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Title: A Woman's Part in a Revolution

Author: Natalie Harris Hammond

Release Date: February 19, 2005 [eBook #15109]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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A WOMAN'S PART IN A REVOLUTION

by

MRS. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND

Longmans, Green, and Co.
39 Paternoster Row London
New York and Bombay

1897

PREFACE

To the American Public, whose sympathy was my chief support through
days of bitter trial, this book is gratefully dedicated. My personal
experience forms the subject of my story. The causes of the Revolt in
Johannesburg, and the ensuing political questions, are but lightly
touched upon, in deference to the silence enforced upon my husband as
one of the terms of his liberation by the Boer Government.

NATALIE HAMMOND.

BOUGHTON: BICKLEY, KENT.
February, 1897.

A WOMAN'S PART IN A REVOLUTION

I hope I may be able to tell the truth always, and to see
it aright according to the eyes which God Almighty gives
me.--THACKERAY.

I.

Totsey the terrier lay blinking in the hot African sun, while Cecilia
Rhodes, the house kitten, languished in a cigar box wrapped about with
twine to represent bars of iron. Above her meek face was a large label
marked 'African Lion.' Her captor, my young son Jack, was out again
among the flower-beds in quest of other big game, armed with my
riding-crop. The canvas awnings flapped gently in the cool breeze.
Every now and then a fan-like arm of one of the large Madeira chairs
would catch the impetus and go speeding down the wide red-tiled
verandah. I looked up from the little garment which I was making, upon
this quiet picture. It was the last restful moment I was to know for
many long months--such months of suffering and agonised apprehension
as God in His mercy sends to few women.

David, my husband's black coachman