ad more than
one interview with their fighting generals. Medical men in their service I
found very much akin to medical men the world over. They patched up the
wounded and asked no questions concerning nationality, just as our own
medicos do. Personally, I must say that I found the Boers first-class
subjects for Press interviews. They did not know much about journalists and
the ways of journalism. Possibly had they had more experience in regard to
"interviews," I should not have found them quite so easy to manage, but it
never seemed to enter their heads that a man might make good "copy" out of
a quiet chat over pipes and tobacco. One of their stock subjects of
conversation was their great General, the man of Magersfontein--General
Cronje.

"What do you Britishers and Australians think of Cronje?" was a stock
question with them. "Do you think him a good fighter?"

"Well, yes, unquestionably he is a good fighting man."

"Do you think him as good as Lord Roberts?"

"No. We men of British blood don't think there are many men on earth as
good as the hero of Candahar."

"Do you think him as good a man as Lord Kitchener?"

"No. Very many of us consider the conqueror of the Soudan to be one who, if
he lives, will make as great a mark in history as Wellington."

At this a joyous smile would illuminate the face of the Boer. He would
reply, "Yes, yes; Roberts is a great man, a very great man indeed. So is
Kitchener, so is General French, so is General Macdonald, so is General
Methuen. Yet all those five men are attempting to get Cronje into a corner
where they can capture him. They have ten times as many soldiers as Cronje
has, ten times as many guns; therefore, what a really great man Cronje must
be on your own showing."

That was before the fatal 27th of February on which Cronje surrendered.

I often asked them how they, representing a couple of small States, came to
get hold of the idea that they could whip a colossal Power like Great
Britain in a life or death struggle; and almost invariably they informed me
that they had expected that one of the great European Powers would take an
active part in the struggle on their behalf, and, furthermore, they had
been taught to think that Britain's Empire was rotten to the core, so much
so that as soon as war commenced in earnest all her colonies would fall
away from her and hoist the flag of independence, and that India would leap
once again into open and bloody mutiny. They e