intended to represent the colours of the Transvaal Dutch Republic. The Englishman, who was rather drunk and very civil, apologized for this by explaining that he had his own patriotic feelings, but that as it was his lot in life to live by the Boers it was necessary that he should please the Boers. This was, however, the only flag of the Republic which I saw during my journey through the country, and I am inclined to think that our countryman had mistaken the signs of the time. I have however to acknowledge in his favour that he offered to make us a present of some fresh butter.
We passed that night at the house of a Boer, who was represented to me as being a man of wealth and repute in the country and as being peculiarly averse to English rule,—Dutch and republican to his heart's core. And I was told soon after by a party who had travelled over the same road, among whom there were two Dutchmen, that he had been very uncourteous to them. No man could have been more gracious than he was to us, who had come in as strangers upon his hospitality, with all our wants for ourselves our servants and our horses. I am bound to say that his house was very dirty, and the bed of a nature to make the flesh creep, and to force a British occupant of the chamber to wrap himself round with further guards of his own in the shape of rugs and great coats, rather than divest himself of clothes before he would lay himself down. And the copious mess of meat which was prepared for the family supper was not appetising. But nothing could be more grandly courteous than the old man's manner, or kinder than that of his wife. With this there was perhaps something of an air of rank,—*
