My dream of war’s mysteries was shattered in an instant, and I found myself on earth again, with the feeling that I was just arriving at the San Francisco ferry from an overland train. In another moment I was in a hotel omnibus illuminated with a dingy, smoking oil lamp at the front end. Under the lamp there was a little sign imparting the information that the vehicle had been built in Philadelphia. We rumbled along over the rough streets, and the windows rattled in true hotel ’bus fashion. We pulled up at a hotel, and a porter greeted us with a sixpence’s worth of politeness and assistance. “Good evening, sir,” he remarked, with a “Dooley” accent which was pleasantly reassuring. The clerk at the desk cordially called me by name--after I had registered--and informed me that he could give me a room at the top of the house for five dollars a day. After depositing my belongings I took a look at the crowd of men in the hotel office. I was reminded of the gatherings in a California “boom town” hotel, or of a Colorado mining camp. There were men of all nations and in all sorts of dress; but the prevalence of top boots and leggins gave to the crowd a peculiarly Western look. Rifles stood in the corners of the room, but except for this item there was nothing about the men to denote their connection with the war. They were nearly all speaking English. By that time I began to feel that I had been cheated, for I wanted to hear some Dutch. It is a fact, however, that in all my stay in the Transvaal I found absolutely no use for any but my own tongue. Mr. Thomas Leggett, the California mining engineer who, after twelve years’ residence in South Africa, rose to be the leading engineer in that country, told me that he did not know five words of Dutch even after his long stay among the Boers, and, moreover, that he had had no occasion whatever to use that language. When I first met the family of Secretary Reitz, I asked a little boy of about ten if he spoke English. “No, sir,” he exclaimed with emphasis; “we don’t speak English down here--we speak American.” There was formerly a complaint that the English language was not taught in the schools, but the assertion proved erroneous, and to-day it is the common tongue of the towns and cities of South Africa.