, and have already turned out gold to the value of more than $300,000,000, and, according to the estimate of experts, have still $3,500,000,000 'in sight.' The commerce of the South African Republic, while naturally great because of the large number of people employed by the mining industries, cannot be as accurately stated as that of states or divisions whose imports are all received through a given port or ports. Foreign goods for the South African Republic reach it through several ports—Cape Colony, Natal, Lourenco Marquez, and in smaller quantities from other ports on the coast. The total imports of 1897 are estimated at £21,515,000, of which £17,012,000 were from Great Britain, £2,747,000 from the United States, £1,054,226 from Germany, and the remainder from Belgium, Holland and France."

All this does not help the Boer as a politician. He is devoted to the rule of the minority and the exercise of his will in commanding others, native and foreign, black and white, and trampling them into the place he has assigned them. This he calls liberty, and for that sort of liberty he has a portentous passion that he is absolutely sure is sanctified.

Mr. Howard C. Hillegas, in his book "Oom Paul's People," D. Appleton & Co., holds the Boers to be a nation, and his pages are full of highly colored partiality for their cause. The diamond mines, he says, "have yielded more than four hundred million dollars worth of diamonds since the Free State conceded them to England for less than half a million dollars."

He does not condescend to consider the proposition that if the cession had not been made, the find of diamonds would not have occurred, or if it had, and the Boers undertaken to work the mines, their success would have been small in comparison with the remarkable results produced by the Uitlanders.

Mr. Hillegas in his story of the gold mines sheds light upon the character of the people of the Orange State as well as the Transvaal. He says:

"In 1854, a Dutchman named John Marais, who had a short time before returned from the Australian gold fields, prospected in the Transvaal, and found many evidences of gold. The Boers fearing, that their land would be overrun with gold seekers, paid £500 to Marais and sent him home after extracting a promise that he would not reveal his secret to any one.

"It was not until 1884 that England heard of the presence of gold in South Africa. A man named Fred Stuben, who had spent several years in the country, spread such marvellous reports of the underground wealth of the Transvaal, that only a short time elapsed before hundreds of prospectors and miners left England for South Africa. When the first prospectors discovered auriferous veins of wonderful quality on a farm called Sterkfontein, the gold boom had its birth. It required the lapse of only a short time for the news to reach Europe, America and Australia, and immediately thereafter that vast and widely scattered army of men and women which constantly awaits the announcement of new discoveries of gold was set in motion toward the Randt.

The First Stamp Mill

"The Indian, Russian, American and Australian gold fields were deserted, and the steamships and sailing vessels to South Africa were overladen with men and women of all degrees and nationalities. The journey to the Randt was expensive, dangerous and comfortless, but before a year had passed almost 20,000 persons had crossed the deserts and the plains and had settled on claims purchased from the Boers. In December, 1885, the first stamp mill was erected for the purpose of crushing the gneiss rock in which the gold lay hidden. This enterprise marks the real beginning of the gold fields of the Randt, which now yield one-third of the world's total product of the precious metal. The advent of thousands of foreigners was a boon to the Boers, who owned the large farms on which the auriferous veins were located. Options on farms that were of little value a short time before were sold at incredible figures, and the prices paid for small claims would have purchased farms of thousands of acres two years before. * * *

"Owing to the Boer's lack of training and consequent inability to share in the development of the gold fields, the new industry remained almost entirely in the hands of the newcomers, the Uitlanders, and two totally different communities were created in the Republic. The Uitlanders, who, in 1890, numbered about 100,000, lived almost exclusively in Johannesburg, and the suburbs along the Randt. The Boers, having disposed of their farms and lands on the Randt, were obliged to occupy the other parts of the Republic, where they could follow their pastoral and other pursuits."

Elsa Goodwin Green, a lady who volunteered as a nurse and served in the hospital at Pretoria, where forty of Jameson's wounded raiders were cared for, writes of "Raiders and Rebels in South Africa," and says of the gold question:

"In the year 1885 gold was found in the reefs underlying the Witwatersrand (Whitewater's strand). Miners, prospectors and capitalists soon gathered together—drawn by the magnet gold—and a fine town, Johannesburg, sprang rapidly into existence. The progress of this town with its rich reefs—gold-bearing—excited a large amount of curiosity, felt by the world in general.

"With the rapid development of the mining industry and the influx of strangers, a certain amount of friction sprang up between the two races—viz., the Boers and the ever-increasing Uitlander population. A repressive legislation was persevered in, to prevent the still growing majority of newcomers from predominating or participating in affairs of the Republican States.

"This rush of men with capital to the Randt meant undreamt of prosperity to the Boers, who found a ready market for horses, cattle and farm produce. Railways and telegraphic communication further developed the land.

"Though the foreigner and his money were welcome to the Boer, yet he was persistently denied a voice in the government of the community—a vote even in matters most concerning himself—indeed all rights as a citizen. Heavy duties were imposed on the articles most necessary to the development of the mining industry. Monopolies were often unjustly obtained by those having interest with the Government. Concessions were granted only after large consideration to a Government not wholly free from a taint of bribery."

South Africa is not only a land of gold. It is even more famous for its diamonds; and the richest mines in the whole world for these precious stones are located in that country. Some of the most fabulous stories have been told by travelers of their experiences in the early mining days of South Africa, and such books as "King Solomon's Mines," and others have served to awaken a lively interest and induce adventurous spirits to go to that land.

Diamonds for Toys

The use the Boers had for diamonds when they took their wagons and oxen and moved north from Cape Colony 700 miles, to find a country where they could subjugate the natives and live in a Paradise of Great Game, was to amuse their children with the pretty stones,—certain glittering pebbles that sparkled as the young Boers, without the least comprehension of the prodigality of Nature, rolled on the grass and sand. If it had not been for the revelations of the riches of Africa by travelers from foreign lands, the Boer boys would still have had a monopoly of diamonds for toys, and but a dim consciousness of their bucolic magnificence. Boers are very queer people. Their idea of a next-door neighbor is that he must keep his hut and wagon at least three miles away. A closer approach makes a crowd; the air and the soil become impure, and the Boer is stifled in the midst of his own splendors. He is the most conservative citizen in the world. He estimates his own inherent, individual imperialism so extravagantly, that the rights of men without big wagons with tents on them, and long strings of oxen with long horns, fade into speculative insignificance. The Boers did not believe in diamonds—for they are not decorators of their persons—until they found others making money by mining them, and even then they only took a feeble interest in the work and were willing to rent a few square miles of each of their farms to those who were, with labor and capital, seeking the beautiful crystals. The Boer talent, according to the testimony of their lives, was in the multiplication of cattle, the shooting of wild beasts good to eat, occasional encounters with lions, and hunting parties that pursued the hippopotamus in the marshy lakes. As a matter of military science, they were educated in making forts out of their big wagons to repel the black warriors opposed to invasion by the drivers of horned cattle and dwellers in houses on wheels.

President Kruger

President Kruger is a power, because he is representative of his people. He is a great chief for the reason that a big savage becomes a leader and the headman of a tribe on account of his superior strength. In his youth he was the swiftest and longest winded runner and the champion rifleman in his part of the country, and it is the favorite tradition of his admirers that once when a youth he was pursued by a lion, and the brute incontinently ran away when the man of destiny turned upon him and looked him in the eye. His attitude towards gold is a distinction in which those who celebrate his virtues take special pride. It is well known that his capital city, Pretoria, is built on a gold mine, and a few years ago there was a revolutionary proposition made in Mr. Kruger's alleged parliament—even that of opening the neighboring land to prospectors seeking gold! The powerful President crushed out the insidious proposal.

"The Transvaal and the Boers," an interesting volume by William Garrett Fisher, says of the pre-eminence of Mr. Kruger in the official decision settling this matter that the great and good man said, with the wisdom inherited from generations of ancestors who had studied the encyclopedias of Nature:

"Stop and think what you are doing before you open fresh gold fields. Look at Johannesburg, what a nuisance and expense it has been to us! We have enough gold and gold seekers in this country already; for all you know there may be a second Rand at your very feet."

These momentous words in the aid of higher destinies were addressed to the Volksraad, and there was no more countenancing the idea of digging for gold.

Gold Found in 1854

In 1854 there was a find of the obnoxious yellow metal in the Boer country, but it was hushed up on the great principle announced with such simple sublimity by the grand old President when the horrors of prosperity broke in upon the contentment of his people and caused the "nuisance" at Johannesburg, where fifty thousand white men rushed in and gave the Boers more trouble to make them "servants of servants" according to the curse of Cain than millions of blacks had done, whose lives were ordered upon even more primitive and economical lines than presented by the secondary rulers of the golden lands.

However, it cannot be denied that from the standpoint of the Boers, the British are not to be tolerated when they assume that they have "certain inalienable rights," for they make themselves an abomination, obstreperous in the preliminaries of their educational reduction to the condition of the serfs of semi-barbarians. The objection undoubtedly is good against the British that they are fond of lands where gold is found, and they obstinately support the yellow metal as the standard of value, notwithstanding that they are by their ubiquitous commerce and enduring egotism forcing the yellow metal as the true standard upon the great nations of the earth.

Diamonds do not play the great part in the forces that form governments and shape the destinies of peoples in South Africa or elsewhere, that gold does. While the precious stone is useful in the arts, excellent as a tool, and adorns beauty with the beautiful in the highest degree, it does not find its way diffusively into the service of the people generally. Diamonds are not a popular production They are for a class and not for the mass. The four hundred million dollars worth of glittering stones picked up and dug up in South Africa within a few years, have not affected the measure of value. The finding of gold in such quantities as to over-pass largely and permanently the consumption of it, affects the money standard by which is valued all that the fields and shops produce; that is, all that comes of perseverance in toil that is productive.

Diamonds of not so great importance is Gold

Mines of diamonds attract labor for immediate returns—only as they can be sold for gold or silver, which have functions that make up power in purchasing food and raiment and in construction, the carrying out of enterprise that causes the activities both of capital and labor, putting the two in harmonious relations. Diamonds in Africa have aided commerce, increased exportation and importation, indirectly helping the people at large, but they have not competed with gold in the political potentialities. They are found, when their stories are written, to be rather romantic than historical. Their is a fascination in the relation of the finding of South African diamond mines equal to the charms of fiction. One would have thought the old Dutch settlers should have had special qualifications for seeking and securing and appreciating diamonds as one of the gifts that are gracious, for the African stones have to find the world at large by way of Belgium and Holland, and are not ready to be known to fame until they have been cut in Amsterdam.

Boyle's Statement

In Boyle's delightful history "To the Cape for Diamonds," he says of the diamond fields:

"Old Dutch residents of Cape Town appear to have been quite astir upon the matter on several occasions; but as years passed on, the ancient rumor died away. Men had to search back for memories long buried when Governor Woodhouse set the Colony agog by exhibiting the "Hopetown" diamond in 1867. That Bushmen, Corannas and other tribes of low condition used the gem mechanically from immemorial time seems to be quite ascertained. They still remember how their fathers made periodical visits to the rivers of West Griqualand, seeking diamonds to bore their "weighting stones." The rediscovery, however, took place in 1867. At that date a shrewd trader named Niekirk, passing through a country forty miles or so west of Hopetown, saw the children of a Boer called Jacobs playing with pebbles, picked up along the banks of the neighboring Orange. Struck with the appearance of one among their playthings, Niekirk told Vrouw Jacobs that it reminded him of the white shining stones mentioned in the Bible. As he uttered the words, an ostrich-hunter named O'Reilly chanced to pass the doorway of the house. He overheard, entered, and was also impressed. Vague ideas of a diamond—which none of the three had ever seen—passed through their minds. They tried the pebble upon glass, scratching the sash all over, as I have seen it at this day. A bargain was struck. O'Reilly took the stone for sale, and each of the parties present was to share. At Capetown, upon the verdict of Dr. Atherstone, Sir P. E. Woodhouse gave £500 for it. The news spread fast. At the moment of this discovery, there was something exceeding a panic in the colony, Wool, its staple product was at a hopelessly low quotation. A murrain was thinning the sheep. Never had merchants known such a time of anxiety, and no hope was visible. The story of the trader, corroborated by actual inspection of his treasure thus excited more active stir than it would have made at any other time. People began to study every foot of the ground. Then other stones turned up, the most of them bought from natives, in whose hands they had lain for many years, perhaps centuries. In 1868 several were picked up along the banks of the Vaal about Pniel, and then the rush began. But as yet it was mere surface seeking.

"Star of South Africa"

Early next year a Hottentot shepherd named Swartzboy, brought to Mr. Gers' store, at the Hook, a gem of eighty-three and a half carats, the "Star of South Africa," wide famed. In Mr. Gers' absence, his shopman did not like to risk the £200 worth of goods demanded. Swartzboy passed on to the farm of that same Niekirk above mentioned. Here he demanded £400 which Niekirk ultimately paid, receiving £12,000 from Messrs. Lilienfeld the same day. The diamond was passed to Cape Town, and all the colony rose. But not for twelve months more did "digging" begin. On January 7, 1870, Captain Rolleston and his party washed out their first diamond at Pniel, on the lands claimed by the Berlin Mission. Within three months, there were five thousand people digging there.

The Earliest Discoveries

South African diamond fields henceforth were established; but of such "pockets" as Dutoitspan and New Rush none yet had any inkling. The fields were established as a fact in the colony, but none yet at home. Mr. Harry Emmanuel sent out a professed expert, Mr. Gregory, to report upon them, and his foolish haste in discrediting their wealth caused serious loss to English merchants. The diggers only laughed, and showed each other their glittering prizes. Mr. Coster, of Amsterdam, came out, and he also went back incredulous. But the diggings grew and grew. The necessity of some system of government amongst the crowd became apparent. The Orange Free State claimed jurisdiction over the larger space, and the Transvaal Republic exercised rights over the remainder. Practically there was no government at all.

The earliest report, in writing of discovery, is a letter addressed by Mr. Parker to Mr. Webb. However it be, Mr. Parker was not long in acquiring very great influences. All the camp yielded authority to him, and passed the title of President which he affected. He met the chief of the South African Republic upon such easy terms of equality that the latter hastily fled to realms where his supremacy was uncontested.

The First Dry Diggings

In December, 1870, the dry diggings first were heard of. Hitherto the search for diamonds had been only carried on by river banks, and the gems discovered there had been washed down in ancient floods from some kopje, or dry mine now perhaps worn away. In two years of such digging in a score of places, the yield had not been greater than 300,000 pounds, as Mr. Webb computed. This is indeed an astonishing figure, all circumstances considered, but the time draws near when the same amount will be returned as the monthly average in Custom House reports at Cape Town. In December then, it was whispered that the children of Dutoit, a Boer living at Dorsfontein—so well known by the name of Dutoitspan—were in the habit of picking up diamonds on their father's farm. To those who believed the rumor, it was evident that diamond digging was henceforth to enter on a novel phase. The gem would be sought in the bed where nature created it. But few believed—not till the end of January did the crowd put faith. About that time the farm was "rushed," an expressive word, though sinister to the ears of a landed proprietor nowadays. It signifies that diggers swarmed to the spot in such throngs as to render merely foolish any resistance a proprietor might meditate. But the simple Boer who owned Dutoitspan never dreamed of such a thing. He only sat in, staring, amazed at the endless train of carts and wagons and foot travelers that filed past him.

Conditions Under Which Diamonds are Found

Diamonds in South Africa are found in a limy, chalky grit, bound together in smaller or larger lumps, from the measure of a foot ball to that of a pea. The grit is very dry and of considerable hardness, so that a heap of it looks like shingle on the sorting board. I do not understand that the diamond is found under those conditions anywhere else. It is discovered in a limy stratum at the Brazils, I find, but rarely, and always waterworn. The river beds are the treasure houses there. In India, for the most part, it seems to have been the same case; though at one large field, five days' journey from Golconda, the diamonds were hooked out from crevices of the rock. "In the neighborhood of the mines," says Tavernier, "the earth is sandy, covered with rocks and thickets; something like the environs of Fontainebleau. In these rocks there are many veins, sometimes half a finger wide, and sometimes double of this. The miners have short iron instruments, hooked at the end, which they thrust into the veins, and so drag out the sand or earth collected there. This earth they load into convenient vessels, and therein are the diamonds found. No one reading this description can doubt that the jewels were lodged in the crevices by water power."

The Vaal and the Orange Rivers, the Mod and the Riet, all contain diamonds, waterworn for the most part. Hundreds or thousands of years have these lain grinding mid the pebbles, brought, I should take it, from some diamond kopjes, washed away and vanished which stood beside the stream. There is not the mark of water on a single stone at the dry diggings.

The foremost quality of the Cape diamond which attracts attention is its freedom from the coat or skin which wraps the stone [Transcriber's note: the chapter ends abruptly here.]

The Cause of War.

The English Blue Books treat the controversy that resulted in the war officially, impartially and exhaustively. The full dispatches are given, and all that the Boers had to say is fairly presented with unquestionable authenticity. What President Kruger stated in his conferences with Sir Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner in South Africa, is given in his own language, as faithfully put down as the dispatches of Mr. Chamberlain or those of the High Commissioner Milner. The British Blue Book is made a perfect History for both sides and bears the closest scrutiny of a hostile opposition in parliament as accurate.

Conference With President Kruger

June 14, 1899, High Commissioner Sir Alfred Milner wrote from "Government House, Cape Town" to Colonial Secretary Chamberlain a report of his conferences with President Kruger at Bloemfontein. On the way to meet the President of the South African Republic, the British High Commissioner was the guest of President Steyn, of the Orange Free State. The conference with President Kruger was interpreted and reported with the greatest care. It is not given verbatim in all instances, because there was a great deal of repetition, but there is nothing important omitted, and the actual words of both gentlemen were officially reported and printed. The importance of these conferences was perfectly understood, and the official record has not been and will not be questioned. It was upon these conferences that the issue of peace and war hinged. The Cause of Many Points of Difference The President stated at the first meeting that he preferred the British High Commissioner should speak first, and the Commissioner, writing Mr. Chamberlain, said that in his personal opinion, "The cause of many points of difference, and the most serious, was the policy pursued by the South African Republic towards the Uitlanders, among whom many thousands are British subjects. The bitter feelings thus engendered in the Republic, the tension in South Africa, and the sympathy throughout the Empire with the Uitlanders, led to an irritated state of opinion on both sides which rendered it more difficult for the two Governments to settle differences amicably. It was my strong conviction that if the South African Republic would, before things get worse, voluntarily change its policy towards the Uitlanders, and take steps calculated to satisfy the reasonable section of them, who after all are the great majority, not only would the independence of the Republic be strengthened, but there would be such a better state of feeling all round that it would become far easier to settle outstanding questions between the two Governments.

The President's Objection to the Franchise

"The President, in coming to the Conference, had made a reservation as to the independence of the Republic. I could not see that it was in any way impairing that independence for Her Majesty's Government to support the cause of the Uitlanders so far as it was reasonable. A vast number were British subjects, and in similar circumstances we should in any part of the world, even in a country not under conventional obligations to Her Majesty's Government, be bound to make representations, and to point out that the intense discontent of our fellow-subjects stood in the way of the friendly relations which we desired to exist between the two Governments."

By Gradual Co-operation all Would be Burghers

The President objected to granting the franchise which he was assured by His Excellency, the Commissioner, was the main point, because he said if it was done "to any large number of aliens," the result would be "immediately the outvoting of the old burghers." The High Commissioner went so far as to say that it "would not be reasonable to do that," and he endeavored to explain the matter to the President, saying: "At present the Uitlanders had no effective voice whatever in the legislation, the existing form of oaths was offensive and unnecessary, and by taking it a British subject at once lost his nationality, and yet had to wait twelve years, or, under the President's latest proposals, seven years, before he could become a full citizen of the Republic. It was perfectly possible to leave the old burghers in such a position that they could not be swamped, and yet to give the numerous foreign population—to whom, after all, the Republic owed its present position—some share in the work of government, so that they could give the Government the benefit of their knowledge and experience. In this way the time would come when, by their gradual co-operation, instead of being divided into separate communities, they would all be burghers of one State."

The President indicated "a strong dislike of every proposition of the kind," and proceeded to assail a petition that had been sent from Johannesburg to the British Government praying for a redress of grievances, and alleged to have been signed by 25,000 people. This petition was like a red rag to the Boer bull all through the conferences. The British High Commissioner, when the President had expressed his feeling about the petition, informed him that that document did not change anything. The character of the petition was not especially to be considered, but he (His Excellency the Commissioner) based his statements "on a careful study of the conditions."

Qualifications for Citizenship

At the second meeting the President talked about the strengthening of the British garrison at the Cape, and referred to other military preparations of the English, of which mention had been made in the newspapers. The Commissioner denied the accuracy of the press in that particular; and then the President returned to the petition from Johannesburg to Her Majesty the Queen, and said the English proposition to "enlarge the franchise of the strangers" would do away with the independence of the Republic, and he added, "would be worse than annexation." His Excellency, the Commissioner, remarks that the President was "reluctant to come to close quarters" on the franchise proposition, but at last asked for a proposal of that which would be satisfactory to the Uitlanders and the English Commissioners, who said: "I proposed that the full franchise should be given to every foreigner who—

(a) "Had been resident for five years in the Republic.

(b) "Declared his intention to reside permanently.

(c) "Took an oath to obey the laws, undertake all obligations of citizenship, and defend the independence of the country.

"The franchise to be confined to persons of good character possessing a certain amount of property or income."

Finally it was proposed that a small number of new constituencies should be created. That which was vital in the plan of peace, Sir Alfred said, "was the simplification of the oath and the immediate admission to full burghership on taking it. Knowing as I do the feeling of the Uitlander population, and especially of the best of them, in these points, I felt and feel that any scheme not containing these concessions would be absolutely useless. The most influential and respectable sections of the Uitlander community feel strongly the indignity and injustice of asking them to denationalize themselves for anything less than full burghership—which in the South African Republic carries with it, de ipso facto, the right to vote for the First Volks Raad and the President. They will not accept citizenship of the Republic on any other terms." And Sir Alfred continues: "The President at once objected very strongly to my proposal, saying that it would immediately make the Uitlanders a majority of enfranchised burghers, who by the constitution formed the sovereign voice, and so controlled all legislation."

Milner's proposition Absolutely Fair

The President was evidently alarmed by the idea that a majority of the Europeans might, under the proposition urged by the British Commissioner, become the rulers of the land, and he stuck to his objection after it was explained that the new burghers who would appear, if the franchise arrangements were made, could have only a minority of seats in the first Volks Raad, and therefore they could not control the State. In fact, the President was not in favor of allowing the Uitlanders any political power whatever without a long intermission after the abandonment by the Uitlanders of their rights as British subjects. The proposition of Sir Alfred was absolutely fair, reasonable and moderate. Its acceptance would have prevented war. There was time given by the Commissioner to the President for full consultation and consideration—that is there was no effort to rush him. Sir Alfred says in his communication to the Colonial Secretary Chamberlain, that he felt here he "had reached the crucial point," and he alleges that the Boer President endeavored to make the matter one of bargaining, wanted to talk away from the real issue, and desired to speak of what he called "grievances," wandering far from the main matter, which was in its simplicity whether the great community of Johannesburg and the surroundings in the gold mines, constituting a very large majority of the Europeans and white men in the Transvaal, should have any representation at all in the Volks Raad.

Self-Government desired by all

President Kruger at the fourth meeting of the conference presented what he styled a "Complete Reform Bill," full, as Sir Alfred says, of "elaborate restrictions." Subsequently Sir Alfred drew up a paper showing what those restrictions were, and that this reform bill consisted of traps and catches, and was a careful, studied evasion, expressive of a fixed resolution to make no concessions whatever to the majority of the white population of the country. Sir Alfred says: "I pointed out that His Honor's proposal differed absolutely from mine, in that it did not provide for an immediate, or even an early, enfranchisement of people who might have been in the Republic for many years, and it made no provision for an increase in the number of seats in the Volks Raad. I, therefore, in view of the improbability of our arriving at a settlement on this basis, suggested that the President should consider whether there was any other way, apart from the franchise, of giving the Uitlanders some powers of local self-government, such as were suggested by Mr. Chamberlain in February, 1896. The President, however, was, if possible, more opposed to this than to my previous proposal. He maintained that the municipality of Johannesburg had already as great powers as could properly be entrusted to it, and said it was no use speaking about self-government, as his people would be absolutely against it."

Lapse of Citizenship

Sir Alfred further stated, as to President Kruger's plan: "Under the plan no man not already naturalized, even if he had been in the country for thirteen or fourteen years, would get a vote for the First Volks Raad in less than two and a half years from the passing of the new law. No considerable number of people would obtain the vote in less than five years, even if they got naturalized; but the majority would not naturalize because the scheme retained the unfortunate principle, first introduced in 1890, by which a man must abandon his old citizenship for a number of years before getting full burgher rights."

Immediate Representation Wanted

President Kruger added to his proposition a scheme for a few new seats. Of this Sir Alfred remarks: "I have an open mind as to the number of new seats for the Gold Fields, and for that reason did not attempt to lay down any definite number of my own proposal. I think three is decidedly too low. Under this proposal the enfranchised newcomers might, not immediately, but after the lapse of several years, obtain five seats in the First Volks Raad. Add, perhaps, two for other constituencies, in which they would in time become the majority, and they would be seven out of thirty-one. By that time they would be a vast majority of the inhabitants, and would contribute, as they indeed already do, almost the whole revenue. Under these circumstances less than one-fourth of the representation seems a scanty allowance. But the great point is, that even this limited degree of representation is still a long way off. My aim was to obtain some representation for them immediately. In my view, the First Volks Raad has already been too long out of touch with the new population, with whose most vital interests it is constantly dealing, and not dealing wisely. Every year that this state of things continues increases the tension and the danger. I do not assert that the mistakes made are due to ill-will. I believe they are due to want of knowledge. If representatives of the new population could make their voices heard, if they could come in contact with the representatives of the old burghers on an equal footing in the First Raad, they would, without being a majority or anything like it, yet exercise an appreciable influence on legislation and administration."

Justice Would Have Prevented Intervention

There is no question of the entire reasonableness and truth of this. In his talk with President Kruger Sir Alfred said of the Uitlanders: "A vast number of them are British subjects. If we had an equal number of British subjects and equally large interests in any part of the world, even in a country which is not under any conventional obligations to Her Majesty's Government, we should be bound to make representations to the Government in the interests of Her Majesty's subjects, and to point out that the intense discontent of those subjects stood in the way of the cordial relations which we desire to exist between us. I know that the citizens of the South African Republic are intensely jealous of British interference in their internal affairs. What I want to impress upon the President is that if the Government of the South African Republic of its own accord, from its own sense of policy and justice, would afford a more liberal treatment to the Uitlander population this would not increase British interference, but enormously diminish it. If the Uitlanders were in a position to help themselves they would not always be appealing to us under the convention."

When the conference was about to close President Kruger said: "Our enfranchised burghers are probably about 30,000, and the newcomers may be from 60,000 to 70,000, and if we give them the franchise to-morrow we may as well give up the Republic. I hope you will clearly see that I shall not get it through with my people."

Further along, when President Kruger insisted upon it that the too numerous newcomers would end the Republic, Sir Alfred asked what the President meant by "outvoting in the Volks Raad," and the President answered: "I mean this; that if they are all enfranchised then they would at once form the majority of the whole population, and the majority of the enfranchised burgher, according to our law, must be listened to by the Volks Raad; since in a republic we cannot leave the sovereign voice out of account. Then if they once get the vote, and the majority come to the Volks Raad saying that the members of the Raad should be in proportion to the number of electors, the Volks Raad would be all up with them."

Ireland and The Transvaal

Sir Alfred and President Kruger in course of conversation had an outing on "the Irish question," the President saying: "I say that by taking the oath of naturalization, whereby they become entitled to elect members for the Second Raad, they become lawful burghers, and at that moment they get more than they get in their own country. In their own country they cannot, within such a short period, choose ministers, magistrates, or similar officials; but they do this with me, and are they not to be regarded as full burghers because they cannot yet elect certain officials? The only difference is that they cannot yet exercise the full franchise. In England, for instance, the Irish also have not their own administration."

His Excellency.—"Yes, they have."

President—"When?"

His Excellency.—"The Irish have always sent a full number of representatives to the Imperial Parliament, even in excess of what was due to them on a basis of population. If we were to apply the Irish principle to the South African Republic the Rand would send about fifty members to the First Volks Raad."

The conference came to nothing. President Kruger asserting to the last substantially, that if the English-speaking people whom he styled the "strangers" and the "newcomers," got any political rights at once, no matter how restricted, it would put his "blood-bought country into the hands of strangers."

Grievances of the Uitlanders a Burning Question

Mr. Conyngham Greene, Her Majesty's agent at Pretoria, wrote to the State Secretary of the South African Republic June 26, 1899, that Sir Alfred Milner "desires me to say that, as he pointed out to the President at Bloemfontein, he considers that the question of finding a remedy for the grievances of the Uitlanders is the burning question of the moment, and that this has to be disposed of before other matters can be discussed. The adoption by the Government of the South African Republic of measures calculated to lead to an improvement in the position of the Uitlanders would so improve the general situation that outstanding differences between the two Governments could be considered in a calmer atmosphere, and would be more capable of adjustment. Under these circumstances, it might be possible to devise a scheme for referring at least a certain number of differences to arbitration. But as the Government of the South African Republic has not seen its way to meet Her Majesty's Government on the question of primary importance, the High Commissioner can see no use in approaching the delicate and complicated subject of arbitration at the present time. Over and above this, His Excellency does not consider the scheme now proposed to be a practicable one. To make no mention of other objections, the constitution of the suggested Arbitration Court, which would leave every decision virtually in the hands of a President, who, it is provided, shall not be a subject of either of the arbitration parties, does not conform to the fundamental principle which, as Sir Alfred Milner more than once stated at Bloemfontein, Her Majesty's Government would regard as a conditio sine qua non to the acceptance of any scheme of arbitration."

The Boer Declaration of War and the
Gathering of the Armies.

Both sides Surprised

When the Republic of South Africa and the Orange Free State, after a conspiracy of the two Presidents, rushed their armies into what they believed a campaign of conquests, the surprise of the Boers and their allies that they gained so few and small advantages after elaborate preparations and careful openings of their opportunities in striking first, was as at as that of the British that they, indifferently provided and hastily thrust into hot places, could not march headlong in solid columns, storming fortifications, to easy victories.

The First Bloodshed

The First Battle of the War

The first battle of the war was fought October 20th, eleven days after the ultimatum of the South African Republic. General White was at Ladysmith, where there was a large accumulation of stores, and General Symons at Dundee and Glencoe Junction. A Boer force under Lucas Meyers were in position on Talana Hill. General Symons attacked them. He was mortally wounded, 10 officers and 33 men killed and 200 wounded, but the Hill was carried, and though there has been much disputation as to the possession of the ground immediately after the conflict, and the comparative lists of casualties, British pride in the courage of their troops was justified, and the Boers realized they were confronted by soldiers who would not be satisfied for a day to act strictly on the defensive. The outlying position of General Symons was perhaps not worth the sacrifice of so many men to storm a hill that could not be held at the utmost more than a few days. It was necessary for the British to retire from the field of their dearly bought victory, and General Symons died in the hands of his enemies, while the wounded soldiers who could not be removed were captured. It is creditable to the Boers that they treated the dying General and the mangled men, with respect and kindness.

Battle of Elandslaagte

On the 21st of October, the day after the fight at Glencoe—Symon's fight—General French, second in command at Ladysmith, defeated the Boers, many from the Orange State, at Elandslaagte, a few miles north of Ladysmith. The losses were heavy, and a retreat from Glencoe, which was soon found to be inevitable, was made comparatively easy. The English forces that fought at Glencoe and Elandslaagte, united October 26th with the garrison at Ladysmith, and a week later were surrounded by a largely superior force under General Joubert, the better known of the Boer officers, whose movements were slowed down by the hard fighting he had found it necessary to do. It was the unity of the detachments that gained, in severe encounters, the first successes of the British, that justified the bloodshed where Generals Symons and French were conspicuously heroic. The garrison of Ladysmith was strengthened by the naval brigade that got in during the sortie of the 30th of October, and manned the guns of long range transported by railroad from the British cruiser, the "Powerful," which was at Durban. Lieutenant Edgerton, of that cruiser, at first handled the guns, and wounded by a shell died after a few days.

Hard Work on Both Sides

The hard work the Boers had to do in the first days of their appearance before completing the investment of Ladysmith, obstructed their plan of campaign, which was to beat back the British at all points in Natal and lock them up in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. The storm centers in the latest days of October, after three weeks of war, were Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking; and the mobile masses of the Boers were held in check as the transports loaded with soldiers from England drew nigh. But the British were not the men to defend themselves in trenches only. They were too fond of going out to find and develop their enemies, and had to pay dearly repeatedly for the spirit of adventure with which they made themselves acquainted with the country occupied by those who knew it well.

General Buller Arrives

News that was distressing reached England from the seat of war on the last day of October. A squadron of the 18th Hussars was "cut off" and taken prisoners when in pursuit of apparently fugitive Boers. This was near Dundee. There was a sortie from Ladysmith under Colonel Carlton, who was also "cut off" and forced to surrender. He had been sent out in the night to "flank the enemy," a phrase of wide construction, and a broad road leading to destruction, unless one is certain of the location of the flanks and the main body too, of the enemy. On this occasion there was a stampede of mules with "practically the whole of the gun equipment, and the greater part of the small arm ammunition." This affair is known as the disaster of Nicholson's Nek. These 870 officers and men, after fighting nearly an entire day and exhausting ammunition, were surrendered, and their presence in Pretoria attested a great victory by the Boers, and increased Afrikander expectations and enthusiasm. The organizations involved were four and a half companies of the Gloucesters, six companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and the 10th Mountain Battery. The British successes at Glencoe and Elandslaagte were due to the excellence of the soldiers and the devotion of the officers. The successes of the Boers that speedily followed were results of what the London Times calls "the humiliating truth—that in that difficult country of kopjes, our enemy more numerous, better informed and immeasurably more mobile, is able to act more swiftly than our forces in isolated attacks, as he is habitually able to choose better positions to defend."

General Buller arrived at Cape Town on the day of the Dundee disaster October 31st, and his conception of his first duty was the relief of Ladysmith. For that and collateral purposes there were three columns prepared for the advance. About 16,000 men were sent to Durban, where General Cleary soon had two whole divisions. General Gatacre was sent to Queenstown November 18th, to check a Free State incursion threatening Cape Colony, and Lord Methuen with the Guards and a Brigade of the line, and the Highland Brigade, moved on the way direct for Kimberley. It does not take scientific attainment in looking upon a map of the country to understand that the advantages of the position were remarkably with the Boers, and no one had any reason for surprise that all the British relief columns had "serious reverses."

The Strategy of the Boers

An English correspondent, evidently a trained observer, says of the strategy of the Boers: "Their plan has been simplicity itself. Establish a laager in a convenient position, detach a sufficient force to hold and strengthen a kopje, and await a British attack coming from a given direction. If the attack succeeds the detachment falls back on the main laager, and the game is repeated. Such are the tactics of the Boers. Their acquaintance with lyddite shell is said to have induced them to place less confidence in the rocky crests of the kopjes and to resort to trenches on lower ground, but the principle remains the same. So long as the campaign is waged in a country that provides an interminable series of defensible positions which are attacked in the way the Boers most ardently desire, while our troops are tethered to a railway, the game must apparently continue to be in the hands of the enemy."

Confronted by Clouds and Darkness

Sir Redvers Buller found clouds and darkness when he landed at Cape Town a week before his birthday, having made up his own staff irrespective of all suggestion of favoritism, and accepted all the responsibilities. There was before him the two Boer States, whose Presidents, and sympathizers in Natal, Cape Town and throughout Southern Africa, caused by the uncertainties of the British policy for many years, had made hopeful the schemes for the foundation of an Afrikander Nation. This would mean that all South Africa should be subjected to the mastery of the Boers, whose specific and especial policy would be to drive out Englishmen with all their capital, influences and improvements. The meaning of a great Boer nation could not fail to be a confederacy of inferior civilization, and to end the grand work the British have carried on, brightening the Dark Continent from the days of Moffat and Livingstone to those of Stanley and Rhodes. Sir Redvers Buller found the Afrikander movement held in suspense by the Mafeking, Ladysmith and Kimberley defenders, who were fighting fiercely to stand their ground until the relief columns could be gathered, formed, put in motion and strike. On all sides there were embarrassments of the gravest nature for the English.

Difficulties in Mobilizing the Troops

The public at large were occupied considerably in counting the number of soldiers that had sailed from England, computing the speed of the ships and fixing the dates of their arrival at the ports for which they were destined, and the concern was not great as to the mobility of the troops, the confinement of the columns to railroad lines easily interrupted, and the immense impediment in the indispensable stores heaped at the points of debarkation, as in our attack upon the Spaniards in Cuba we were overwhelmed at the point of embarkation. The army with which the British Commander-in-Chief moved in the direction of Ladysmith was about the same size as that under Major-General Shafter that scrambled aboard ship at Tampa and landed at Santiago.

As Sir Redvers Buller marched to attempt the passage of the Tugela River, he had to encounter the discouragements of the bloody repulses of both columns co-operating with him, and especially the depressing experience of Lord Methuen on the Modder River; and he had also at last to report as the others had done, a "serious reverse."

The Magersfontein Battle.

Heavy Losses on Both Sides

Lord Methuen moved from the Orange River, November 23d. The objective point of his undertaking was the relief of Kimberley, the city of diamond mines. He had at the start a success that was described in glowing terms. Though the result has appeared in the study of the course of the combat, which gave him so much distinction, and caused an amount of applause that was at least disproportionate to that which was accomplished, was that the British lost 225 men, killed and wounded—a casualty list that would have meant a bloody skirmish in a war of very considerable proportions. The fighting was fierce on both sides, and heavy losses were considered matters of course. Napoleon's observation that one had to break eggs to make an omelette was much quoted as the correct philosophy of warfare.

The second stroke by his Lordship, in the course of this campaign, was at Graspan, and the sobering effect of it, though the claim of the British was that they had won a victory, did not pass away upon reading this telegram, dated at Cape Town, December 15th, giving mature information: "A visit to Simons Town hospital confirms the reports of the extraordinary gallantry of the marines at Graspan. They have 92 casualties out of a total of 183 in the fight. Many have three wounds and some four. Sixty per cent. of the officers and sargeants were hit." All the officers of the naval detachment but two were wounded. The correspondents wrote that they were on the way to Kimberley "fighting invisible foes," but moving on slowly and surely. It was plain that though the foe was invisible, they made themselves felt. The number of Boers in action at Graspan was estimated at 3,000, and by the time the slow movement reached Modder River the force of Boers was believed to be 8,000, showing the mobility of the fighters against the relief of Kimberley. They hastened from place to place and knew how and where to concentrate to be of efficiency in obstructing the British advance. The following week the numbers of the Boers at Magersfontein was believed to be possibly 16,000.

The Hottest Fight of the British Army

The British General described the fight of November 28th as one of the hottest and most trying in the annals of the British Army. He was careful not to claim a decisive victory, and his moderate language was the more impressive for the absence of reassuring assertion overdone. He said: "After Desperate hard fighting, lasting ten hours, the men without water or food under a burning sun, made the enemy quit their position." The London Times correspondent wrote: "The fire was the hottest recorded, and the results would revolutionize existing theories. It was effective up to 1,600 yards, but the casualties among the troops lying down were trifling, their losses being only thirty, though they were in an exposed position. It was found impossible to bring the ammunition reserve to the firing line." Much in these words is significant, and they should have conveyed a warning as to what revolutionary experience ought to teach; but the commander of the column did not seem to be teachable. He held on to existing theories. If it was impossible to bring the ammunition reserve to the firing line, it was an acknowledgment that no matter what the attacking force might be in front of an enemy armed with long range rifles, the attack must utterly fail upon the consumption of the cartridges the men were able to carry into action. This, of course, if an established proposition, would limit rigidly the force of an assault.

However, the Boers, on this occasion, withdrew in the night, and the British occupied the whole of the battlefield, and the column was said to be encouraged, and moved on according to the fashionable formula of the special dispatches, "slowly but surely to Kimberley." There was nothing in the advantage gained to awaken enthusiasm, and confidence began to fail. There was an atmosphere of misfortune in which the English armies were moving.

General Gatacre, December 10th, mentioned a "serious reverse" in attack that morning at Stormberg, where he had penetrated resisting the invasion of the north of Cape Colony by Orange State forces. The general had merely been "misled to the enemy's position by guides, and found impracticable ground." Also he had taken the precaution of marching all night to surprise the enemy, and was misguided by spies, so morning broke on him in the presence of the enemy, who were posted on "an unscalable hill." The British Empire owes his Lordship a memorable debt of gratitude because he did not immediately order an impossible charge! The troops that were exhausted in a long night's march to enter a trap at daylight should, according to prevalent tactics, have been rushed upon any hill that was crowned by the enemy, and "unscalable." How could General Gatacre have found out that the hill could not be scaled without attempting it with his men? He varied the strategy by retreating nine miles immediately, and complimented the enemy's gunners for the punishment they gave him, saying, "their guns were remarkably well served, and carried accurately 5,000 yards." This was disagreeable intelligence, but the general is reported to have had the satisfaction of shooting his false guide, and rested from his labors.

Lord Methuen's Failure

He had not the perseverance of Lord Methuen, who was enabled to wire truthfully that he had failed, December 12th, in assaulting the enemy's position at Magersfontein. It was there his Lordship met in full force General Cronje, who had been spending a few days intrenching himself after the fight on the Modder River. There was no effort on the part of the British officers to claim Magersfontein as a victory, though they did insist that the loss of the Boers was something frightful. The Highland Brigade was marched after the fashion of General Gatacre at Stormberg, so as to come right on the enemy just at the time and in the formation that they wanted to see him. It was, of course, during the darkness of early morning, after a very hard night for the men, that they entered the trap. The Boers had been waiting patiently and exercising their mobility in getting together so as to have a force of about 12,000 men. In that which immediately followed, the emergence of the troops from the strain of the march, General Wauchope seemed to believe his orders meant a massacre of his men, and it is the story of the battle whether strictly true or not, that will give it endless fame, that he called to the men not to hold him responsible, as he was obeying Lord Methuen's orders. He died on the field, and his son, near him, was wounded.

The Losses

The Highlanders composing his brigade were, it is told with a dreadful simplicity, in "formation of quarter column," with no time to deploy, and they could not, by anything known in military maneuvers, have been placed in better form for the enemy. The loss of the brigade was their brave and capable commander Wauchope, with about 700 men killed and wounded, fifty of them officers, seven-tenths of them Highlanders. This was the overture. There came after it a great deal of bombarding by the British of the Boer trenches, and the result was Lord Methuen retired to the Modder River, the retreat having been conducted in the official reports in an "orderly" manner. It will be noted that a considerable number of the Highlanders escaped, and that is accounted for by the fact that they were just a few minutes too early on the ground. They were quicker than expected according to the time table, and "bad light" saved those whose names were not found in the casualty lists. It was said that General Gatacre personally executed the false guides; but the trap for Lord Methuen immediately succeeding the affair at Stormberg was a case bearing such a close resemblance to the Magersfontein incident, where the guides were not accused of wilfully going on, that there rests a suspicion as to the criminality of the error that General Gatacre avenged. What the Dispatches Say The dispatches say in the case of the experience of Lord Methuen, "six miles had to be covered before the Highland Brigade could reach the Boer stronghold. It is not yet clear through what mischance the force which was led by guides came upon the Boer trenches so unexpectedly and so suddenly. Beyond question the Boers were aware of the approach of the British and had prepared to receive them." There were persistent reports that the Boers suffered heavy losses in the combat that opened with the fall of 700 Highlanders. Whatever were the casualties of the Boers, they must have been inflicted by the British Artillery which fired lyddite shells for several hours, and as nothing could be seen to positively show what the effect of the shelling was, there are evident exaggerations in the fancies about it. Reuter's Special Agency telegraphed from Modder River December 12th: "Twelve ambulances started early this morning under a flag of truce to collect the wounded and bury the dead. General Wauchope's body was found near a trench. He had been shot through the chest and in the thigh." The Boer General Cronje telegraphed that he estimated his losses in this engagement at 100 killed and wounded, and the British at 2,000. Rumors in the camp of the British placed the Boer loss at 700 at least. The Queen sent to the widow of General Wauchope a touching message expressing her deep sympathy, and paid a warm tribute to the general's qualities as a soldier and his services to the nation. Her Majesty referred to the fact that with a single exception, that of the Soudan, in every campaign in which he had taken part he had been wounded.

Sudden Change of Public Sentiment

The most hopeful of British military movements in South Africa, for a time, was that of the column of Lord Methuen, which was terminated by the decimation of the Highland Brigade. He was reported as steadily advancing, winning his way with dashing marches without heavy losses. His high qualities were mentioned with emphasis in all the newspapers—his stalwart physique, his cleverness, his kindliness, his courage, his intelligence; there was no praise too effusive for the adulation to which he was subjected. The fact that the Highlanders were put into a trap under his orders changed all this, and he is accused of madness. The orders that he gave on the field are described as those of a maniac; but his misfortune was quite like that which preceded it at Stormberg, and succeeded it at Colenso. Whatever is to be said of the disaster of Magersfontein, it must be recognized as typical and to signify either that the Boers were invincible or the methods of war as conducted by the British just at that period defective to helplessness. Four days later came the repulse of Buller's army, and the malady of disaster was manifest there also; so that it would almost warrant characterizing as a disease, a contagion, or a plague.

A Mafeking dispatch, January 3d, states "The Boers, despite repeated warnings, concentrated their fire during the last two days upon the women's laager and hospital. Children have been killed and women mutilated by the bursting of shells.

It was at this time reported in their towns that the Boers used explosive bullets. Surgeon Major Anderson authorized the statements that the wounds inflicted at Gambier fight were altogether different to previous experience in Egypt and in India, and that it was impossible they could have been produced by Martini or Mauser bullets, though, perhaps, they might have been caused by Snider ones, but from a scrutiny of the wounds made while dressing them in hospital here he has no doubt in his own mind that bullets of an explosive character were used by the Boers.

Captain Baden Powell deposed Wessels, chief of the tribe of the Baralongs, who had quarters at Mafeking. Wessels has lately been intractable. He spread false reports among the tribes that the military authorities were endeavoring to make the natives slaves.

Battle of Colenso—Defeat of General Buller.

"Tied by the Leg"

South Africa has several lines of railroads scoring the country with outline improvements, and there are many bridges easily broken, and then the iron lines are lost and the armies dependent upon them are, to employ a phrase common in England to describe immobility without imprisonment, "tied by the leg." South Africa is of enormous extent. It is, for example, 641 miles by railroad from Cape Town to Kimberley, and the country is diversified and divided by mountain ranges and rivers, and yet it is extraordinarily open but rugged, giving sharpshooters with long range rifles concealment and shelter, while the columns of an army on the march can hardly be missed by the eye or the rifle. The Boer wagons with oxen for motors are phenomenally slow, but the Boer on his pony with rifles and a supply of cartridges gallops fifty miles in a few hours, while Europeans with indispensable impediments, have hard work to cover one quarter of the distance in the same time. The war was rushed just in the season for the grass to feed the ponies. While the English statesmen were debating with the Boer President the details of fractional representation based upon restricted constituencies, the Transvaal Government used the money extracted from disarmed and unprotected Englishmen in preparing for war, and it was held that a British subject unwilling to be of a servile class and have the people speaking his language in the great city enslaved to the burghers, was in a sense irrational, a disturber, and one who would be a usurper, sordidly seeking to plunge the world into war. American and Boer revolutions Compared Our revolutionary fathers fought for representation, or rather against taxation without representation, but the Boers regarded it as an insult that the majority paying nine-tenths of the taxes should claim that it would be no more than fair to have one-sixteenth of the law-making power of the Transvaal Congress and none at all of the executive. The British did not prepare for war, but the Boers accused them of it, as the wolf accused a sheep of muddying the water when it was taking a drink down stream; and when the Boers were ready to fight they went at it and took the British unawares, at the same time charging them with responsibility for the conflict.

Buller's Difficult Position

If Sir Redvers Buller comprehended the full extent of the dangers of the duties of his assignment, he made no sign. He might have had apprehensions that a pushing advance would mean, at best, delays for an indefinite period, but it seemed preposterous to sit down on a river with 18,000 men and watch the water glide away with the days and get news, perhaps, of the fall of Ladysmith, the place of the trial of strength of the combatants. He did wait long enough to cause comment in the press of his country to the effect that there was no break in the monotony of his camp beside the Tugela. This was equivalent to the old sarcasm in the American war, during the time that McClellan was making ready to move; "All is quiet on the Potomac." It was not the first appearance of General Buller in South Africa. He was with Sir Evelyn Wood after Majuba, and it was assumed his knowledge of the country would be valuable. The resources of the English Empire were at his command, but he was made to feel the want of time. He was where he could hear the thunder of cannon at Ladysmith day after day, but there was a river before him and beyond it the enemy in unknown numbers digging trenches, and they also occupied a position on the British side of the river, as was soon ascertained when the attempt was made in full force to pass it. The Boers were engaged in constructing rifle pits in the shape of the letter S, a double curve that gives occupants facilities for keeping out of raking shell fire, but making drainage difficult in rainy weather, and as the ground to cover was rough and the time to turn the tide that had been running against the British had come, if it was to be done before the fall of the besieged places, the General-in-Chief attempted to force the river and the first line of his report, after stating that he had moved in "full force" in the morning was to regret a "serious reverse."

A Possible Preliminary Demonstration

It was indeed serious. If there had been a chance to flank the position of the enemy, General Buller had not discovered it. The presumption is he had a force much stronger than the enemy would be in the open field, and one would think a violent cannonade at the bend of the river where there were two fords might have commanded attention in that quarter, and that there were British troops enough to make a demonstration that could be converted into a real attack at another point. In the report there is nothing about a pontoon train to put promptly two or three bridges across the Tugela, and no flanking operation seemed to be possible; but that movement should always be at the command of a superior force. Napoleon crossed the Alps to get behind the Austrians, who were furiously besieging Genoa, drew them out and defeated them. General Sherman flanked the Confederate army out of strong positions from Resaca to Atlanta, and his method was as simple as effective. Having the superior force, thirty per cent., probably more, he occupied the whole front of his antagonist and extended one of his flanks so as to overlap the line of the enemy; then swung a division or corps like a gate to strike the tip of the Confederate wing and crumple it up. When Joe Johnston, who had a great faculty for the business of war, was pressed by this flanking operation, he fell back to another position. The flanking compelled him to retire or to advance, and it was not his game to challenge a general battle with an army greatly stronger than his command. Rivers were not found an insurmountable obstacle in the American war at any time or place. At Fredericksburg the Americans laid pontoons across the Rappahannock in the face of the fire of Mississippi riflemen admirably posted in the cellars whose ventilating windows served as port-holes overlooking the river and the landing. New Conditions of Warfare It is to be said, however, that the firearms a generation ago did not have a range of a mile, even of half a mile, but the Confederate rifles were effective the whole breadth of the river. The material difference is that the Mausers of to-day have combined four times the range of our old "Springfields" with magazines of four metal cartridges in a "clip"; and one of the problems of the Boer and British war is as to the change made in and by the improvement of the small arms. It must affect the conditions of combats radically; and all the nations are going to the war school in South Africa.

Plan of the Fight

General Buller's report of the action in which he was discomfited is as noticeable for what it does not contain consecutively as for its communicativeness in some respects. He "moved in full strength," starting at four A.M. The first attack was at the left-hand ford, and a failure. The selection of that point for an assault is a curious one, as it was on ground two-thirds surrounded by a curve of the river, and exposed to fire on the front and both flanks. The general says the work could not be done there, but he does not say how soon he became convinced of that; and there was a second attack made on what may be best described as the right center. The British succeeded in occupying Colenso Station and the houses near the bridge. How great the expectations of the British general were to force a passage of the second ford, then assailed, we have to conjecture, for no two accounts agree, except—and this is between the lines—that the British army at last lost hope and heart. The plan was first to strike with the left wing, and when that had failed, with the right, supporting right and left with the center. The turn of the day was soon to be determined, and "at that moment" the general truly says—he means the crisis of the affair—he "heard" that two field batteries and also six naval guns, twelve pounders, quick fire, were "out of action," Hors du combat. The general adds that Colonel Long, who commanded the artillery, "in his desire to be within effective range, advanced close to the river. It proved to be full of the enemy, who suddenly opened a galling fire at close range."

Mistaken but Heroic Advantage

The general commanding does not appear to have been well informed. He must have been exceedingly ill supplied with intelligence that should have been commonplace, if he didn't expect to find the ground near the river full of the enemy, and there is a peculiarity in announcing the sudden opening of a galling fire at close range that one feels it to be needful to account for. The location of the battery was 800 yards from the bank of the river. This is stated by the correspondent of the Times, who adds the action of Colonel Long in advancing his guns was "mistaken but heroic," and this writer imparts definiteness to the situation when he tells that Long took his batteries into action "within 800 yards of the river to the left of the railway, and 1250 yards from his objective—a ridge situated beyond Fort Wylie." It was, therefore, "heroic" to go with artillery within three quarters of a mile of the "objective!" The consequence, the correspondent says, was "the guns were exposed to a perfect inferno of rifle and shell fire; officers, men and horses fell in rapid succession, but, nevertheless, the guns went on, unlimbered and opened a steady fire, causing that of the enemy to abate to an appreciable degree. In this position the batteries remained for an hour and a half."

Attack Fruitless

The specific statements appear to show that the correspondent had a better comprehension of the situation than the general. The correspondent says that the guns were fired upon with rifle and shell fire, but went on and opened a steady fire and remained there an hour and a half. What point of time of this hour and a half General Buller refers to in stating that at this "moment" he heard that the batteries were "out of action," is for investigation. Later on, we ascertain that the general had sent these guns "back." They must, therefore, have been turned from the fruitless attack on the left to help the one that seemed more hopeful on the right, but this couldn't happen in a moment. The artillery fire caused that of the enemy to abate, but at the distance of 1,250 yards from the objective the horses of the batteries were killed and so many of the men fell that the guns could not be served, and more than that, the ammunition could not be replenished.

This is the most striking example given in active service of the efficacy of the modern rifle. It overpowered the well-served artillery rapid-fire twelve-pounders. The exhaustion of the ammunition may be in part attributed to the activity of the batteries in the attack on the left. As the men were disabled, so that the guns could not be served, it was not worth while to forward ammunition, and dispatches state that at the time when the guns ceased firing, "twenty carts went to the rear with the wounded." This, of course, by grace of the Boers.

Boers Capture the Guns

The Siege of Ladysmith.

Location of Ladysmith

The siege of Ladysmith began November 2, 1899, the third day after the British disaster at Nicolson's Nek, that is, the affair in which six companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers marched out with four companies of the Gloucestershire regiment to seize the Nek, seven miles northwest of Ladysmith, and they were caught, the mules stampeded with artillery and ammunition, and the Fusiliers and supports were penned, and there were next day empty camps and the British Empire was shaken. The town of Ladysmith is 169 miles from Durban, 3,285 feet above the level of the sea, and is the chief town of the Klip River division of the Klip River country in Natal; it is on a tongue of land formed by the Klip River. There is a sheltering semi-circle of hills. The position of General White, the British commander, is out of town on the hill tops that overlook Ladysmith. The town hall in this place is of the Doric style, and cost $30,000. It is of blue whinstone and white freestone. The town is an important railway center, and has shops for railway repairs. The distance from Colenso where Buller was checked is only sixteen miles. Dundee is distant forty-seven and a half miles; Glencoe forty-two miles; Estcort fifty-three miles. When General Symons won the fight at Dundee and was mortally wounded, he ordered that he and other wounded be placed in hospitals and his column marched to Ladysmith. General Symons had won the field, carried a very strong position brilliantly but with heavy loss, and retreated before the rushing reinforcements of the Boers. General Yule set out with the able-bodied troops—four battalions of infantry, three batteries, and a small body of the 13th Hussars. By daybreak they were nine miles away in the hills. At 2 P.M. they had reached Beith, subsequently passing unmolested through the rocky defiles of Waschbank, emerging safely on the third day into the open country. General White, finding a Boer attempt would be made to cut off Yule, sallied forth and drove the Boers from their position on a hill 8,000 feet high. Timely Arrival of Naval Brigade While General White was out fighting, the Naval Brigade, that has done so much to assist the British defence of Ladysmith, arrived. General White reported 3 P.M., October 30th:

"I sent No. 10 Mountain Battery with Royal Irish Fusiliers and Gloucester Regiment to take up a position on the hills to clear my left flank. The force moved at 11 P.M. last night, and during some night firing the battery mules stampeded with some of the guns, which, however, I hope to recover. The two battalions have not yet returned, but are expected this evening."

First Serious Reverse

This was the first notice of the disaster. At 11.35 P.M., October 30th, General White sent his announcement of the first "serious reverse," in these terms:

"I have to report a disaster to a column sent by me to take a position on hill to guard the left flank of the troops in these operations to-day.

"The Royal Irish Fusiliers, No. 10 Mountain Battery, and the Gloucester Regiment were surrounded in the hills, and, after losing heavily, had to capitulate.

"I formed the plan in carrying out which the disaster occurred, and am alone responsible for the plan.

"No blame whatever attaches to the troops, as the position was untenable."

The Excitement in London

The excitement and depression in London about this news was representative of that throughout the empire, and it was astonishing in its degree. The Boers hastened to close around Ladysmith and cut off railroad and telegraphic communication, and very soon had connected railway tracks giving themselves free run into Natal and communication with Pretoria. In the gloom of these inauspicious incidents the siege of Ladysmith began, forcing the policy of relief of places in the most difficult country to prevail, and making costly combats certain, and scattered operations, according to ordinary judgment, necessary. It is a question that will long be discussed whether it would have been better to destroy the stores at Ladysmith and withdraw the troops to Colenso, or even further, for concentration and movement with one irresistible column, but this is all speculation. The siege of Ladysmith is a stirring chapter of history forever.

Distribution of Forces

Sir George White's official report was forwarded by Sir Redvers Buller from Cape Town, under date of November 9th. Sir George took command of Natal forces October 7th, and he says:

"The information available regarding the positions occupied by the armies of the two Dutch Republics showed the great bulk of the forces of the Orange Free State were massed near the passes of the Drakensberg mountains, west of Ladysmith. The troops of the South African Republic were concentrated at various points west, north, and east of the northern angle of Natal."

Boer Version of Storming Ladysmith

The Boer version of their attempt to storm Ladysmith, January 6th, is as follows:

"HOOFDLAAGER, LADYSMITH, Jan. 7th.

"A bold attack was made yesterday morning by the commandoes investing Ladysmith on the British fortifications on the Platrand Ridge. The operations that ensued were most exciting in their character. The storming parties were greeted, on reaching the edge of the rugged plateau, by a tremendous hail of shot and shell from the British artillery. No attempt was made, however, to hold the first line of schanzes, or stone breastworks, at the top of the hill, and these were promptly occupied by the Boer sharpshooters. At the next row, however, an exceedingly stubborn resistance was made, and with good effect, every inch of ground being most stubbornly contested. Conspicuous bravery was displayed on both sides.

"After ten o'clock the British artillery fire slackened perceptibly, but then ensued a most terrific individual contest among the riflemen for the possession of the ridge. At noon a heavy thunderstorm broke over the position, interrupting the battle for two hours. It seemed as though the heavenly batteries were using their best endeavors to create an even more terrific noise than the cannon and the rifles of the contending armies. Though the Burghers succeeded ultimately in gaining possession of most of the British positions on the western side of the Platrand they were finally obliged to retire from most of the ground they had occupied. The British losses were apparently severe, their ambulances being busy for many hours. The Boer losses were about 100 killed and wounded, the Free State contingents being the heaviest sufferers. Simultaneous attacks were made from the different outposts on all the British positions round Ladysmith.

Thrilling Arm's Length Encounters

"Operations are continued to-day on a smaller scale, but it is reported that as a result of one of the forlorn hopes one gun and two ammunition waggons have been captured."

"HOOFDLAAGAR, MODDERSPRUIT, LADYSMITH, Jan 9th,
    (via Lourenzo Marques, January 14th).

"Further details of the assault of CÆsar's Camp, on the Platrand, are most thrilling in their character. It is clear that the attack was most determined and the defence equally tenacious. The British were most strongly entrenched, and the walls of their redoubts were skillfully loopholed. The combat was so close that the rifles were frequently fired at arm's length between the opposing forces. It was, in fact, a hand to hand encounter in the grey dawn. The men on both sides are reported to have fought like demons, the horror and bewilderment of the scene presenting a picture without parallel in the experience of those who took part in the encounter."

PRETORIA, January 10th,
    (via Lourenzo Marques, January 14th).

"An official announcement has just been placarded to the effect that the Federal losses in Saturday's engagement were fifty-four killed (including three Free State and one Transvaal Field-Cornet) and ninety-six wounded.

Lord Duefferin's son, the Earl of Ava, was mortally wounded in the repulse of the Boers, and died January 11th.

The monotony of the siege was varied by several brilliant sorties, in one of which the Boers testified the British did "fine work." On two occasions Boer siege guns were captured and destroyed. A letter dispatched by a Kaffir, dated Ladysmith, January 21st, mentioned that "Buller's guns are eagerly watched shelling the Boer position with lyddite. As each shot strikes, dense volumes of brown smoke arise, the lyddite shells being thus quite distinguishable from ordinary shrapnel shells.

Fortifications Strengthened; Fever Abating

"Six Boer camps are visible between Ladysmith and Potgeiter's Drift, and bodies of the enemy have been observed riding towards the Tugela. They are evidently determined to offer a stubborn resistance to the advance of the relief column. They have given no indication of any intention to remove their guns, but have put new ones up recently and are still continually working at their fortifications.

"Since the 6th inst. our fortifications on Wagon Hill and CÆsar's Camp have been greatly strengthened, and Ladysmith is now practically impregnable.

"Doubtless owing to the dry weather, fever has abated in the garrison. The number of convalescents returning from Intombi camp exceeds that of the patients sent out.

"Our commissariat has been most ably managed during the siege, and our supplies are lasting splendidly. All the troops have a sufficiency of wholesome food. The heat is terrific, being 107 degrees in the shade at the present moment.

Insurmountable Obstacles

The surroundings of the now forever famous city of Ladysmith have been described as a crescent a horse shoe, and a soup plate with a big piece chipped out. It was named after the Spanish wife of General Sir Harry Smith in 1840. Before the Britain and Boer War it was a noted railway station on the great line to Pretoria and beyond. The siege lasted within two days of four months. Relief came on the last night in February. The besiegers held on after they knew Lord Roberts was successfully invading the Orange Free State, hoping that he might be repulsed, and they resisted with their accustomed energy the fourth attack by the army under Sir Redvers Buller, whose first advance and reverse was December 15th. His second general advance to force the Boer lines on the Tugela pivoted on Spion Kop, gallantly carried and held for some time, but evacuated January 26th. General Buller's third advance was on February 5th, but his attack was not pressed, for the obstacles were manifestly insurmountable except by a sacrifice too great to be considered.

Success at Last

February 20th, the fourth advance was made and a severe struggle occurred. The Irish troops distinguished themselves, especially, and the Welsh Fusiliers suffered the loss 252 men killed and wounded. General Buller recalled his battalions from the first position assailed, and put them in again in force on his extreme right and carried by storm Pieters Hill. Buller's artillery was very effectively used on this occasion. On the afternoon of February 28th the British commander ascertained that the ridges toward Ladysmith were unoccupied. Lord Dundonald dashed forward with two squadrons and galloped until there was a challenge. "Who goes there?" The reply was, "The Ladysmith relieving army;" and the cavalry had a great welcome from the thin and pale faced men of the garrison, whose cheers of joy were through physical weakness feeble. The Boers had been observed from Ladysmith hastening away in a continuous stream, trekking North.

The crisis of the siege was when General Joubert ordered that the town should be taken before January 10th. The supreme effort was made at 2 o'clock the morning of the 6th, and directed upon three positions—the one most exposed, the flat topped Hill, CÆsar's camp, crescent shaped, the interior facing the Boers' position—height of crest above the town near 800 feet. The Boers advanced on the two horns of the crescent and gained an advantageous position, which they held for seventeen hours. The fight on both sides was a soldiers battle; and the British success finally was credited correctly to the leadership of the company officers.

A party of sappers, with half a company of Gordon Highlanders, were placing a gun on the critical position, Wagon Hill, and made so much noise the Boers, stealthily approaching, thought for a time their movement was discovered. The British working party added sixty rifles to the defense, and so even was the balance in the combat, the repulse of the assailants was apparently due to the accident of this force having a special service at the point of danger.

An Extraordinary Hard Struggle

The Boer assailing party was 300 strong, led by de Villiers, and as they were creeping silently up the hillside, Lieutenant Mathias, of the British Light Horse, going down to visit his post, met them and had the presence of mind to turn back with them, and when a few yards from his own picket he rushed forward and gave the alarm. This was at 2.30 A.M. It was pitch dark and the defenders after a spell of indiscriminate firing were driven back. There ensued a struggle of extraordinary character, the flashing of the rifles giving the only light. Colonel Hamilton, in command of the defenders at the ragged edge, telephoned for re-inforcements. The first to arrive were two companies of Gordon Highlanders. At 4 o'clock four other companies were ordered and in the advance Colonel Dick Conyngham was mortally wounded by a bullet that had traveled over 3,000 yards. The re-inforcements did not get up a moment too soon. At daybreak the Boers were pushing more men up the water-way by which the first assailants had advanced and their augmented firing line sorely pressed the handful of Light Horsemen who were re-inforced at the most opportune moment by Colonel Edwards. The Boers displayed their deadly marksmanship, and the Colonel, two Majors and four other officers of the Light Horse were hit within a few' minutes. Lord Ava, Colonel Hamilton's orderly officer, was in this place mortally wounded. The British infantry fire could not dislodge the Boers. It was scarcely possible to see the assailants and to live.

Desperate Efforts

To effect a rush necessitated the passage of sixty yards of open. Major Mackworth, attached to the 60th Rifles, attempted to make the rush. He fell shot through the head. Captain Codrington, 11th Hussars, commanding a squadron of the Light Horse, went forward to find cover for his men. Thirty yards away he fell, and just had strength enough to wave the Light Horse back. Lieutenant Tod, with twelve men, attempted to rush the open. He was shot dead three yards from cover.

A terrible rain storm arose, something extraordinary even for Africa. At its height the indomitable Boers increased their efforts. Colonel Hamilton called for Colonel Park, who led three companies to clear the plateau. They were commanded by Lieutenant Field, leading, Captain Lafone's and Lieutenant Masterson's companies following in order. There were sixty yards of plateau to cross; a hundred Boer magazines waiting to sweep it. Three lines of naked bayonets scintillated against the hillside. Then the Colonel rose to his feet, and the three companies rose with him as one man. With a cheer that foretold success the Devons dashed forward. Colonel Hamilton, who was just below when this sudden attack was delivered, ordered up a dismounted squadron of the 18th Hussars, and the plateau was reoccupied.

The Relief of Kimberley—-The Turn of the
Tide of War Against the Boers.

The Difference in Positions of Roberts and Buller

The first intelligence from South Africa that plainly promised the success of Lord Roberts was that, after his arrival at the Cape, there was no news of what became of the British troops disembarked there, and the newspapers had to be content with the story of embarkations and the thunderous attrition of Buller on the Tugela. He was crossing and recrossing fords, storming kops and retiring from them, and the sound of the pounding of his guns stimulated the garrison of Ladysmith to hopefulness that the hand of help was night. There was no affectation of the solemnities of secrecy and mystery about Roberts. He gave out letters and dispatches occasionally that foretold nothing, and was busy. The transports from England stopped at the Cape instead of Dunbar, and the troops appeared and disappeared. Lord Roberts and Kitchener had maps, and were keeping books.

Sir Redvers Buller found himself committed to attack the invaders of Natal for the relief of Ladysmith and to fight an invisible foe. There has been no account that a British soldier not taken prisoner saw an enemy at the Battle of Colenso. Sir Redvers had no opportunity for maneuvers, the immediate demand upon him was the achievement of the impossible. The Boers were in a fortified enchanted castle, built of mountains, safeguarded by a river, itself an immense intrenchment. The situation of Lord Roberts was different. He was in command of the British Empire and before him was Africa and he was at liberty to choose the road by which to invade the Boer states. There was but one limitation upon his freedom to exercise his power. That was that he should conduct a White Man's War. The London Mail stated the case precisely in these words:

A White Man's War

"At the beginning of our campaign we firmly refused to allow men of color to help our arms. Powerful and well-equipped tribes on the border of the Free State clamored for an opportunity to pay off old scores on their hereditary foes, but Sir Godfrey Lagden kept them back. Native Indian rulers begged to be permitted to shed their blood and that of their armies for the Empress; but while gladly recognizing their generous loyalty, England declined their offers. Our splendid Indian soldiers, among the best mountain troops in the world, only waited a signal to do their utmost for us. But England felt that this was a white man's war, to be fought out solely between white men."

The use of the black man would have raised the black flag, and that was the reason why the Asiatic troops of England were not poured into Africa and the natives of Africa invited to get even with the most cruel of the master races. The weapon of race hate by which the Boers might have been exterminated was not drawn by the British whose preference of alternatives was to shed their own blood.

The Utmost Secrecy Preserved

A railway map of South Africa pointed out to intelligent people plainly the railway line upon which Lord Roberts could advantageously muster his men to strike the enemy in their homes. Some of the bridges were blown up, some of the rails removed, but the surveys remained. The engineers had marked out the eligible pathway. The Modder River, the scene of the early successes and final fatality of Lord Methuen, reappeared in the war correspondence. A letter from Modder River camp, February 18th, said all the soldiers worked like slaves and the generals of divisions carried out the campaign planned, without faltering or blundering and there was "the utmost secrecy," so that the common people, regimental commanders, and newspaper correspondents did not obtain the slightest inkling of what the immediate future was to bring forth. Even the senior officers, who were assigned the important duty of taking the Sixth Division from Modder River, had but a hazy idea of what they would have to do after the railway had landed their troops at Enslin siding. Consequently, the spies, with which this camp undeniably has been infested, were not only unable to help their paymasters, but, even by the absence of news of our movements, lulled the Boer commanders into fancied security.

Each Step Carefully Considered

The time when General Lord Roberts was ready to move was one of critical conditions. The second attempt to relieve Ladysmith by direct movements had just failed like the first, but with greater losses. The total cost of the second effort counted in men was 1,800. The plan of operations had been carefully concealed, and executed with energy, and as one of the expert writers put it, "there was no undue haste, and the troops were not brought under the enemy's rifle fire in close formation, or forced to attempt the passage of a river, of which the water level was not known, in face of a strongly intrenched position held by an unshaken enemy. Each step was carefully considered, and no unnecessary risk was run."

The fighting quality of the British troops was well illustrated, but the lines of the Boers remained unbroken and unshaken, and the strategic consequences of this failure were more serious than when the first experiment was tried. Still, Ladysmith heliographed January 27th, "We can hold on here." The initial move of Roberts in force was successful. The invisible and invincible foe in inaccessible trenches did not rise to the occasion. The blow that was struck had not been foreseen and the spot selected fortified by the enemy. There was a change described as magical. The magic was that of a free hand and a clear head, and the magician a general capable of generalship. All at once the British columns, cavalry, infantry and artillery were "mobile". The horses "got a move on". The wagons did not stall and tangle—the field guns, big and little, trundled along merrily. The long complained of cavalry materialized under General French, going out and seeking the enemy aggressively and rushing him wherever they found him. There was something new about this. Speaking of the brilliant promise of the advance of Roberts, a military correspondent said:

A Remarkable Cavalry Movement

"What is particularly interesting is the presence of General Kelly-Kenny's Division—the Sixth—in this quarter. It was beginning to be understood that General French had brought with him a number of his cavalry from the neighborhood of Colesberg, but the fact that the whole of the Cavalry Division is now under Lord Roberts' control, together with an Infantry Division, the headquarters of which were only a few days ago at Thebus, near Steynsburg, is distinctly surprising and gratifying. The movement must have been carried out with extreme secrecy, and is calculated to greatly disconcert Boer calculations."

Kimberley Relieved

The Cavalry Division of General French described as "a magnificent force of regular and irregular horsemen and mounted infantry, whose goal was Kimberley," covered twenty-six miles in twenty-four hours through a fearful heat, and few fell out even when the burning sun was succeeded by terrific tropical rain, accompanied by the continuous and blinding lightning. The road was soon like a morass, but French plodded doggedly on and reached the Modder River at Klip Drift just before midnight. That was business, and Lord Roberts entered Jacobsdal, February 15th. Kimberley was entered February 16th. This telegram was dispatched from that town while French was still invisible.

"At 2 o'clock this afternoon a heliograph message from a range of kopjes to the left of Alexandersfontein announced that General French's column was approaching. The enemy were immediately observed to be fleeing with their guns."

On the day before, the bombardment of Kimberley had been heavy, the Boers firing 100-pound shrapnel shells. Then they fled from their laagers for the first time. February 18th, the country all around the diamond city was cleared of them and Roberts telegraphed: "The engineers have started laying the rails on the line between Kimberley and Modder River. Several herds of cattle have been captured."

The movement of French was so rapid and had such important consequences that it produced an impression that it was a peaceable procession. This extract of a summary report will correct the misapprehension:

"The New South Wales Ambulance Corps, under Lieutenant Edwards, drawn by Australian horses, kept pace with the column and picked up many wounded. They were complimented by the brigadier as being the first ambulance to cross the Modder River.

"Between the Riet and Modder Rivers the enemy attacked our flanks. Our guns promptly opened from a hillside. While our gunners were driving the Boers back with heavy shell-fire, the column pressed on at full speed. Many horses died on the march from exhaustion.

"When we reached the Modder the enemy were found to be intrenched on the opposite side. The Horse Artillery opened fire with shrapnel and the Boers ran. We captured their tents, guns, oxen, wagons, and large quantities of ammunition. The ammunition was in boxes labelled 'Biscuits, Delagoa Bay'."

In this telegram from Roberts there is a trumpet-note of triumph:

"PAARDEBERG, February 19, 7.05 P.M.
    (Thirty miles east of Jacobsdal Camp).

"Railway to Kimberley will be ready to-day.

"Methuen proceeds with reinforcements at once, and a large amount of supplies will be forwarded by rail."

A London cable to Canada said:

"A very distinguished officer said to me last night, 'It is regarded as a suspicious thing to prophecy after an event, but 'Johnny' French was under me years ago in India, and when he was only a chubby lieutenant in the 19th Hussars I saw enough of him to know that there was in him the making of such a cavalry officer as would have delighted the soul of 'Stonewall' Jackson."

London fairly rang with praises of General French for days after Kimberley's relief.

Lord Roberts found time as he was gathering his force on the Modder River to transfer the fighting to the Boer States, to address, February 9th, this letter to Presidents Kruger and Steyn:

"In continuation of my telegram of Feb. 5th, I call your Honors' attention to the wanton destruction of property by the Boer forces in Natal. They have not only helped themselves freely to the cattle and property of the farmers without payment, but also have utterly wrecked the contents of many farmhouses. As an instance I would specify Wood's Farm, near Springfield. I would point out how very different has been the conduct of the British troops. It is reported to me from Modder River that farms within the actual area of the British camp have never been entered, nor have their occupants been molested. The houses and gardens have been left absolutely untouched."

The following from the other side of the world shows the cordial reciprocity of appreciation between Lord Roberts and the most remote colonies:

"SYDNEY, Feb. 8.

"Lord Roberts has sent the following telegram to the Governor of New South Wales:

"I had the great pleasure of personally welcoming the New South Wales battery of field artillery and wish to express to your Excellency my high appreciation of the patriotic spirit which led our fellow-subjects in Australia to send such a useful and workman-like body of men to assist in the work of restoring peace, order, and freedom in South Africa."

The Lieutenant-Governor has replied:

"MELBOURNE, Feb. 8.

"Ministers fully appreciate your telegram, and concur in the earnest hope that peace, order and freedom may shortly be restored in South Africa under the British flag."

Lord Roberts has telegraphed to the Governor of Victoria a similar message to that which he has sent to the Governor of New South Wales.

Cronje's Surrender and the Occupation of Bloemfontein.

Cronje Hard Pressed

The main body of the British army on the Modder soon disposed of the reproach of immobility, and the Boers were disconcerted. They were not prepared for "leaps and bounds" to the front. It has been important in the history of Lord Roberts that his troops became confident and moved with alacrity. Cronje, finding himself getting into the air, confronting Roberts, made a long night march February 15th, and the British swung to the left in hot pursuit, some of the regiments outstripping the supplies; but there was no complaint of fatigue or short rations, or other commonplace troubles, though the rains were heavy and the winds cold. Cronje was driven to the precarious shelter of a river bed, where he formed a laager. Roberts shelled the Boer force and pushed regular approaches to insure victory and save life.

Cronje Capitulates

A gallant rush by the Canadians made the Boer position untenable in a strict military sense. There was a fusilade at 3 A.M. on the morning of the 15th, and the most dramatic incident of the eventful day was the appearance of a small white flag moving from the Boer laager to the British lines. It was understood by all who saw it to convey the tidings that Cronje had surrendered. A British officer advanced to meet the flag, and the bearer of it turned back disappearing behind the fortifications. For a few moments the flag-bearer reappeared, and at his side walked—as a correspondent present describes him—"a little, grizzly, old man." The word passed along the British lines, "That's Cronje." It was Cronje, and he was soon in the presence of Roberts, who invited him to take a seat. The Boer commander, when on his way to the British headquarters, was described as a "heavy shouldered, heavy bearded, heavy-lipped man, clad in farm-like garb, wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat and lumbering along on a little gray pony." He showed no emotion, accepted the situation with fortitude, and said he had had a very uncomfortable time. Between 3,000 and 4,000 prisoners marched out of the laager with Mrs. Cronje and her grandson. The prisoners said the onslaught of the Canadians had astonished them. They had been cooped up for ten days and suffered greatly. Cronje was treated with courtesy, and all his personal requests granted. As he desired, his wife, grandson and servants accompanied him. Considering the disparity in forces, he had made a great fight, and to have detained the powerful army of Roberts so long was the best service he could render his cause. The words in which Lord Roberts announced his victory were that Cronje and his force capitulated at daylight, February 27th. The dispatch was dated at Paardeburg, at 7.45 in the morning. Lord Roberts added the capitulation was unconditional, and Cronje was now a prisoner in his camp, and then said, "I hope that Her Majesty's Government will consider that this is very satisfactory, occurring as it does on the anniversary of Majuba."

A writer for the Journal says that Cronje was anxious to attempt to cut his way out of the river bed and seize a hill and oppose the idea of surrender to the last moment, but was overcome by a council of war, and that his theory about it was that, rather than lose men in storming the Boer position, Roberts would grant terms. However, when Cronje consented to a council of war, he must have known what the result would be. The scene on the inside of the laager is thus described: "The wrecks of wagons, carcasses of horses and cattle are strewn everywhere, not to speak of scores of corpses partially unburied. The Red Cross men who buried the dead and collected the wounded at Magersfontein, Belmont and Graspan declare they have seen nothing so awful as this terrible spectacle.

"A mute story is told by the fearful sight that Cronje had no alternative but to surrender unless he wished to see his camp converted into a wholesale shambles. Hundreds of dead bodies of both men and cattle were washed down through the British main camp when the river was flooded last week. It is impossible therefore to estimate how many actually fell in Cronje's last stand."

Cronje and Roberts Meet

The historical scene of surrender is thus described: "A group of horsemen then approached. On General Prettyman's right rode an elderly man clad in a rough, short overcoat, a wide brimmed hat, ordinary tweed trousers and brown shoes. It was the redoubtable Cronje. His face was almost burned black, and his curly beard was tinged with gray.

"Lord Roberts walked to and fro in front of the cart until the Boer general arrived, when the British commander advanced gravely and kindly saluted the Boer commander. He then motioned General Cronje to a seat in a chair which had been brought for his accommodation, and the two officers conversed through an interpreter.

"Cronje's face was absolutely impassive when he approached Lord Roberts, exhibiting no sign of his inner feelings. Lord Roberts was surrounded by his staff when General Prettyman, addressing the Field Marshal, said:

"'Commandant Cronje, sir.'

The First Contingent was composed of seven Companies, recruited from the various parts of the Dominion. The formation by Company and District was as follows:

A Company, British Columbia and Manitoba.

B Company, London, Ontario.

C Company, Toronto, Ontario.

D Company, left half, Kingston and vicinity; right half, Ottawa, Ontario.

E Company, Montreal.

F Company, Quebec.

G Company, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

H Company, Nova Scotia.

Each Company consisted of 125 men, which, with the staff and officers, brought the total force up to 1019. The mobilization of the Contingent took place at Quebec, and on October 30th, 1899, the Sardinian, of the Allan Line, bearing Canada's initial quota of fighting men, sailed on her voyage to Cape Town. On the 13th, November the Sardinian was reported at Cape Verde Islands, having made a quick and uneventful passage to that point. From Cape Verde the steamer touched at no port till Cape Town was reached on November 29th.

First Contingent.

Officers.

Commanding Officer.

Otter, Lieutenant-Colonel W. D., Canadian Staff, A.D.C., to His Excellency the Governor-General.

Majors

(2nd in command).

Buchan, L. (Lieutant-Colonel Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

Pelletier, Q.C.C. (Lieutenant-Colonel Canadian Staff).

"A" Company, British Columbia and Manitoba.

Captain.

Arnold, H. M.(Major 90th Winnipeg Rifles).

Lieutenants.

Blanchard, M. G. (Captain 5th Regiment C.A.)

Hodgins, A. E. (Captain Nelson Rifle Company).

Layborn, S. P. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

"B" Company, London, Ontario.

Captain.

Stuart, D. (Major 26th Middlesex Light Infantry).

Lieutenants.

Ross, J. M. (Captain 22nd The Oxford Rifles).

Mason, J. C. (Captain 10th Royal Grenadiers).

Temple, R. H. M. (2nd Lieutenant 48th Highlanders).

"C" Company, Toronto.

Captain.

Barker, R. K. (Captain Queen's Own Rifles).

Lieutenants.

Marshall, W. R. (Lieutenant 13th Battalion).

Wilkie, C. S. (Lieutenant 10th Royal Grenadiers).

Lafferty, F. D. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Artillery).

"D" Company, Ottawa and Kingston.

Captain.

Rogers, S. M. (Major 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles).

Lieutenants

Lawless, W. T. (Captain Governor General's Foot Guards).

Stewart, R. G. (Lieutenant 43rd Carleton Rifles).

Caldwell, A. C. (Lieutenant Reserve of Officers).

"E" Company, Montreal.

Captain.

Fraser, C. K. (Captain 53rd Sherbrooke Battalion).

Lieutenants.

Swift, A. E. (Lieutenant 8th Royal Rifles).

Laurie, A. (Lieutenant 1st Prince of Wales' Fusiliers).

Armstrong, C. J. (Lieutenant 5th Royal Scots of Canada).

"F" Company, Quebec.

Captain.

Peltier, J. E. (Major 65th Mount Royal Rifles).

Lieutenants.

Panel, H. A. (Captain Royal Canadian Artillery).

Leduc, L. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

Pelletier, E. A. (Lieutenant 55th Megantic Light Infantry).

"G" Company, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Captain.

Weeks, W. A. (Major Charlottetown Engineers).

Lieutenants.

Jones, F. C. (Captain in 3rd Regiment C. A).

Kaye, J. H. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

McLean, C. W. W. (2nd Lieutenant 8th Princess Louise's Hussars).

"H" Company, Nova Scotia.

Captain.

Stairs, H. B. (Captain 66th Princess Louise's Fusiliers).

Lieutenants.

Burstall, H. E. (Captain Royal Canadian Artillery).

Willis, R. B. (Lieutenant 66th Princess Louise's Fusiliers).

Oland, J. C. (2nd Lieutenant 63rd Halifax Rifles).

O. C. Machine Gun Section.

Bell, A. C. (Captain Scots Guards) A. D. C. to the Major-General Commanding Canadian Militia.

Regimental Adjutant.

Macdonell, A. H. (Captain Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

Battalion Adjutants.

Macdonell, A. H. (Captain Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

Ogilvy, J. H. C. (Captain Royal Canadian Artillery).

Quartermaster.

Denison, S. J. A. (Captain and Brevet Major Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).

Medical Officers.

Wilson, C. W. (Surgeon-Major 3rd Field Battery).

Fiset, E. (Surgeon-Major 89th Temiscouata and Rimouski Battalion).

Attached for Staff Duty.

Drummond, L. G. (Major Scots Guards) Military Secretary to His Excellency the Governor-General.

Attached for Special Duty.

Drury, C. W. (Lieutenant-Colonel Royal Canadian Artillery), A. D. C. to His Excellency the Governor-General.

Lessard, F. L. (Lieutenant-Colonel Royal Canadian Dragoons).

Cartwright, M. (Major Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry, A. A. G. at Headquarters).

Forester, W. (Captain Royal Canadian Dragoons).

Medical Staff for General Service.

Osborne, A. B. (Captain Canadian Army Medical Staff).

Nurses.

Pope, Miss Georgina; Forbes, Miss Sarah; Affleck, Miss Minnie; Russell, Miss Elizabeth.

Historical Recorder.

Dixon, F. J. (Captain Reserve Officers).

Chaplains.

Almond, Rev. J.

Fullerton, Rev. T. F. (Hon. Chaplain 4th Regiment C. A.).

O'Leary, Rev. P. M.

"A" COMPANY, BRITISH COLUMBIA AND MANITOBA.

Holmes W. H., Colonel-Sergeant, R. C. A.
Allan, H. S., 5th R. C. A.
Alliston, B. D., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Adams, J., Manitoba Dragoons.
Anderson, J., 5th R. C. A.
Armstrong, E., R. C. A.
Andrews, H., 5th R. C. A.
Barrett, R. J., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Barlow, R. H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Beach, A. C., 5th R. C. A.
Berthour, W. H., 5th R. C. A.
Battson, A. S., 5th R. C. A.
Bonner, H. M.,5th R. C. A.
Boyce, A. W., 13th Field Battery, C. A.
Brooking, W., 5th R. C. A.
Carnagie, J., 90th Winnipeg Rifles
Carter, A., 5th R.C. A.
Campbell, R. B., Nelson Rifles.
Campbell, A., R. C. A.
Chisholm, A., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Clough, P., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Collins, J., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Cook J., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Corbould, G. B., 5th R. C. A.
Cowan, H. J., Manitoba Dragoons.
Cornwall, F. J., 5th R. C. A.
Court, S. T., 5th R. C. A.
Crooke, M., Nelson Rifles.
Davies, J, E., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Dickinson, F., 5th R. C. A.
Dickson, J. H., Nelson Rifles.
Dixon, W. J. G., 5th R. C. A.
Duncalfe, C. W., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Docherty, M., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Edwards, H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Fowle, W. F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Findley, T. A., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Foord, F. N., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Finch-Smiles, F., 5th R. C. A.
French, J. P., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Gamble, C. W., 5th R. C. A.
Groves, C. E., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Greaves, P., 5th R. C. A.
Hammond, J. L., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Hanson, S. S., 5th R. C. A.
Hicks, H. P., Nelson Rifles.
Holeyoke, G. C. F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Hughes, E. N., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Hutchings, George, 5th R. C. A.
Ingram, L., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Irvine, A. B., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Jackson, W., 5th R. C. A.
Johnson, H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Jones, S. L., 5th R. C. A.
Jones, J. W., 5th R. C. A.
Kelly, E., Queen's Own Rifles.
Kennedy, D., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Lee, A. S., Nelson Rifles.
Leeman, R. W. J., 5th R. C. A.
Leamy, C. S., 5th R. C. A.
LeBar, V. E., R. C. R.
Listen, B., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Livingstone, J., 5th R. C. A.
Lohman, A. O., 5th R. C. A.
Martin, A., R. C. R.
Mackie, A. S., 5th R. C. A.
Matheson. K., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Maundrill, A., 5th R. C. A.
Mills, C. A., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Munro, A. E., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Moier, W. J., 36th Peel Battalion.
Moodie, W. H., Kaslo Rifle Co.
Moscrop, J., 5th R. C. A.
McCalmont, R. J., 5th R. C. A.
McIvor, D., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
McKeand, D. L., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
McKenzie, H., Manitoba Dragoons.
McHarg, W. H., Rossland Rifle Company.
Northcote, J., 5th R. C. A.
Neibergall, H. F., 5th R. C. A.
Neil, G., 5th R. C. A.
Nixon, F. S., 36th Peel Battalion.
Nye, A. J., 5th R. C. A.
O'Brien, S. W., 5th R. C. A.
Odell, S. H., 5th R. C. A.
Parker, H. F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Patterson, W. O., Nelson Rifles.
Patterson, C., R. C. R.
Perry, J. C., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Rea, J. R., Nelson Rifles.
Rumsay, F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Rush, F., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Rorke, E. B., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Robbins, A. E., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Roberts, S. C., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Roberts, C. M., 5th R. C. A.
Sherlock, H., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Sherris, J., R. C. A.
Scott, W., 5th R. C. A.
Sinclair, J. J. S., 5th R. C. A.
Smethurst, H., 5th R. C. A.,
Smith, James, 5th R. C. A.
Snider, C. H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Soper, A. C. W., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Somers, J. H., 5th R. C. A.
Stewart, J., 5th R. C. A.
St. James, G., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Stebbings, W. H. H., 5th R. C. A.
Talbot, A., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Thompson, C. C., 5th R. C. A.
Thompson, T., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Todd, J., 5th R C. A.
Vinnel, A. J., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Whimster, P., Manitoba Dragoons.
Wallace, W., 5th R. C. A.
Wallace, G., 5th R. C. A.
Welch, W., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Western, T., Manitoba Dragoons.
Whilley, W. F., 5th R. C. A.
Wilkins, G. H., Kaslo Rifle Company.
Wilkie, O. J., 5th R. C. A.
Wyatt, H. R., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Ward, R., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Wood, A. M., 5th R. C. A.

"B" COMPANY, LONDON, ONTARIO.

Davies, Colonel-Sergeant R., R. C. R.
Adam, S., R. C. A.
Adams, W. G., 7th Fusiliers.
Adair, A., R. C. A.
Anderson, A. H., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Andrews, E. C., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Atkinson, D. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Bredin, J., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Bowden, R. B., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Bethune, A., R. C. R.
Bollard, H. E., 28th Perth Battalion.
Barr, H. B., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Barrett, P., 7th Fusiliers.
Baugh, E., R. C. A.
Beers, F. C., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Berges, H., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Biggs, J. C., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Burns, W. J., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Burrell, H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Burwell, A. E., 6th F. B. C. A.
Campbell, F. W., 30th Wellington Rifles.
Chapman, W. H., 7th Fusiliers.
Charman, A., R. C. R.
Coles, F. J., 7th Fusiliers.
Cole, A. E., 1st Hussars.
Corley, J. B., 30th Wellington Rifles.
Crockett, Samuel, 7th Fusiliers.
Craig, E. D., 21st Essex Fusiliers
Collins, W., 1st Hussars.
Dalgleish, A. D., 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Day, J., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Donegan, J. A., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Dolman, E. N., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Donahue, H., 26th Middlesex Infantry.
Delmer, P., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Duff, J. B., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Edward, A., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Evans, F., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Farley, J. E., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Finch, C. E., 7th Fusiliers
Floyd, F. G. W., 7th Fusiliers.
Fox, W. H., R. C. A.
Foote, William, 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Gorrie, W. B., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Graham, George, 28th Perth Battalion.
Greene, C., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Green, W. J., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Gorman, F., 27th Lambton Battalion.
Hill, J. C., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry,
Herrick, J., 7th Fusiliers.
Hessell, F. W., 7th Fusiliers.
Hyman, W. J., 6th Field Battery, C. A.
Hennessy, J. T., 7th Fusiliers.
Inglemells, P. C., 1st Hussars.
Irvine, R., 19th St. Catherines Battalion.
Jell, A. P., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Jones, M. L., 33rd Huron Battalion.
Johnston, K. G., 27th Lambton Battalion.
Kingswell, J., R. C. A.
Leonard, G. W., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Little, R. H., 1st Hussars.
Little, G. B., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Lane, H., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Lundrigan, J., R. C. A.
McBeth, G. W., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McBeth, G. A., 7th Fusiliers.
McLaren, C. D., 7th Fusiliers.
McLean, M., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McCalla, J., 19th St. Catherines Battalion.
McMahon, W. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McMillan, D. C., 27th Lambton Battalion.
McMurphy, A., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McLean, A. R., 38th Dufferin Battalion.
Marshall, A., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Marentette, V. F., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Merrix, A. E., R. C. R. I.
Moore, D. L., R. C. R. I.
Mullins, E., R. C. R. I.
Munro, G. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Northwood, J., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Nott, William, R. C. A.
Odium, V., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Odium, G., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Paddon, A. E., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Phillips, G. R. S., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Piper, T. J., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Pinel. G. F., 7th Fusiliers.
Pert, E. W., 28th Perth Battalion.
Power, L., R. C. A.
Powell, L, 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Purcell, J. J., E. C. A.
Reed, W. G., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Reid, D. A., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Redee, C., 7th Fusiliers.
Robinson. J. B., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Rae, A. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Rorison, C. K., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Sippi, G. R. B., 7th Fusiliers.
Smith. J., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Scott, C. R., 27th Lambton Battalion.
Smith, R., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Stanberry, F. G., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Stevenson, W. R., R. C. R. I.
Sutherland, J., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Taylor, E., 1st Hussars.
Taylor, G., 1st Hussars.
Thompson, H., R. C. A.
Trolley, F. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Turner. F. W., 6th Field Battery.
Tutt, T., R. C. R. I.
Wardel, A. E., 7th Fusiliers.
Webb, A. B., 33rd Huron Battalion.
West, W., 7th Fusiliers.
Westaway, H., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Wells, James, 30th Wellington Rifles
Wheatcraft, A. H., 7th Fusiliers
White, G., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
White, W., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Wilson, A. R., 33rd Huron Battalion
Wigham, R. D., 6th Field Battery, C. A.
Woodliffe, G. W., 7th Fusiliers.
Woodward, A. W., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Wilson, H. R, 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Woodyatt, W. H., 7th Fusiliers.

"C" COMPANY

Campbell, Colonel-Sergeant J. S., R. C. R. I.
Allen, L., Q. O. R.
Anderson, F. T., 39th Norfolk Rifles.
Baldwin, John, 48th Highlanders.
Banton, T. H., 48th Highlanders.
Beattie, A., Q. O. R.
Black, N. D., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Blair, F., 48th Highlanders.
Bird, B. M., Q. O. R.
Bingham, H. S., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Blight, W. S., Q. O. R.
Brettingham, W. P. R., 12th York Rangers.
Brunton, H. G., 12th York Rangers.
Burkhart, F., 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Butler, W. B., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Calvert, F. M., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Callahan, H. A., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Christie, D. H., 37th Haldimand Rifles.
Cassel, K. J., 13th Battalion.
Curtis, W. R., 31st Grey Battalion.
Coggins, A. E., R. C. D.
Coggins, H., 31st Grey Battalion.
Cuthbert, F., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Davidson, J., 12th York Rangers.
Dangerfield, A., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Day, E. C., G. G. B. G.
Dixon, H. W. A., Q. O. R.
Dunham, F. H., 48th Highlanders.
Eakins, G., Q. O. R.
Ellis, G. S., Q. O. R.
Fawcett, J. H., 12th York Rangers.
Findlay, J. H., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Freemantle, A. H. O., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Graham. T. H., 12th York Rangers.
Grant W H., 48th Highlanders.
Gray N., Sault St. Marie Rifles.
Haines, W., R. C. R. I.
Hector, F. T. D., Q. O. R.
Hendry, Murray, 13th Battalion.
Henderson, R. H., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Hewett. W. H., Q. O. R.
Holland, W. C. S., 77th Wentworth Battalion.
Holland, J., Civilian.
Hodgins, E. W., G. G. B. G.
Hopeson, C. W., 48th Highlanders.
Hoskins, R. W., Q. O. R.
Hornibrook. T. L., 48th Highlanders.
Inglestrom, F., Q. O. R.
Ironside, G. M., Toronto Police.
Tones, N. J., 31st Grey Battalion.
Jordan, Joseph, Q. O. R.
Kennedy James, 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Kidner, R., Q. O. R.
Long, J. L., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Lorsch, F. D., 48th Highlanders.
Love, William, 37th Haldimand Rifles.
Machin, H. A., 12th York Rangers.
Manion. W. T., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Martin, G. F., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Morley, N. L., 48th Highlanders.
Mitchell, J. A., 48th Highlanders.
Morse, T., R. C. R. I.
Middleton, H. J., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
McCall, A., Toronto Police.
McCosh, P., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
McCuish, D., R. C. R. I.
McGee, K., R. M. C., Cadet.
McGiverin L., Q. O. R.
McHugh, E., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
McKenzie, L. C., 48th Highlanders.
McLaughlin, R. H., R. C. R. I.
McNish, M., 48th Highlanders.
McPherson, D., 48th Highlanders.
Noble, D. A., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Page, F. C., G. G. B. G.
Parry, C. E., R. C. D.
Bugler Pringle, R., S. S. Marie Rifle Company.
Perry, S., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Preston, D. G., 44th Lincoln and Welland Battalion.
Ramage, J. H., 30th Peel Battalion.
Ramage, J. H., 346th Peel Battalion.
Rasberry, J., 77th Wentworth Battalion.
Rae, F. A., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Ridway, E. H., Q. O. R.
Robson, A., 13th Battalion.
Rogers, W. R., 44th Lincoln and Welland Battalion.
Rooke, W. J., Q. O. R.
Rorke, J. H., 31st Grey Battalion.
Ramsay, J. F., 48th Highlanders.
Rutherford, F. H., 13th Battalion.
Seager, John, Q. O. R.
Seymour, C., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Sherritt, A. W., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Simpson, G. C. M., 12th York Rangers.
Smith, J., 48th Highlanders.
Smith, G. M., 48th Highlanders.
Solari, J., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Spence, J. D., 48th Highlanders.
Stewart, M. M., Q. O. R.
Button, J. H., 13th Battalion.
Thompson, G., R. C. D.
Thompson, W. F., R. C. R. I.
Tice, C., Civilian.
Tomlinson, C., Q. O. R.
Travers, W., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Usher, J. F., Q. O. R.
Vanderwater, W. J., Q. O. R.
Van Norman, A. F., R. C. R. I.
Vicary, S., S. S. Marie Rifle Company.
Vickers, J. R., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Wallace, T. G., 36th Peel Battalion.
Warde, S. M., Q. O. R.
Warren, W. C., 13th Battalion.
Warwick W. H., 13th Battalion.
Watson, R. G., R. C. R. I.
Weir, F. E., Q. O. R.
Wellar, E. T., 48th Highlanders.
Wilson J. A., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Wilson, N. W., Q. O. R.
Whitehead, J., 48th Highlanders.
Wright, D. M., R. C. R. I.
Bugler Williams, D. F., Q. O. R.
Young, H., Q. O. R.
Young, A., Q. O. R.

"B" COMPANY, OTTAWA AND KINGSTON.

Thompson, Color-Serjeant C. H., R. C. R. I.
Auger, E., G. G. F. G.
Ault, C. E., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Bartlett, E. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Benbow, H. A., G. G. F. G.
Bennett, A., P. L. Dragoon Guards.
Bolster, H. G., Cobourg Garrison Artillery, C. A.
Bolyea, A. W., 15th A. L. I.
Bradshaw, A. L. H., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Brady, W. S., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Bull, E. W., Cobourg Company, C. A.
Burns, O. T., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Burns, R., G. G. F. G.
Clunie, P., Civilian.
Cunnington, R., 15th A. L. I.
Carruthers, B., 14th Prince of Wales Own Rifles.
Cairns, J. S., 2nd Field Battery, C. A.
Chidlow, J., R. C. R. I.
Clarke, C. P., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Clother, A., G. G. F. G.
Cluff, N. W. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Cockburn, G. G., Cobourg Company C. A.
Coleman. J. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Cotton, H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Cotterell, A., R. C. R. I.
Cram, J. A. C., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Craig, C. E., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Croft, F., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Croft, P. C., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Cunningham, R, J., 20th Halton Rifles.
Chitty, L. M., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Dalberg, R. P., K. C. R. I.

Des Lauriers, E., P. L. Dragoon Guards, deceased.
Deuchars, G. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Donaldson, C. A., 41st Brockville Rifles.
Dunlop, E., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Dunlop, J. R., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Eagleson, S. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Ellard, J. F. G., G. G. F. G.
Eley, D. M., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Escobel, N., R. C. R. I.
Fleming. A. J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Floden, W. J., 47th Frontenac Battalion.
Foster, P. R., G. G. F. G.
Frye, C. E., 15th A. L. I.
Gallagher, J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Gibson, C. A., 15th A. L. I.
Gilmour, A. E., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Graham, J. D. H., P. L. D. G.
Gilmour, W. J., R. C. R. I.
Haig, H. G., 2nd F. Battery, C. A.
Hatton, J., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Hagan, J. R., 41st Brockville Rifles.
Hennessy, J., R. C. R. I.
Hulme, G. G., 15th A. L. I.
Holland, C., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Hugall, P., R. C A.
Jackson, C. E. E., 37th Haldiman Rifles.
Johnston, W., R. C. R. I.
Jones, H. H., 15th A. L. I.
Laird, A., late R. C. A.
Lamothe, G., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Latimer, W. R., G. G. F. G.
Large, A. L., 15th A. L. I.
Lawrence, W. R., 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion.
Lewis, Z. R. E., N. W. M. Police
Living, J. F., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Lynn, F., 15th A. L. I.
Lyon, G. R. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Le Bean, L. P., G. G. F. G.
Macaulay, A., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Martin, W. A., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Martin, H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Mason, C. P., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Matthews, A. J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Malloch, E. St. J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Major, J., 56th Grenville Battalion
Mills, W. W., 15th A. L I.
Mitchell, N., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Morgans, E. F., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Morrison, W. A., G. G. F. G.
Morin, J., G. G. F. G.
Morrison, E. F., 3rd Field Battery, C. A.
MacCullough, C., G. G. F. G.
MacRae, R. A., 43rd Ottawa and Csrleton Rifles.
McConnell, J. F., G. G. F. G.
McCormack, A. J., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
MacKay, R., 15th A. L. I.
McDonald, F., R. C. R I.
McFadden, F., G. G. F. G.
McLennan, J. A., 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion.
McCrea, J. M., 45th Victoria Battalion.
McNair, J., 15th A. L. I.
Padmore, D. T., R. C R. I.
Parr, W. B., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Peters, A E., R. C. R. I.
Phillips, G., 15th A. L. I.
Prior, A., R. C. R. I.
Porteous. R. W., G. G. F. G.
Ritchie. W. G., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Ross, W. J. H., Domn. Police.
Rowley, J., G. G. F. G.
Ross, A. L., 30th Wellington Rifles.
Schwitzer, W. C., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Shillington, W. J. H., P. L. D. G.
Small, H. C., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Smith, J. F., G. G. F. G.
Smith, W. A., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Southey, E. C., 46th Durham Battalion.
Spence, C. T., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Street, L. J., G. G. F. G.
Swan, N. W. D., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Thomas, J. M., G. G. F. G.
Taylor, A. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Thomas, C. T., G. G. F. G.
Thompson, R. R., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Tilley, G., 49th Hastings Rifles
Turner, R. H., 41st Brockville Rifles.
Turpin, T. J., Cobourg Co., C. A.
Wall, A., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Walker, L. C., 16th Field Battery, C. A.
Wendt, W. G., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Williamson, A. T. L., G. G. F. G.
Wood, F. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Wright, H. O., P. L. D. G.

"E" COMPANY, MONTREAL.

Young, Color-Sergeant A., R. C. R. I.
Allan, J., R. C. R. I.
Allan, C. E., 5th Royal Scots.
Ackerman, F., 9th Voltiguers de Quebec.
Adams, J. A., 8th Royal Rifles.
Allmand, W. W., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers
Aspell, T. J., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers
Bach, R. C., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers
Baugh, T. E., R. C. R. I.
Bailey, J., 2nd Regiment C. A.
Barry, C. H., Civilian.
Bigelow, J. A., late N. W. M. P.
Bolt, G. H., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Byford, R., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Byers, R. T., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Carter, M., 2nd R. C. A.
Campbell. C., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Canty, R., 8th Royal Rifles.
Carter, W., 2nd R. C. A.
Clarke, R. C., 2nd R. C. A.
Coates, H. W., 5th Royal Scots.
Cox, F., R. C. R. I.
Crotty, P., 8th Royal Rifles.
Curry, I., 5th Royal Scots.
Corner, F. G., 5th Royal Scots.
Dawson, A., 8th Royal Rifles.
Delaney, M. J., 8th Royal Rifles.
Downey, G., Civilian.
Doyle, T. H. M., 8th Royal Scots.
Durkee, A. A. 3rd V. Rifles.
Dynes, E. J., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars,
Erskine, F., 5th Royal Scots.
Fisher, H., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Fowler, W., R. C. R. I.
Fisher, R. L., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Fraser, H., 41st Brockvilie Rifles.
Frawky, W. M. C., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Gamble, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Gardner, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Goodfellow, R., 5th Royal Scots.
Gorman, J. F., 3rd Field Battery, C. A.
Graham, R., R. C. R. I.
Greenlay, G., 54th Richmond Battalion.
Gunn, R., 5th Royal Scots.
Hill, J. K., 8th Royal Rifles.
Hale, W. J., 5th Royal Scots.
Hampson, G., 5th Royal Scots.
Hannaford, A., 5th Royal Scots.
Hawkins, J., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Hayes, R., R. C. R. I.
Harding, E., no corps.
Hayward, H., 53rd Sherbrook Battalion.
Home, F., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Hynes, P., 5th Royal Scots.
Irwin, F. B., 8th Royal Rifles.
James, A., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Jones, F., 5th Royal Scots.
Jeffery, W., 5th Royal Scots.
Jeffrey, J. W., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Kealey, M., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Kelly, E., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Leconteur, R., 8th Royal Rifles.
Lee, F., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Lewis, C. E., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Lester, C., Civilian.
Malin, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Marjin, H., 2nd R. C. A.
Martin, A., 2nd R. C. A.
Mead, D., 2nd R. C. A.
Middleton, F., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Mitchell, H., 3rd V. R.
Moody, F., R. C. R. I.
Moore, T., D. Y. R. Canadian Hussars.
Molyneux, C. R., 5th R. S.
Murphy, D., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Murray, W. R., 8th Royal Rifles.
Murdock, W. A. H., 2nd R. C. A.
McDonald, A., 5th R. C. A.
McCann, J., 8th Royal Rifles.
McGill, D. R., R. C. R, I.
McGoldrick, J., 5th Royal Scots.
McIver, W., 5th Royal Scots.
McLean, R. G., 5th Royal Scots.
McLeod, N. M., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
McQueen, A., 5th Royal Rifles.
Nash, T. B., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Nickle, C. R., 3rd Field Battery, C. A.
O'Brien, J., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
O'Meara, J., 5th Royal Rifles.
Phillips, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Platt, J., R. C. R. I.
Pope, A., 5th Royal Scots.
Porter, W., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Prince, R. H., 2nd R. C. A.
Price, G., Civilian.
Roberts, G. P., 2nd R. C. A.
Rupert, E., 85th Battalion.
Ryan, P., Civilian.
Richardson, F., Civilian.
Shaw, A. C., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Shore, R. N., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Sheehan, M., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Stanning, W., 5th Royal Scots.
Swift, M., 5th Royal Rifles.
Sword, A., 5th Royal Scots.
Sword, D. C., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Thomas, A. P., D. Y. R., Canadian Hussars
Thomas, G. W., 5th Royal Scots.
Travers. H. B., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Tregett, J., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Tulloch, A. J., 5th Royal Scots.
Turner, A. J., 5th Royal Rifles.
Tweddell, W., 8th Royal Rifles.
Upton, S., 1st P. W. O. F.
Walker, H. H., 54th Richmond Battalion.
Walters, T. A., 5th Royal Scots.
Walters. J. H., 5th Royal Scots.
Wasdell. F., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Wardle, A., 53rd Sherbrook Battalion.
White, A., 54th Richmond Battalion.
Wilkin, W., 5th Royal Scots.
Wilkins, A. W., 3rd Royal Rifles.
Williams, H., 53rd Sherbrooke Battalion.
Wright, P. E., Sth Royal Rifles
Wright, J., 8th Royal Rifles.
Yelland, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Youngson, J. S., 5th Royal Scots.

"F" COMPANY, QUEBEC.

Lafleur, Col.-Sergt. L. E., R. C. A.
Arnton, C. S., Civilian.
Anthony, P., Civilian.
Atkinson, G., Sth Royal Rifles.
Barclay, C. N., D. Y. R. C. Hussars.
Bagot, A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Bamford, W., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Baldwin, C., R. C. D.
Bessette, W., R. C. A.
Beaupre, C., 5th Battalion.
Brown, H. I., Civilian.
Brown, H., R. C. R. I.
Brooker, L., R C. D.
Bouck, L., Civilian.
Bower, J. W., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Carbonneau, E., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Casey, J. E., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Champagne, M., 1st Field Battery C. A.
Chatel, A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Cloutier, W., 80th Nicolet Battalion.
Chisholm, A. W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Cooper, W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Conley, F., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Cowgill, H., R. C. D.
Curphy, J., civilian.
D'Amour, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Demais, A., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Dolhec, L., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Donahue, F., late 6th U. S. Infantry.
Downing, W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Duhamel, J. W., 56th Three Rivers Battalion.
D'Orsonens, G., 80th Nicolet Battalion.
Duberger, A., 1st Field Battery, C. A.
Dixon, W., R. C. A.
Desjardins, J. F., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Eite, William, R. C. R. I.
Fancy, J. G., civilian.
Forest, H., 61st Montmagny and L'Islet Battalion.
Gates, J. H., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Gingrass, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Grecia, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Gratton, E., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Harrison, R., and R. C. A.
Harvey, R., R. C. R. I.
Hennessy, B., R. C. R. I.
Harrison, Charles, 2nd R. C. A
Hill, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Hudon, J A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Hunter, W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Hubley, C., R. C. A.
Irwin, W., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Ivers, M., R. C. A.
Jette, G., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Jewell, T., 8th Royal Rifles.
Jobin, E., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Larue, L., 87th Quebec Battalion.
Lambkin, H. J., 8th Royal Rifles.
Lamotireaux, E., R. C. A.
Laverdure, E., R. C. A.
Lefebre, P. W., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Lescarbeau, T., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Lightbound, G. R., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Levielle, L., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Lewis, O., 68th King's County Battalion.
Lemay, A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Matheson, O., 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Medhurst, J., R. C. D.
Michau, L. C., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Monteith, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Montizambert, H., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
McEllhiney, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
McNeil. J. D., R. C. A.
McCollum, G. H., R. C. R. I.
McDonald, J. E., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
McIntosh, W., R. C. A.
MacTaggart, J. W., civilian.
Mclaughlin, H. P., R. C. R. I.
McMillan, A., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
McMillan, E., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
McDonald, R. D., R. C. A.
Orman, G., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Paquet, G., 87th Quebec Battalion.
Plammondin, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Polkinghorn, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Proulx, H., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Peppeatt, W., R. C. A.
Peterson, C. F., R. C. R. I.
Rae, J. P., civilian.
Raymond, J. W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Remy, J., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Redmond, C., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Robertson, J. H., 62nd St. John Fusiliers
Roy, A., 89th Temiscouata & Rimouski Battalion.
Roberts, J. R., R. C. A.
Scott, J. A., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Sievert, J., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Soucy, A., R. C. A.
Smith, L., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Strong, F. B., civilian.
Sutton, G. J., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Sutherland, A., D. Y. R. C. Hussars.
Tapin, J., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Tattersall, H. C., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Tessier, E., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Theriault, A., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Thompson, W. B., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Touchette, J., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Utton, F. W., R. C. R. I.
Vallee, L. C., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Walsh, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Warren, C., R. C. A.
Warren, W., R. C. R. I.
Wiseman, N., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Woodward, F., R C R I
Wylie, R. R., 2nd R. C. A.
Withy, B., R. C. A.

"G" COMPANY, ST. JOHN AND CHARLOTTETOWN.

Charlton, Col.-Sergt. C., R. C. R. I.
Sheldon, Sergeant A., R. C. R. I.
Adams, George Frederick, 8th Hussars.
Addison, Joseph, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Aitkin, Joseph M., 71st York Battalion.
Anslow, Charles, 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Baker, Warren, R. C. R. I.
Bishop, William, 74th Battalion.
Boudreau, John, Charlottetown "E" Company.
Bowness, Ernest William, 82d Queen's County Battalion.
Burnside, James, 3rd R. C. A.
Brace, Nelson T., Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Brown, Herbert Henry, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Bryant, William, 3rd R. C. A.
Campbell, George, R. C. R. I.
Carney, John, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Chapman, George, 74th Battalion.
Chappell, Montrose C., 74th Battalion.
Coombs, F. W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Cox, Reginald William, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Craig. Edward, 3rd R. C. A.
Creighton, Crandall, 74th Battalion.
Dillon, Artemus Robert, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Donahue, William Wallace, 3rd R. C. A.
Doyle, Andrew, 3rd R. C. A.
Dorion, Necy, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Durant, Henry E., 74th Battalion.
Putney, John, 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
Dyas, Frank, 36th Peel Battalion.
Fahre, David J., 3rd R. C. A.
Ferguson, Daniel, 74th Battalion.
Flewelling, Ernest, R. C. R. I.
Foley, Richard Joseph, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Foster, Minard, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Fradsham, Harry, R. C. R. I.
Furze, F. C., Charlottetewn Engineer Company.
Gaudet, L. S., 4th R. C. A.
Globe, A. R., 62nd Battalion.
Hallamore, William, R. C. R. I.
Hammond, Albert, 74th Battalion.
Harris, Benjamin, 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Harris, John Archibald, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Harris, Leroy, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Hartfield, Arthur S., 3rd R. C. A.
Haydon, Arthur, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Hessian, E., R. C. A.
Hine, Charles Herbert, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Hubley, Russell C., 8th Hussars.
Irving, Walter H., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Jenkins, Charles Leonard, 3rd R. C. A.
Johnson, James, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Johnston, Joseph M., 62nd St. John Fusiliers,
Jones, Samuel, 71st York Battalion.
Keddy, Edward, R. C. R. I.
Keswick, George, 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
Kirkpatrick, F. A., 3rd R. C. A.
Kitchen, W., 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Lane, Walter, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Leavitt, Herbert, 71st York Battalion
Leslie, J. P., 4th R. C. A.
Letson, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Lord, Roland E., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Lutz, Ernest, 74th Battalion.
Lutz, John, 74th Battalion.
Matheson, J., 4th R. C. A.
McCain, F., 3rd R. C. A.
McCarthy, M. J., 4th R. C. A.
McRae, Frederick B., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
McCreary, Patrick, 74th Battalion.
McDiarmid, John, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
McFarlane, Bruce E., 71st York Battalion.
McKinnon. Hedley V., 4th R. C. A.
McLean, H. L., 4th R. C. A.
McLeod, John, 71st York Battalion.
McMullan, W., 8th Hussars.
Mellish, A. J. B., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Miller, H., R. C. R. I.
Morley, H. A., 3rd C. A.
Morrison, J., R. C. A.
Monroe, J. R., 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
O'Reilly. Joseph, 4th R. C. A.
Pascoe, J. B., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Pelky, A., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Penny, Roland, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Perkins, J. A., 71st York Battalion.
Pickle, J., 71st York Battalion.
Pringle, James, 71st York Battalion.
Quinn, M. James, R. C. R. I.
Raymond, W. J., 3rd R. C. A.
Rawlings. John, 3rd R. C. A.
Redden, H., R. C. R. I.
Riggs, William Alfred, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Rodd, T. A., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Roberts, Arthur, 3rd R. C.
Russell, J., R. C. A.
Schofield, Allen, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Scott, J. B., R. C. R. I.
Scott, J., 3rd C. A.
Singer, L. M., 78th Colchester, Hants & Pictou Battalion.
Simpson, Alfred, 3rd R. C. A.
Simpson, Percival, R. C. R. I.
Small, J. E., 4th R. C. A.
Sprague, F. W., 3rd R. C. A.
Stanton, Leigh, 5th Royal Scots.
Stevenson, P. S., 71st York Battalion.
Stewart, Lorne, 52nd Queen's County Battalion.
Strange, E. H., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Swatridge, W. O., 3rd R. C. A.
Taylor, R. D., Charlotte Town Engineer Company.
Tower, Bradford G., 74th Battalion.
Turner, R. M., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Unkauf, W. C., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Walker, Frederick G., 71st York Battalion.
Walker, J. S., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Wallace, W. V., R. C. R. I.
Wanamaker, H. L., 74th Battalion.
Ward, G., R. C. A.
Ward, Robert, 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
Wayne, J. F., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Williams, Joseph, 62nd St. John's Fusiliers.
Williams, F., 62nd St. John's Fusiliers.
Wilson, John H., 71st York Battalion.
Withers, Frederick W., 3rd R. C. A.

"H" COMPANY, HALIFAX.

Eustace, Col.-Segt. J. D., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Adams, W. F., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Anderson, J. H. N., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Atwater, James, 94th Argyle Highlanders.
Ackhurst, F. W., Halifax Bearer Company, C. A. M. S. C.
Binnett, G. B., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Blaikie, H., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Borton, C. N., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Burgess, M., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Blair, S., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Bent, E. E., 68th King's County Battalion.
Brown, S., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Buchanan, K., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Bingay, L. W., 1st R. C. A.
Baugh, B., R. C. A.
Conrad, W., 1st R. C. A.
Coons, F., 2nd R. C. A.
Cleary, W., 1st Leinster Regiment.
Carroll, James, 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Cameron, A. A., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Chapman, F., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Daley, F., 5th Royal Scots.
Dooley, F., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Drake, J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Duncan, J., 2nd R. C. A.
Dewers, F., 65th Prince
Defoe, J., R. C. A.
Elliott, W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Embree, G., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Ewing, I., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Ewing, D. H., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Farrell, G. P., Durham Light Infantry.
Farrer, De B., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Ferguson, W. R., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Fillmore, W. A., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Fitzgerald, A. E., 1st R. C. A.
Forsyth, A., civilian.
Fraser, H. H., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Gallacher, J., 4th Battalion Manchester Regiment.
Grant, J. W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Grimshaw, 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Hancock, C., C. A. M. S. C.
Harris, J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Harrison, G., 1st R. C. A.
Hartneth, J. W., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Hart, W. J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Halliday, J., R. C. A.
Huestis, G. J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Hire, J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Hunt, G., civilian.
Hurly, J., 1st R. C. A.
Hoult, E., R. C. A.
James, George, civilian.
Johnstone, G., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Jones, H., 63th King's County Battalion.
Kelly, J., 10th R. G.
Kennedy, John, R. C. A.
Keogh, P., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Keener, R. T., civilian.
Kilcup, E., 65th King's County Battalion.
Kirkpatrick, F., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Lewis, M., R. C. A.
Lenahan, J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Lindsay, A. C., N. W. M. Police.
Lindon, H., R. C. A.
Lockwood, A., 68th King's County Battalion.
Lowry, T. P., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Miller, C., 1st R. C. A.
Miller, R., 75th Lunenburg Battalion.
Munnis. M., 63rd Halifax Battalion.
Muir, F., 1st R. C. A.
Murray, N. G., civilian.
Murray, A., civilian.
McAldin, R., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
McCallum, B., civilian.
McCollum, G. D., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
McDougall, H. A., 5th Royal Scots.
McDonald, C., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
McDonald, G., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
McDonald, D. C., 1st R. C. A.
McLean, W. J., civilian.
McLean, J., civilian.
McNab, F., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Neily, R L., 68th King's County Battalion.
O'Brien, E., 78th Colchester & Hants Battalion.
Oxley, William, 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Osborn, D., civilian.
Oulton, H., 93rd Cumberland.
Parkes, F. S., 2nd R. C. A.
Patterson, A., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Parker, A., 68th King's County Battalion.
Pollock, W. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Purcell, E. S., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Purcell, L. A., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Pooley, C. F., C. A. M. S. C.
Regan, W. J., 68th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Rector, R., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Roche, W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Rose, J. E., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Rose, F., C. A. M. S. C.
Rolfe, J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Roue, J. F. L. C. A. M. S. C.
Ross, W. J., 1st R. C. A.
Robertson, A., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Ross, R., 1st R. C. A.
Rudland, R., 1st R. C. A.
Reid, W., civilian.
Ryan, D. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Simmons, W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Sloan, R., 1st R. C. A.
Stevenson, T., 1st Leicester Regiment.
Swinyard. W., R. C. A.
Steuart, G. W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Taylor, F. A. E., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Tester, S., 2nd R. C. A.
Trider, A., 1st R. C. A.
Trueman. W. E., 78th Colchester & Hants Battalion.
Walker, W. A., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Walsh, T. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Ward, E., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Walke, C. W. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Ward, G., 68th King's County Battalion.
Watson, J., R. C. A.
Woods. D., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Wright, P., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Zong, A. E., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.