170 miles. But while the High Commissioner issued a proclamation
disavowing their action and ordering them to retire, they found
themselves opposed by the now rapidly gathering Boer levies, were
repulsed at Krugersdorp, and ultimately forced to surrender on the
forenoon of January 1, 1896, at a place called Doornkop. The
Johannesburg Uitlanders, who, though unprepared for any such sudden
movement, had risen in sympathy at the news of the inroad, laid down
their arms a few days later.[37]

I have given the bare outline of these latest events in South African
history for the sake of bringing the narrative down to the date when I
began to write. But as I was at Pretoria and Johannesburg immediately
before the rising of December 1895 took place, and had good
opportunities of seeing what forces were at work, and in what direction
the currents of opinion were setting, I propose to give in a subsequent
chapter (Chapter XXV) a somewhat fuller description of the state of
things in the Transvaal at the end of 1895, and to reserve for a still
later chapter some general reflections on the course of South African
history.

[Footnote 23: It has been stated (see Mr. Molteno's _Federal South
Africa_, p. 87) that Portugal was then prepared to sell her rights for a
small sum--according to report, for L12,000.]

[Footnote 24: In 1891 the southern boundary of Portuguese territory was
fixed by a treaty with Great Britain at a point on the coast named Kosi
Bay, about seventy miles south of Lourenco Marques.]

[Footnote 25: See especially the case of Brown _vs._ Leyds, decided in
January, 1897 by the High Court of the South African Republic. An
English translation of the Grondwet has been published by Mr. W. A.
Macfadyen of Pretoria, in a little volume entitled _The Political Laws
of the South African Republic_.]

[Footnote 26: Some extracts from the narrative, vindicating his conduct,
which he had prepared and which was published after his death (in 1882),
may be found in Mr. John Nixon's _Complete Story of the Transvaal_, an
interesting book, though written in a spirit far from judicial.]

[Footnote 27: Although there is some reason to think that if Sir T.
Shepstone had waited a few weeks or months, the Boers would have been
driven by their difficulties to ask to be annexed.]

[Footnote 28: See above, p. 120.]

[Footnote 29: A description of Majuba Hill will be found in Chapter
XVIII.]

[Footnote 30: The Convention of 1881 will b