off steam as though in frantic anger.
Presently we slowed down almost to a walking pace, for we had no wish
to spill the blood or crush the bones of even obstructive horses. But
as we slowed our pace they provokingly slackened theirs, and when
once more we put on steam they did the same. So in sheer desperation
our guard dismounted and ran himself completely out of breath, while
he pelted the nearest of the drove with stones, and sought to scare it
with flourishes of his official cap. But that horse behaved like a
dull-headed ass, and cared no more for the waving of official caps
than for the wild screaming of our steam whistle. We were losing time
horribly fast because our pace was thus made so horribly slow. Finally
a pilot engine came down from Middelburg to ascertain what had become
of our long belated train, and this unlooked for movement from the
rear fortunately proved too much for the nerves of even such
determined obstructionists. It scared them as effectually as a
flanking movement scared the Boers. They broke in terror from the line
and, Boerlike, vanished.

[Sidenote: _Middelburg and the Doppers._]

Middelburg we found to be a thriving village, which will probably grow
into an important town when the mineral wealth of the district is in
due time developed. At present the principal building is as usual the
Dutch Reformed Church, the pastor of which had forsaken the female
portion of his flock to follow the fortunes of the fighting section.
There are also two good-sized Dopper churches, which habitually remain
void and empty all the year round, except on one Sunday in each
quarter, when the farmer folk come from near and far to hold a fair,
and to celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper--"The night meal,"
as they appropriately call it. These are the four great events of
the Dopper year, and of this tiny city's business life.

The Dopper is the ultra Boer of South Africa, the Puritan of Puritans,
the Covenanter of Covenanters, whose religious creed and conduct are
compacted of manifold rigidities, and who would deem it as
unpardonable a sin to shave off his beard, as it would have been for
an early Methodist preacher to wear one. Formerly Doppers and
Methodists both piously combed their hair over their foreheads, and
clipped it in a straight line just above the eyebrows. But alas! in
this as in many other directions, Methodists and Doppers have alike
become "subject to vanity." In these degenerate days