nse and forced labour.

These remarks must not be taken to apply to the Cape Boers, who are a
superior class of men, since they, living under a settled and civilised
Government, have been steadily improving, whilst their cousins,
living every man for his own hand, have been deteriorating. The old
Voortrekkers, the fathers and grandfathers of the Transvaal Boer of
to-day, were, without doubt, a very fine set of men, and occasionally
you may in the Transvaal meet individuals of the same stamp whom it is a
pleasure to know. But these are generally men of a certain age with some
experience of the world; the younger men are very objectionable in their
manners.

The real Dutch Patriotic party is not to be found in the Transvaal, but
in the Cape Colony. Their object, which, as affairs now are, is well
within the bounds of possibility, is by fair means or foul to swamp
the English element in South Africa, and to establish a great Dutch
Republic. It was this party, which consists of clever and well educated
men, who raised the outcry against the Transvaal Annexation, because it
meant an enormous extension of English influence, and who had the wit,
by means of their emissaries and newspapers, to work upon the feeling of
the ignorant Transvaal farmers until they persuaded them to rebel; and
finally, to avail themselves of the yearnings of English radicalism for
the disruption of the Empire and the minimisation of British authority,
to get the Annexation cancelled. All through this business the Boers
have more or less danced in obedience to strings pulled at Cape Town,
and it is now said that one of the chief wire-pullers, Mr. Hofmeyer, is
to be asked to become President of the Republic. These men are the real
patriots of South Africa, and very clever ones too, not the Transvaal
Boers, who vapour about their blood and their country and the accursed
Englishman to order, and are in reality influenced by very small
motives, such as the desire to avoid payment of taxes, or to hunt away
a neighbouring Englishman, whose civilisation and refinement are as
offensive as his farm is desirable. Such are the Dutch inhabitants of
the Transvaal. I will now give a short sketch of their institutions as
they were before the Annexation, and to which the community has reverted
since its recision, with, I believe, but few alterations.

The form of government is republican, and to all intents and purposes,
manhood suffrage prevails, supreme power res