p-trap in it. And that is South Africa under one
Government, and under a strong and progressive Government. Human nature
is pretty much the same all the world over, and if the Boers have been
to blame in the past, no doubt the Britons have been just as much to
blame. Anyway, it is impossible and would be useless to strike a balance
between them now. The fact that stands out salient and that has to be
dealt with in the present is that South Africa is divided against
itself; that it never can and never will step up into its proper place
until it is united, and that, therefore, to fight for a united South
Africa is to fight on the right side and in a good cause.

And one thing I much like this plain reason for is, that it makes it
easy for one to do full justice to one's adversaries. I admire their
courage and patriotism very much. I acknowledge fully their dogged
obstinacy in defence and their dangerous coolness in retreat, and I am
sorry for them, too, and think it a sad thing that such brave men should
be identified with so impossible a cause. You must be careful how you
believe the reports sent home by war correspondents. I suppose people
like to hear harm of their enemies, and a daily paper's best business is
to give the public what the public wants rather than what is strictly
true. The consequence is that accounts of Boer fighting and of the Boers
themselves (traitors and cowards are the commonest words) are now
appearing which are neither more nor less than a disgrace to the papers
which publish them. I don't know since when it has become a British
fashion to slander a brave adversary, but I must say it seems to me a
singularly disgusting one, the more so when it is coupled with a gross
and indiscriminating praise of our own valour and performances.

LETTER XVII

THE MARCH NORTH

NEAR JOHANNESBURG, _May 31_, 1900.

"_May 1st_, 1900.--The long-looked, long-waited for moment has come at
last. We march from Bloemfontein on a glorious autumn morning, in fresh
cool air and the sky cloudless. Forty miles off Thaba Nchu, that hill of
ill omen, might be ten, so bold and clear it stands up above the lower
ranges. The level plain between the island hills is streaked with gauzy
mist.

"North of Bloemfontein we get into a pretty, uneven country with several
level-topped kopjes set end to end like dominoes, and thickets of grey
mimosas clustering in the hollows. The great column is moving forward on
our left. Big