resenting the State with great tracts of country in
exchange for a horse or a few oxen. However fond the natives may be of
their Boer neighbours, such liberality can scarcely be genuine. On the
other hand, it is so easy to induce a savage to sign a paper, or even,
if he is reticent, to make a cross for him, and once made, as we all
know, _litera scripa manet_, and becomes title to the lands.

During the Secocoeni investigation, affairs in the Transvaal were
steadily drifting towards anarchy. The air was filled with rumours;
now it was reported that an outbreak was imminent amongst the English
population at the Gold Fields, who had never forgotten Von Schlickmann's
kind suggestion that they should be "subdued;" now it was said that
Cetywayo had crossed the border, and might shortly be expected at
Pretoria; now that a large body of Boers were on their road to shoot
the Special Commissioner, his twenty-five policemen and Englishmen
generally, and so on.

Meanwhile, Paul Kruger and his party were not letting the grass grow
under their feet, but worked public feeling with great vigour, with the
double object of getting Paul made President and ridding themselves
of the English. Articles in his support were printed in the well-known
Dutch paper "Die Patriot," published in the Cape Colony, which are so
typical of the Boers and of the only literature that has the slightest
influence over them, that I will quote a few extracts from one of them.

After drawing a very vivid picture of the wretched condition of the
country as compared to what it was when the Kafirs had "a proper
respect" for the Boers, before Burgers came into power, the article
proceeds to give the cause of this state of affairs. "God's word," it
says, "gives us the solution. Look at Israel, while the people have a
godly king, everything is prosperous, but under a godless prince
the land retrogrades, and the whole of the people must suffer.
Read Leviticus, chapter 26, with attention, &c. In the day of the
Voortrekkers (pioneers), a handful of men chased a thousand Kafirs and
made them run; so also in the Free State War (Deut. xxxii. 30; Jos.
xxiii. 10; Lev. xxvi. 8). But mark, now when Burgers became President,
he knows no Sabbath, he rides through the land in and out of town on
Sunday, he knows not the church and God's service (Lev. xxvi. 2-3) to
the scandal of pious people. And he formerly was a priest too. And what
is the consequence? No harvest (Lev. xxvi. 16