nation. It had once quoted from a London contemporary a statement
to the effect that hundreds of lives had been thrown away at
Magersfontein in an attempt to rescue Cecil Rhodes! Our "Organ" was then
independent enough to retort that there was, besides Mr. Rhodes, the
fate of thousands of British subjects to be considered. But now it was
far otherwise; the independence of tone had vanished. Instead of
dignified sarcasm, we were apologetically regaled with parallels of all
the sieges in the world's history--Troy, Plevna, Sebastopol, Paris,
etc.--and calmly assured that our tribulations weighed lightly in the
balance with what was suffered in the brave days of--"wooden"
horseflesh!

Still the journal, though it evoked the displeasure of its quondam
admirers, doubtless acted for the best in a difficult situation; and
there were many who might have overlooked the "parallels" were it not
for the advertisements. For through the advertising columns we were
perpetually being pressed by the merchants of the city to come in and
buy everything that makes life worth living! All the dainties an
aspirant to gout could wish for were, according to our "Official
Gazette," to be had for the asking. At the hotels, "Highland Cream
Whiskey" was for ever arriving; and "O.K." (another thistle!) kept
"licking 'em all" with monotonous invincibility. Iced beer was on tap;
the champagne was sparkling; the wine needed no bush. The cheese was
still alive (on paper). Cakes, hams, jams, biscuits, potted fish, flesh,
and good red herring were, so to speak, all over the shops. This was the
sort of pabulum our morning sheet supplied by way of breakfast for
inward digestion, and there was an irony in the meal which its
uniqueness did not help to make palatable. Absent-minded people still
went shopping for luxuries gone but not forgotten; to provoke a
premature "April fool" from the startled grocer, who was powerless to
make real the chimeras that haunted the jungles of the shoppers'
imaginations. Even practical (new) women would sometimes think of
Bovril, and rush off to buy it all up, only to find that it had been
bought up long ago, and that not for nothing had so much money been
expended in the booming of that bullock in a bottle! Our boarding-house
tariffs were ridiculously low (the paper said) at seven or eight pounds
per month; while the allurements of the boating and the creature
comforts of Modder River, and the balminess of its breezes, were dan