een him in the uniform of a Lieutenant General in the British
Army. Now he wore a loose-fitting lounge suit and a slouch hat was
jammed down on his head. In the change from khaki to mufti--and few men
can stand up under this transition without losing some of the character
of their personal appearance,--he remained a striking figure. There is
something wistful in his face--an indescribable look that projects
itself not only through you but beyond. It is not exactly preoccupation
but a highly developed concentration. This look seemed to be enhanced by
the ordeal through which he was then passing. In his springy walk was a
suggestion of pugnacity. His whole manner was that of a man in action
and who exults in it. Roosevelt had the same characteristic but he
displayed it with much more animation and strenuosity.

We sat down in the crowded dining room of the House of Parliament where
the Prime Minister had invited a group of Cabinet Ministers and leading
business men of Capetown. Around us seethed a noisy swirl which
reflected the turmoil of the South African political situation.
Parliament had just convened after an historic election in which the
Nationalists, the bitter antagonists of Botha and Smuts, had elected a
majority of representatives for the first time. Smuts was hanging on to
the Premiership by his teeth. A sharp division of vote, likely at any
moment, would have overthrown the Government. It meant a regime hostile
to Britain that carried with it secession and the remote possibility of
civil war.

In that restaurant, as throughout the whole Union, Smuts was at that
moment literally the observed of all observers. Far off in London the
powers-that-be were praying that this blonde and bearded Boer could
successfully man the imperial breach. Yet he sat there smiling and
unafraid and the company that he had assembled discussed a variety of
subjects that ranged from the fall in exchange to the possibilities of
the wheat crop in America.

The luncheon was the first of various meetings with Smuts. Some were
amid the tumult of debate or in the shadow of the legislative halls,
others out in the country at _Groote Schuur_, the Prime Minister's
residence, where we walked amid the gardens that Cecil Rhodes loved, or
sat in the rooms where the Colossus "thought in terms of continents." It
was a liberal education.

Before we can go into what Smuts said during these interviews it is
important to know briefly the whole appro