husiastic, an idealist even, with a
horror of slaveholding, and a hankering for the pure life of the
humanist. In a measure he was too much in advance of the people with
whom he was connected. To them he was something of a Freethinker, a
man too ready to judge for himself while the Gospel was at hand to
judge for him. Such liberal views were not in accord with peasant
limitations. His desire to raise his country to the level of other
nations, to bring commerce and railways within touch of his people,
savoured of heresy. The appreciation for civilisation was so strong
within him that he is even said to have carried it to extremes, to
have favoured the prompt and regular payment of taxes, and to have
executed an elaborate design for an international coat-of-arms! Now
this reformer, like most reformers, was not appreciated among his
own people. He had no police to support him, no means of putting
pressure on those who should have served his cause. The Conservative
party, with Mr. Kruger at their head, did their best to circumvent
every innovation and to save themselves and the country from what
they believed to be the dangerous inorthodoxy of their President.
Mr. Burgers in his posthumous "Vindication" outlines some strange
hints regarding the character of his compatriots, which outlines may
now be readily filled in by personal experience. He therein asserts
that had he chosen to publish to the world a faithful description of
the Transvaal Boers, they would have forfeited the appreciation
gained from the Liberal party in Europe. Mr. Burgers' reserve is
much to be regretted, as a few sidelights thrown on the Boer
character at that period might have helped to educate the Liberal
party of whom he spoke, and thereby saved much of the vacillation of
policy for which the country now has to suffer.

[Illustration: SERGEANT-MAJOR of the 2nd DRAGOONS.

(ROYAL SCOTS GREYS.)

Photo by Gregory & Co., London.]

THE POLITICAL WEB

Before going further, we must examine the situation between the
Governor of the Cape, the President of the South African Republic,
and the Home Government.

When we look back at Boer history, we find the details of annexation
and restoration repeating themselves with the consistency of the
chorus of a nursery rhyme. What the Government of the Cape
accomplished the Government at home proceeded promptly to undo, till
the problems connected with Boer liberty and British rights became
so tangled and so