I want to state here that I have never lost a single opportunity, whilst travelling through the enemy's country, of looking at the "home" life of the people--and I may say that I have been in a few back-country homes in America, in Australia, and in other parts of the world--and I want to place it on record that in my opinion the Boer farmer is as clean in his home life, as loving in his domestic arrangements, as pure in his morals, as any class of people I have ever met. Filth may abound, but I have seen nothing of it. Immorality may be the common everyday occurrence I have seen it depicted in some British journals, but I have failed to find trace of it. Ignorance as black as the inside of a dog may be the prevailing state of affairs; if so, I have been one of the lucky few who have found just the reverse in whichsoever direction I have turned. After six months', or nearly six months', close and careful observation of their habits, I have arrived at the conclusion that the Boer farmer, and his son and daughter, will compare very favourably with the farming folk of Australia, America, and Great Britain. What he may be in the Transvaal I know not, because I have not yet been there; but in Cape Colony and in the Free State he is much as I have depicted him, no better, no worse, than Americans and Australians, and as good a fighting man as either--which is tantamount to saying that he is as good as anything on God's green earth, if he only had military training. Ask "Tommy" privately, when he comes home, if this is not so--not "Thomas," who has been on lines of communication all the time--but "Tommy," who has fought him, and measured heart and hand with him. I think he will tell you much as I have told you. For "Tommy" is no fool; he is not half such a braggart, either, as some of the Jingoes, who shout and yell, but never take a hand in the real fighting; those wastrels of England, who are at home with a pewter of beer in their hands--hands that never did, and never will, grip a rifle. Whilst at Trummel I took advantage of a couple of days' camping to go out three miles from camp to have a look at a diamond mine. I found a red-whiskered Dutchman in charge, who knew less English than I knew Dutch, and as my Dutch consists of about twelve words we did not do much in the conversational line; but I made him understand by pantomimic telegraphy that I wanted to have a look round, to size up things. He took me to a "dump," where the ore at grass was stored, and converted himself into a human stone-cracking machine for my benefit, until I had seen all that I wanted to see in regard to the "ore at grass." He was very much like mine managers the world over--very ready to play tricks on anyone he considered "green" at the business. It was not his fault that he did not know that I had been a reporter on gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and coal mines for about twenty years.