end that the omission of the word
"suzerainty" in 1884 was intentional, and designed to permit the
State to style itself an independent Republic, while all
level-headed persons are fully aware that no Republic could have
been granted complete independence while under a weight of debt for
money and blood spent for years and years to save it from collapse
and annihilation. Moreover, the guarantee of independence of the
Transvaal was so unmistakably a result of suzerainty that the
repetition of the word was unnecessary.

MR. KRUGER

Of the man who now began to play so prominent a part on the
political stage, the world at that time knew but little. Even now
opinions regarding him are many and varied, and it may be
interesting to read, in close juxtaposition, sketches of his
character and ways which have from time to time been drawn by those
who have come in contact with him.

Perhaps no more impartial sketch can be presented than that of Mr.
Distant, a naturalist, who visited the Transvaal about eight years
ago. He said:--"President Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger was born
on the 10th October 1825, in the district of Colesburg in the Cape
Colony, and is without doubt the greatest and most representative
man that the Boers have yet produced. Uneducated, or self-educated,
he possesses a very large amount of that natural wisdom so often
denied to men of great learning and of literary cultivation. With
many prejudices, he is fearless, stubborn, and resolute, and he
really understands Englishmen little better than they understand
him. In his earlier days he has been a somewhat ardent sportsman and
a good shot. He has been engaged and honourably mentioned in most of
the Kaffir fights of his time.... Socially, he has always lived in a
somewhat humble position, and it is to the credit of his nature as a
man that he bears not the slightest trace of the _parvenu_. Plain
and undistinguished in appearance, he combines the advantages of a
prodigious memory with a remarkable aptitude for reading his
fellow-man, and this last quality would be more valuable were it not
leavened by a weakness in resisting flattery and adulation. He is
very pious and self-reliant, which is provocative of bigotry and hot
temper; and surrounded and approached on all sides by clever and
often unscrupulous financiers and speculators, his scutcheon has
worn wonderfully well, and his character and reputation passed
through many fiery ordeals. He is also a