new
very little about all this then, but before I had been many days on
board it was not difficult to discover that much mystery filled the air,
and I was greatly excited at arriving in South Africa in such stirring
times. There is no such place for getting to know people well as on a
sea-voyage of eighteen days. Somehow the sea inspires confidence, and
one knows that information imparted cannot, anyway, be posted off by the
same day's mail. So those who were helping to pull the strings of this
ill-fated rebellion talked pretty freely of their hopes and fears during
the long, dark tropical evenings.

I became familiar with their grievances--their unfair taxation; no
education for their children except in Dutch; no representation in
Parliament--and this in a population in which, at that time, the
English and Afrikanders at Johannesburg and in the surrounding districts
outnumbered the Dutch in the proportion of about 6 to 1. They laid
stress on the fact that neither the Boers nor their children were, or
desired to become, miners, and, further, that for the enormous sums
spent on developing and working the mines no proper security existed. I
must admit it was the fiery-headed followers who talked the
loudest--those who had nothing to lose and much to gain. The financiers,
while directing and encouraging their zeal, seemed almost with the same
hand to wish to put on the brake and damp their martial ardour. In any
case, all were so eloquent that by the time our voyage was ended I felt
as great a rebel against "Oom Paul" and his Government as any one of
them.

Before leaving the _Tantallon Castle_, however, I must pass in review
some of those whose home it had been with ourselves for the best part of
three weeks. First I remember the late Mr. Alfred Beit, interesting as
the man who had made the most colossal fortune of all the South African
magnates, and who was then already said to be the most generous of
philanthropists and the kindest of friends; this reputation he fully
sustained in the subsequent years of his life and in the generous
disposition of his vast wealth. I have often been told that Mr. Cecil
Rhodes owed the inspiration of some of his colossal ideas to his friend
Mr. Beit, and when it came to financing the same, the latter was always
ready to assist in carrying out projects to extend and consolidate the
Empire. In these latter years, and since his comparatively early death,
I have heard those who still bear t