the yard,
making remarks to his subordinates indicative of the satisfaction he
experienced in keeping the representative of Her Majesty outside in
the rain and mud. Upon occasions when he was afforded admission he
was hustled through the yard by a warder and not allowed to hold
private conversation with any of the prisoners. On several occasions
he complained that he was refused admission by order of the gaoler,
and the spectacle of England's representative being turned away by an
ignorant and ill-conditioned official like Du Plessis was not an
edifying one. It is only necessary to say that upon an occasion when
Du Plessis adopted the same tactics towards the Portuguese Consul
that gentleman proceeded at once to the Presidency and demanded as
his right free admission to the gaol whenever he chose to go, and the
right was promptly recognized although there was no subject of his
Government at the time within the precincts. Indeed the Portuguese
Consul stated openly that he called for the purpose of visiting as a
friend one of the Reform prisoners, giving the name of one of the
recalcitrants most objectionable to the Government. The American
Consul too carried matters with a high hand on the occasion of his
visit to Pretoria, and it seemed as though the Paramount Power was
the only one which the Transvaal Government could afford or cared to
treat with contempt.

The period of gaol life afforded the Reformers some opportunity of
studying a department of the Transvaal Administration which they had
not before realized to be so badly in need of reform. The system--if
system it can be called--upon which the gaol was conducted may be
gathered from the gaoler's own words. When one of the prisoners had
inquired of him whether a certain treatment to which a white convict
had been subjected was in accordance with the rules of the gaol and
had received an answer in the affirmative, he remarked that he did
not think many of the Reformers could exist under such conditions. Du
Plessis replied: 'Oh no! Not one of you would be alive a month
if the rules were enforced. No white man could stand them. Indeed,'
he added, 'if the rules were _properly_ enforced, not even a nigger
could stand them!'

Some subsequent experience of gaol-life induced the Reformers to
accept this view as tolerably correct. It is known for instance that
after the Malaboch war sixty-four of the tribe were incarcerated in
Pretoria Gaol. Some twenty were subsequently