ll educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy.
They have a lot of books to read, they play games & smoke, & for a
while they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for
long, not for very long, I take it. I am told they have times of
deadly brooding and depression. I made them a speech--sitting down.
It just happened so. I don't prefer that attitude. Still, it has
one advantage--it is only a talk, it doesn't take the form of a
speech . . . . I advised them at considerable length to stay
where they were--they would get used to it & like it presently; if
they got out they would only get in again somewhere else, by the
look of their countenances; & I promised to go and see the President
& do what I could to get him to double their jail terms....
We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up &.
a little over & we outsiders had to go. I went again to-day, but
the Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, & the warden, a genial, elderly
Boer named Du Plessis, explained that his orders wouldn't allow him
to admit saint & sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday.
Du Plessis descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200
years ago--but he hasn't any French left in him now--all Dutch.

Clemens did visit President Kruger a few days later, but not for the
purpose explained. John Hayes Hammond, in a speech not long ago (1911),
told how Mark Twain was interviewed by a reporter after he left the jail,
and when the reporter asked if the prisoners were badly treated Clemens
had replied that he didn't think so, adding:

"As a matter of fact, a great many of these gentlemen have fared far
worse in the hotels and mining-camps of the West."

Said Hammond in his speech: "The result of this was that the interview
was reported literally and a leader appeared in the next morning's issue
protesting against such lenience. The privations, already severe enough,
were considerably augmented by that remark, and it required some three or
four days' search on the part of some of our friends who were already
outside of jail to get hold of Mark Twain and have him go and explain to
Kruger that it was all a joke."

Clemens made as good a plea to "Oom Paul" as he could, and in some degree
may have been responsible for the improved treatment and the shortened
terms of the unlucky reformers.

They did not hurry away from South Africa