has seen many great
assemblies in its 800 years of life, but this inquiry into the affairs of
the Transvaal is by no means the least interesting of them.

If you take your map, you will see that the southern part of Africa is
divided into several states and colonies.

Cape Colony, the most southerly of all, belongs to England. Then comes the
Orange Free State, and then the South African Republic, or the Transvaal,
as it is called. You will notice that the English possessions creep up the
coast in front of the Transvaal, and also form its western or land
boundary.

The Transvaal is a Republic originally settled by the Dutch. Its
inhabitants are called Boers, and they are a race of sturdy farmers. It is
from their employment that they get their name of Boer. In the Dutch
language boer means a peasant, a farmer, or a tiller of the soil. It is
the same word as the German _Bauer_, a peasant.

These Boers are governed by a clever old man named Paul Krueger,--Oom (or
Uncle) Paul, as his people call him.

England, as you will see by your map, owns vast tracts of land in South
Africa, and according to her regular practice she is trying to enlarge her
possessions still further. Wherever England establishes a colony, she
reaches out on either side of her, and takes, if possible, a little piece
of land here, and another little scrap there, until by and by she has
laid hold of the greater part of the land around her.

She has been following her usual custom in South Africa.

But the Boers are not fond of the English, and they have been trying with
all their power to keep these neighbors of theirs as far away from them as
possible. As the English have advanced, the Boers have retreated, even
giving up the diamond mines of Kimberly in the process of moving.

One day, however, rich gold-fields were discovered on the Witwaters Rand.
A Rand is the high land on either side of a river valley.

This settled matters for the Boers. From the moment gold-fields were
discovered, Englishmen poured into the Transvaal.

The Boers, who, as we have said, are a quiet farming people, were not
pleased with this invasion of foreigners. They christened them Uitlanders,
which means outsiders, and they are decidedly not in love with them.

The capital of the Transvaal is a town called Pretoria. It is the seat of
the government, and is a simple, unpretentious town, situated in the
centre of the little Republic.

When the Uitlanders poured over t