eriod of the war,
but it was the country's good fortune to have a Botha ready at hand to
fight a Colenso and a Spion Kop. When the burgher army along the Tugela
was hard pressed by the enemy and both its old-time leaders, Joubert and
Meyer, lay ill at the same time, it seemed little less than providential
that a Botha should step out of the ranks and lead the men with as much
discretion and valour as could have been expected from the experienced
generals whose work he undertook to accomplish. It was a modern
representation of the ploughman deserting his farm in order to lead in the
salvation of Rome.

Thirty-five years before he was called upon to be Commandant-General of
the army of his nation Louis Botha was born near the same spot where he
was chosen for that office, and on the soil of the empire against whose
forces he was pitting his strength and ability. In his youth he was wont
to listen to the narratives of the battles in which his father and
grandfather fought side by side against the hordes of natives who
periodically dyed the waters of the Tugela crimson with the blood of
massacred men and women. In early manhood Botha fought against the Zulus
and assisted Lucas Meyer in establishing the New Republic, which afterward
became his permanent home. Popularity, ability, and honesty brought him
into the councils of the nation as a member of the First Volksraad, where
he wielded great influence by reason of his conscientious devotion to duty
and his deep interest in the welfare of his country. When public affairs
did not require his presence in Pretoria, Botha was with his family on his
farm in Vryheid, and there he found the only happiness which he considered
worth having. The joys of a pastoral existence combined with the devotion
and love of his family were the keystone of Botha's happiness, and no man
had a finer realisation of his ambitions in that respect than he. Botha
was a warrior, no doubt, but primarily he was a man who loved the
peacefulness of a farm, the pleasures of a happy home-life, and the
laughter of his four children more than the tramp of victorious troops or
the roar of cannon.

There are a few men who have a certain magnetic power which attracts and
holds the admiration of others. Louis Botha was a man of this class.
Strangers who saw him for the first time loved him. There was an
indescribable something about him which caused men looking at him for the
first time to pledge their friendship fo