ing them pervades
all classes; but they are still regarded by many of their masters as
having no actual rights either in Church or State. So when a
victorious English army appeared upon the scene they fondly thought
the day of their full emancipation had dawned, and in wildly excited
accents they shouted as we passed, "=_Vic_toria! _Vic_toria!="
Whereupon our scarcely less excited lads in responsive shouts replied,
"=_Pre_toria! _Pre_toria!="

Surely never was the inner meaning and significance of a great
historic event more aptly voiced. The natives beheld in the advent of
English rule the promise of ampler liberty and enlightenment under
Victoria the Good; but the hearts of the soldiers were set on the
speedy capture of Pretoria, as the crowning outcome of all their toil,
and their probable turning-point towards home. Well said both!
Pretoria! Victoria!

[Sidenote: _The Gold Mines._]

Lord Roberts' rapid march rescued from impending destruction the
costly machinery and shafting of the Witwaterrand gold mines, in which
capital to the extent of many millions had been sunk, and out of which
many hundreds of millions are likely to be dug. By some strange freak
of nature this lofty ridge, lying about 6000 feet above the sea level,
and forming a narrow gold-bearing bed over a hundred miles long, is by
universal confession the richest treasure-house the ransackers of the
whole earth have yet brought to light. "The wealth of Ormuz or of
Ind," immortalised by Milton's most majestic epic, the wealth of the
Rand completely eclipses, and nothing imagined in the glowing pages of
the "Arabian Nights" rivals in solid worth the sober realities now
being unearthed along this uninviting ridge. It fortunately was not in
the power of the Boer Government to carry off this as yet ungarnered
treasure, or it would certainly have shared the fate of the cart-loads
of gold in bar and coin with which President Kruger decamped from
Pretoria; but it is beyond all controversy that many of that
Government's officials favoured the proposal to wreck, as far as
dynamite could, both the machinery and mines in mere wanton revenge on
the hated Outlanders that mainly owned them. That policy was thwarted
by the swiftfootedness of the troops, and by the tactfulness of
Commandant Krause, through whose arranging Johannesburg was peacefully
surrendered; but who now, by some strange irony of fate, lies a felon
in an English jail!

Nevertheless, later on en