lso one or two other things to rely upon.
We had considerable confidence in our own weapons; we
under-estimated the enemy; the fighting spirit had seized upon
our people; and the thought of victory had banished that of the
possibility of defeat."

And Mr. J. L. Meyer, a member of the Government of the Republic, and
one of the few progressive Boers whose judgment had not been clouded
by the fever of war passion, said: "In the past I was against the war;
I wished that the five years' franchise should be granted;" and this
"although the people had opposed" the measure. And Mr. Advocate Smuts,
State-Attorney to the late South African Republic, and then a general
of the Boer forces in the field, said: "I am one of those who, as
members of the Government of the South African Republic, provoked the
war with England." This is evidence which we may believe, since in
the circumstances in which these men met the Father of Lies himself
would have found no occasion for departing from the truth.

[Sidenote: The Burgher camps.]

No less conclusive is the admission, made with perfect frankness now
that shifts and deceits and calumnies were no longer of any use, that
the Boers, whatever they said, had proved by their acts that they
regarded the burgher camps as havens of refuge, not "methods of
barbarism"; and that it was Lord Kitchener's refusal to admit any more
Boer non-combatants to the shelter of the British lines that brought
the guerilla leaders to Pretoria to sue for peace. On May 29th General
de Wet, in a last effort to induce the burghers to prolong the war,
said:

"I am asked what I mean to do with the women and children. That
is a very difficult question to answer. We must have faith. I
think also we might meet the emergency in this way--a part of the
men should be told off to lay down their arms for the sake of the
women, and then they could take the women with them to the
English in the towns."

But Commandant-General Louis Botha doubted the possibility of any
longer carrying this plan into effect.

"When the war began," he said, on May 30th, "we had plenty of
provisions, and a commando could remain for weeks in one spot
without the local food running out. Our families, too, were then
well provided for. But all this is now changed. One is only too
thankful nowadays to know that our wives are under English
protection. This question of ou