and so forth, and so on; but we must not derive from all this
peripatetic fustian the erroneous impression that His Honour has been
vacuously fiddling on the eve of a conflagration. The real business
which took him to Lydenburg and Middelburg has no doubt been
satisfactorily accomplished. Boer sentiment has been tested in
secret, and the usual professions of fervid patriotism and of
readiness for target practice with the Uitlander as the mark have
been profusely evoked. This sub-official aspect of the itinerary has
been discreetly veiled in all the reports which have been permitted
to transpire, and the censorship thereof has been more than normally
exacting and severe; but we are from private sources left in no
manner of doubt that Mr. Kruger has been canvassing and stimulating
the Boers to be ready for any emergency, and has been metaphorically
planting a war-beacon on every hill. All scrutiny and inquiry fail to
discover that he has uttered one single word which can be described
as an emollient to the present critical situation. He has pandered
rather to the worst racial passions of the Boer, instead of using the
enormous responsibility resting upon him in the direction of
mediation. Old patriarchs--whom we cannot but respect and admire
whilst we deplore their immitigable and hopeless rancour against the
cause of the newcomer--have been permitted, apparently without
rebuke, to show their wounds to the younger and more malleable
generation in His Honour's presence, and to boast of their readiness
to receive as much more lead as they can conveniently find room for.
The tour, indeed, has been a _wapenschouwing_, with oratory of the
most dangerous and pernicious type for its accompaniment. His
Honour's contribution to this interesting display of martial ardour
has been couched, as usual, in the enigmatic form. He has spoken
another parable. A mind so fertile in image and in simile cannot have
lost much of its wonted vigour. The one he has chosen to employ on
this occasion is full of instruction, and is derived, as Mr. Kruger's
images frequently are, from the arena of natural history. When you
want to kill your tortoise, he must be artfully induced to
imprudently protrude his head beyond his thick and impregnable shell,
and then the task becomes a very easy one. This little parable was
considered good for use on more than one occasion, varied by the
addition that, if the tortoise be up to the trick, it is necessary to
si