nd chatting about life in far off Australia. Another familiar face was
that of an English private, named Charles Laxen, of the Northumberlands,
who was wounded at Stormberg. I am told that he displayed excellent pluck
before he was laid out, firstly by a piece of shell on the side of the
head, and, later, by a Mauser bullet through the left knee. He is getting
along O.K., but will never see service as a soldier again on account of the
wounded leg.

I had written to the President of the Orange Free State, asking him to
grant me my liberty on the ground that I was a non-combatant. Yesterday Mr.
Steyn courteously sent his private secretary and carriage to the hospital
with an intimation that I should be granted an interview. I was accordingly
driven down to what I believe was the Stadt House. In Australia we should
term it the Town Hall. The President met me, and treated me very
courteously, and, after chatting over my capture and the death of my
friend, he informed me that I might have my liberty as soon as I considered
myself sufficiently recovered to travel. He offered me a pass _via_
Lourenco Marques, but I pointed out that if I were sent that way I should
be so far away from my work as to be practically useless to my paper. The
President explained to me that it was not his wish nor the desire of his
colleagues to hamper me in any way in regard to my work. "What we want more
than anything else," remarked the President, "is that the world shall know
the truth, and nothing but the truth, in reference to this most unhappy
war, and we will not needlessly place obstruction in your way in your
search for facts; if we can by any means place you in the British lines we
will do so. If we find it impossible to do that you must understand that
there is some potent reason for it." So I let that question drop, feeling
satisfied that everything that a sensible man has a right to ask would be
done on my behalf.

President Steyn is a man of a notable type. He is a big man physically,
tall and broad, a man of immense strength, but very gentle in his manner,
as so many exceptionally strong men are. He has a typical Dutch face, calm,
strong, and passionless. A man not easily swayed by outside agencies; one
of those persons who think long and earnestly before embarking upon a
venture, but, when once started, no human agency would turn him back from
the line of conduct he had mapped out for himself. He is no ignorant
back-block politician,