the midst of whom I dwelt. Presently I was startled by an
outburst of wildest cheering from one group; and a moment after from a
second; so springing to my feet I found our lads hurling their helmets
in the air, and shouting like men demented. Not for the chaplains only
that glad hour turned prayer to praise, and thrilled all hearts with
patriotic if not pious pride.

An officer was riding post-haste from point to point where our men
were massed, bearing the delicious tidings that Pretoria too had
unconditionally surrendered. The news swiftly sped from battalion to
battery, and from battery to battalion. First here, then there, then
far away yonder, the cheering rang out clear and loud as a trumpet
call. Comrade congratulated comrade, while Christian men, with
tear-filled eyes, reverently looked up and rendered thanks to Him of
whom it is written, "Thine is the victory."

[Sidenote: _Why the surrender?_]

Remembering how feeble Mafeking was held for months by the merest
handful of men pitted against a host, it is not easy to understand
why this city of roses, so pretty, and of which the Boers were all so
proud, was opened to its captors after only the merest pretence at
opposition. Lord Roberts is reported to have said that in his opinion
it occupied the strongest position he had yet seen in all South
Africa; and to my non-professional mind it instantly brought to
remembrance the familiar lines which tell how round about Jerusalem
the hilly bulwarks rise. The surrender of such a centre of their
national life must have been to the burghers like the plucking out of
a right eye, or the cutting off of a right hand. How came it to pass,
without an effort to hinder it?

The German expert, Count Sternberg, who accompanied the Boers
throughout the war, declared that though considered from the
continental standpoint they are bad soldiers; in their own country, in
ambushes or stratagems, which constitute their favourite type of
warfare, "they are simply superb." He adds they would have achieved
much greater success if they had not abandoned all idea of taking the
offensive. "For that they lack courage; and to that lack of courage
they owe their destruction."

But their flight, like their long after continuance in guerilla types
of warfare, points to quite another cause than this lack of courage.
The Boer is proverbially a lover of his own; and so, though with
liberal hand he laid waste bridge and culvert and plant, as he