at one side of it, with a statue of the
Queen before and broad-flagged stairs behind. It was the Parliament
House. The Legislative Assembly--their House of Commons--was
characteristically small, yet characteristically roomy and
characteristically comfortable. The members sit on flat green-leather
cushions, two or three on a bench, and each man's name is above his
seat: no jostling for Capetown. The slip of Press gallery is above the
Speaker's head; the sloping uncrowded public gallery is at the other
end, private boxes on one side, big windows on the other. Altogether it
looks like a copy of the Westminster original, improved by leaving
nine-tenths of the members and press and public out.

Yet here--alas, for placid Capetown!--they were wrangling.
They were wrangling about the commandeering of gold and the
sjamboking--shamboking, you pronounce it--of Johannesburg refugees.
There was Sir Gordon Sprigg, thrice Premier, grey-bearded, dignified,
and responsible in bearing and speech, conversationally reasonable in
tone. There was Mr Schreiner, the Premier, almost boyish with plump,
smooth cheeks and a dark moustache. He looks capable, and looks as if he
knows it: he, too, is conversational, almost jerky, in speech, but with
a flavour of bitterness added to his reason.

Everything sounded quiet and calm enough for Capetown--yet plainly
feeling was strained tight to snapping. A member rose to put a question,
and prefaced it with a brief invective against all Boers and their
friends. He would go on for about ten minutes, when suddenly angry cries
of "Order!" in English and Dutch would rise. The questioner commented
with acidity on the manners of his opponents. They appealed to the
chair: the Speaker blandly pronounced that the hon. gentleman had been
out of order from the first word he uttered. The hon. gentleman thereon
indignantly refused to put his question at all; but, being prevailed to
do so, gave an opening to a Minister, who devoted ten minutes to a
brief invective against all Uitlanders and their friends. Then up got
one of the other side--and so on for an hour. Most delicious of all was
a white-haired German, once colonel in the Hanoverian Legion which was
settled in the Eastern Province, and which to this day remains the
loyallest of her Majesty's subjects. When the Speaker ruled against his
side he counselled defiance in a resounding whisper; when an opponent
was speaking he snorted thunderous derision; when an op