evil effects of remoteness and of a bad beginning can be removed. CHAPTER VI. The Transvaal.-Pretoria to the Diamond Fields. ON the 1st of October I and my friend started from Pretoria for the Diamond Fields, having spent a pleasant week at the capital of the Transvaal. There was, however, one regret. I had not seen Sir Theophilus Shepstone though I had been entertained at his house. He, during the time, had been absent on one of those pilgrimages which Colonial Governors make through their domains, and would be absent so long that I could not afford the time to wait his return. I should much have liked to discuss with him the question of the annexation, and to have heard from his own lips, as I had heard from those of Mr. Burgers, a description of what had passed at the interviews between them. I should have been glad, also, to have learned from himself what he had thought of the danger to which the Dutch community had been subject from the Kafirs and Zulus,--from Secocoeni and Cetywayo,—at the moment of his coming. But the tale which was not told to me by him was, I think, told with accuracy by some of those who were with him. I have spoken my opinion very plainly, and I hope not too confidently of the affair, and I will only add to that now an assurance of my conviction that had I been in Sir T. Shepstone's place and done as he did, I should have been proud of the way I had served my country. We started in our cart with our horses as we thought in grand condition. While at Pretoria we had been congratulated on the way in which we had made our purchases and travelled the road surmounting South African difficulties as though we had been at the work all our lives. We had refilled our commissariat chest, and with the exception that my companion had shied a bottle of brandy, joint property,--at the head of a dog that would bite him,-not me, as we were packing the cart, there had been as yet no misfortune. Our Cape-boy driver had not once been drunk and nothing material had been lost or broken. We got off at II A.M.; and at half past one P.M., having travelled about fifteen miles in the normal two and a half hours, -we spanned out and shared our lunch with a very hungry-looking Dutchman who squatted himself on his haunches close to our little fire. He was herding cattle and seemed to be very poor and hungry. I imagined him to be some unfortunate who was working for low wages at a distance from his home. But I found him to be the lord of the soil, the owner of the herd, and the possessor of a homestead about a mile distant. I have no doubt he would have given me what he had to give if I had called at his house. As it was he seemed to be delighted with fried bacon and biscuits, and was aroused almost to enthusiasm over a little drop of brandy and water. On our road during this day we stopped at an accommodation house, as it is called in the country,-or small Inn, kept by an Englishman. Here before the door I saw flying a flag intended to represent the colours of the Transvaal Dutch Republic. The Englishman, who was rather drunk and very civil, apologized for this by explaining that he had his own patriotic feelings, but that as it was his lot in life to live by the Boers it was necessary that he should please the Boers. This was, however, the only flag of the Republic which I saw during my journey through the country, and I am inclined. to think that our countryman had mistaken the signs of the time. I have however to acknowledge in his favour that he offered to make us a present of some fresh butter. We passed that night at the house of a Boer, who was represented to me as being a man of wealth and repute in the country and as being peculiarly averse to English rule,-Dutch and republican to his heart's core. And I was told soon after by a party who had travelled over the same road, among whom there were two Dutchmen, that he had been very uncourteous to them. No man could have been more gracious than he was to us, who had come in as strangers upon his hospitality, with all our wants for ourselves our servants and our horses. I am bound to say that his house was very dirty, and the bed of a nature to make the flesh creep, and to force a British occupant of the chamber to wrap himself round with further guards of his own in the shape of rugs and great coats, rather than divest himself of clothes before he would lay himself down. And the copious mess of meat which was prepared for the family supper was not appetising. But nothing could be more grandly courteous than the old man's manner, or kinder than that of his wife. With this there was perhaps something of an air of rank,—just a touch of a consciousness of superiority,-—— as there might be with some old Earl at home who in the midst of his pleasant amenities could not quite forget his ancestors. Our host could not speak a word of English,- nor we of Dutch; but an Englishman was in the house, one of the schoolmasters of whom I have before spoken, and thus we were able to converse. Not a word was said about the annexation;-but much as to the farming prospects of the country. He had grown rich and was content with the condition of the land. - He was heartily abused to us afterwards by the party which contained the two Dutchmen as being a Boer by name and a boor by nature, as being a Boer all round and down to the ground. These were not Hollanders from Holland, but Dutchmen lately imported from the Cape Colony; and as such were infinitely more antagonistic to the real Boer than would be any Englishman out from Europe. To them he was a dirty, ignorant, and arrogant Savage. To him they were presumptuous, newfangled, vulgar upstarts. They were men of culture and of sense and of high standing in the new country,—but between them and him there were no sympathies. I think that the English who have now taken the Transvaal will be able, after a while, to rule the Boers and to extort from them that respect without which there can be no comfort between the governors and the governed; -but the work must be done by English and not by Dutch hands. The Dutch Boer will not endure over him either a reforming Hollander from Europe, or a spickand-span Dutch Africander from the Cape Colony. The reforming Hollander and the spick-and-span Dutch Africander are very intelligent people. It is not to be supposed that I am denying them any good qualities which are to be found in Englishmen. But the Boer does not love them. Soon after starting from our aristocratic friend's house one of our horses fell sick. He was the one that kicked, -a bright bay little pony,—and in spite of his kicking had been the favourite of the team. We dined that day about noon at a Boer's house, and there we did all that we knew to relieve the poor brute. We gave him chlorodyne and alum,-in accordance with advice which had been given to us for our behoof along the road,—and when we started we hitched him on behind, and went the last stage for that day with a unicorn team. Then we gave him whisky, but it was of no use. That night he could not feed, and early the next morning he laid himself down when he was brought out of the stable and died at my feet. It was our first great misfortune. Ourother three horses were not the better or the brighter for all the work they had done, and would certainly not be able to do what would be required of them without a fourth companion. The place we were now at is called Wonder Fontein, and is remarkable, not specially for any delightfully springing run of water, but for a huge cave, which is supposed to go some miles underground. We went to visit it just at sunset, and being afraid of returning in the dark, had not time to see all of it that is known. But we climbed down into the hole, and lit our candles and wandered about for a time. Here and there, in every direction, there were branches and passages running under ground which had hitherto never been explored. The son of the Boer who owned the farm at which we were staying, was with us, and could guide us through certain ways;but other streets of the place were unknown to him, and, as he assured us, had never yet been visited by man. The place was full of bats, but other animals we saw none. In getting down, the path was narrow, steep, low and disagreeable enough;-but when once we were in the cave we could walk without stooping. At certain periods when the rains had been heavy the caves would become full of water,—and then they would drain themselves when the rains had ceased. It was a hideously ugly place; and most uninteresting were it not that anything not customary interests us to some extent. The caves were very unlike those in the Cango district, which I described in the first volume. At Wonder Fontein there were six or seven guests |