Those were anxious times for all true South Africans--the time of the Transvaal war of independence. At first, nothing but cooked telegrams came, which made out that the Boers wherever met were being defeated. But later the truth leaked out, as it is ever bound to do, viz., that the Boers were wondrously victorious in every battle that had been fought. The accounts of Bronkorstspruit, Laingsnek and Schuimhoogte were received with mixed feelings in the town of G----n, in the Cape Colony, where Steve and his mother lived. Mixed, in that they were received by all Afrikanders and Republicans with joy and thanksgivings to Him, to Whom alone they ascribed the victory of their brethren; but with anger and almost with unbelief by the Imperialists. _They_ could not believe it, for how was it possible for those cowardly (?) Boers (who, it had been predicted, would run away at the first cannon shot), to defeat the thoroughly armed and disciplined troops of England, why it is impossible! _They_ believed that such simple faith as Steve’s _was_ childishness. But what was their consternation when the disastrous news--to them--of Amajuba came, capped by the tidings that peace had been concluded favourably to the Boers. They called shame on England for at last recognising the injustice that they were perpetrating on a quiet and peace-loving people. Public opinion in England, and all over the world, had shown the Imperial Government the error of their ways at last. They had to make peace after being defeated, and promise the Boers their independence back again. But the Imperial Government seemed to say, ‘Never mind the defeat and shame, we will show the Boers a trick or two yet. We will appoint a Royal Commission, and force a convention on the Boers to our own liking, and they shall feel the Lion’s paw in another way.’ Yes, England was magnanimous (?) enough to _give_ (?) the Boers their independence back, but not the independence that had been taken from them. Oh, no, English diplomats are not such fools! They took gold from the Boers; they gave them brass in exchange. They took their independence, independence in every sense of the word, from them; independence without conditions, such as was recognised by the Sand River Convention, but they gave back a false municipal independence, only a shadow of the independence possessed before.