uppers' are no better off than those who went out on commando. It is claimed that these men should receive compensation before any distribution is made among the fighting Boers. There is no doubt that our neglect to act with justice in this case would rankle deeply in the minds of these people, and would be quoted all over the country, and for years to come, by our enemies, as yet another instance of Great Britain's breach of faith. It is a very old tradition in South Africa that Great Britain's pledges cannot be trusted. The non-fulfilment of a promise which the people understand to have been made in her name by her greatest and most chivalrous soldier would create the worst of impressions. I have heard it argued that these people would have lost their cattle and crops even if they had not acted on Lord Roberts's proclamation. This is no doubt the case; but the point is whether or not the words of the proclamation bind us in honour to compensate the farmers who relied on our protection. Moreover, is it good policy to abandon those who have given us assistance, as we are so generally, and sometimes with justice, accused of doing?

I hired a driver, a cart, and four good horses, and left Wepener in the afternoon of January 22 to drive seventy-four miles across the veldt to Bloemfontein. Having crossed the bridge that spans the Caledon at Jammersberg, we traversed a flat uninteresting-looking country, very parched after the prolonged drought, with no water in the spruits, and very little left in the dams. Every farmhouse we passed was in ruins. Not one had door, window, or roof, and some had collapsed in consequence of the removal of the supporting woodwork. Scarcely a fence either had been left standing. This road was often followed by our columns, and it is

IN DE WET'S COUNTRY

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now lined with the bones of the many transport animals that perished by the way, the whole veldt twinkling, too, with the thousands of empty meat tins that mark the path of the British Tommies.

We were now in De Wet's country, and several of the farms we passed-in ruins like the others-belong to him and to members of his family. We halted for the night in the village that bears his name, Dewetsdorp, a pretty little place of perhaps three hundred inhabitants. Here every house had been gutted and stripped of its woodwork. Over and over again British columns and Boer commandos passed through Dewetsdorp, and it will be remembered that this was the scene of one of our reverses. Here a British force of four hundred men surrendered to De Wet after seven days' investment. The British held a steep ridge that hems in the village on its west side, while the Boer guns were stationed on a kopje to the eastward of it. Dewetsdorp thus lay between the two fires, and people who remained in it during that week of constant fighting tell me that while the shells all passed over their heads the bullets from both sides plentifully peppered their houses. The Boers drew in closer day by day till at last a portion of the very extended British positions became untenable. But the defenders might possibly still have held on, as was the case at Wepener, until relief came, had it not been that their water supply was cut off, and the intolerable thirst made surrender necessary. It was a gallant defence, in the course of which we lost sixty killed and wounded. Sir A. Conan Doyle, in his 'History of the War,' tells us that of the eighteen men who served one of the British guns sixteen were killed or wounded, the last rounds being fired by the sergeant-farrier, who carried, loaded, and fired all by himself.

At four in the morning of January 23 we inspanned and resumed our journey across the burnt-up veldt. At last a long bank of dust on the horizon showed us where lay Bloemfontein; and at midday, having passed the tented camps and the huge piles of military stores that lie outside the town, we drove into the broad straight streets of the capital of the Orange River Colony.

CHAPTER X

IN BLOEMFONTEIN-A LAND BOOM-SCOTCH EX-BURGHERS OF THE FREE STATE-BOER PREFERENCE FOR ENGLISH EDUCATION-BRITISH SETTLERS IN THE COLONY-WORK OF THE LAND SETTLEMENT BOARD-CONDITIONS OF TENURE-LAND SETTLEMENT IN THE CONQUERED TERRITORY.

It would amaze Herr Bloem, who gave his name to Bloemfontein, and the rough stone walls of whose farm are still standing in the grounds of the LieutenantGovernor's residence, if he could revisit the glimpses of the moon and see what the town has now become. Before the war, though the capital of a prosperous Republic, it was a very quiet place. It was merely the chief market town of a purely farming district, with no din to disturb its broad garden-lined streets, save that caused by the weird cries of the drivers and the cracking of the whips, as the long teams of oxen slowly dragged into the spacious market-square the creaking waggons laden with the produce of the countryside. But now all that is changed. The slumberous days of good old Herr Bloem are no more, the spirit of progress is in the air, the streets of Bloemfontein present an animated appearance, new buildings are rising everywhere, trade is brisk, new stores are being established, there is a 'boom' in township lots, new waterworks are being constructed, and the unmistakable signs of advance and increasing prosperity meet one at every step. To add to the general liveliness there is the garrison, the white tents and the huts of whose camps are scattered over the rolling grass country that surrounds

the town. At the time of my visit the 2nd Worcesters, the 1st Gloucesters, and the South Wales Borderers represented our infantry in the district, the 20th Hussars our cavalry, and there was also a battery of Artillery. In the afternoon one military band or the other played in the market-square, which was then thronged with promenaders, of Dutch blood for the most part; for these did not sulk here as in the Cape, but maintained friendly relations with the British and joined in their amusements.

When walking through the streets of Bloemfontein one finds it difficult to realise that but a few months ago the two races were at war in this land. That it is, indeed, a conquered country is brought home to one only by the brand-new emblazonments of the British royal arms that have replaced the arms of the late Republic on the façades of the handsome public buildings. In the course of my cross-country trek from the Orange River I could detect no bitterness among the inhabitants, and I found that state of affairs prevailing in the capital. At the club the men of the two races met most amicably. There was no sharp cleavage of society into British and Dutch as in Cape Colony centres.

Many are the reasons one could adduce for the undoubted fact that the reconciliation of the two peoples has advanced further in this colony than in the others. In the first place there is no Bond here to breed dissension as in the Cape. The bulk of the people are better educated and less narrow-minded than the dwellers in the Transvaal, and they perhaps realise more fully than the Transvaal people that the British Government really wishes them well and can be trusted to look after their interests. Lord Milner, as Governor of both the new colonies, has disarmed the suspicion of the Dutch and