re standing before the
latter, after the fashion of tourists, our guide suddenly became very
excited, and told us we were really in good luck, for the President was
just about to leave his office on his return home for his midday meal.
In a few minutes the old gentleman emerged, guarded by four armed
burghers, and passed rapidly into his carriage. We took a good look at
this remarkable personage. Stout in figure, with a venerable white
beard, in a somewhat worn frock-coat and a rusty old black silk hat,
President Kruger did not look the stern dictator of his little kingdom
which in truth he was. Our Dutch friend told us Oom Paul was in the
habit of commencing work at 5 a.m., and that he transacted business,
either at his house or in the Government Offices, with short
intermissions, until 5 p.m. Simply worshipped by his burghers, he was on
a small scale, and in his ignorant fashion, a man of iron like Bismarck,
notably in his strong will and in the way in which he imposed the same
on his countrymen. The extent of his personal influence could be gauged
when one considered that his mere orders had restrained his
undisciplined soldier-burghers, who, irritated by being called away from
their peaceful existences, maddened by the loss of some of their number
who fell in the fighting, and elated by their easy victory, were
thirsting to shoot down the leaders of the Raid, as they stood, in the
market-square at Krugersdorp. The state of the Boer Government at that
time added to the President's difficulties. He was hampered by the
narrowest--minded Volksraad (Parliament) imaginable, who resented tooth
and nail even the most necessary concessions to the Uitlanders; he was
surrounded by corrupt officials, most of whom were said to be implicated
in the late rebellion; he was the head of a community which was known to
be split up into several sections, owing to acute religious disputes;
and yet he contrived, at seventy-one years of age, to outwit the 60,000
Uitlanders at Johannesburg, and to present his rotten republic as a
model of all that was excellent and high-minded to the world at large.
At the same time he compelled his burghers to forget their own
differences, as they hurled defiance at the common foe. It seems to be a
truism that it requires a Boer to rule a Boer; and in some ways the
mantle of President Kruger would appear to have descended in our days
upon General Louis Botha. According to all accounts, his will is now law
t