Great Britain, would be welded into one compact
mass, and flourish more and more.

Nor was this all. In the closing days of the year (1899) information
reached the British military authorities that a plot was on foot to
seize Capetown. The Dutch from the country districts were to assemble
in the capital in the guise of excursionists who had come to town to
enjoy the Christmas and New Year holidays. On New Year's Eve, the
night reported to have been fixed for the attempt, all the military
stations in Capetown were kept in frequent communication by telephone;
the streets were paraded by pickets; and, in the drill-shed the
Capetown Highlanders slept under arms. Whether any attempt of the sort
was seriously contemplated or not, there is no question as to the fact
that the utmost necessity for precaution was recognised by the
military authorities at Capetown during this period, in spite of the
security afforded by the reinforcements which the Home Government was
pouring into the Colony. It was an old boast of the militant Dutch in
the Cape Colony that they would find a way to prevent British troops
from using the colonial railways to attack the Boers.[204] And when
at length, a month after Lord Roberts had arrived, the transport
system had been reorganised, the troops concentrated at De Aar and
Modder River, and everything was ready for the forward movement, the
most complete secrecy was observed as to the departure of the
Commander-in-Chief and Lord Kitchener. Instead of leaving for the
front with the final drafts from the Capetown station in Adderley
Street, amid the cheering of the British population, these two
distinguished soldiers were driven in a close carriage, on the evening
of February 6th, from Government House to the Salt River Station,
where they caught the ordinary passenger train for De Aar.

[Footnote 204: At the time of the Bechuanaland Expedition
(1884-5), when the writer was in South Africa, "a controversy
was seriously maintained between the two moderate Afrikander
journals, the _Sud Africaan_ and the _Volksblad_, on the
question whether the Imperial Government had, or had not, the
right to send troops through the Colony, without the consent
of the Colonial Ministry. In commenting upon this question a
correspondent wrote in the _Patriot_, the extreme organ of
the Afrikanders: 'I believe the _Volksblad_ is correct in