be afraid of us!" And in the abstract this reasoning is sound. We do treat the native as if we were afraid of him. We do treat him so that he might justly compare himself favourably with the British soldier. We take it for granted that this illiterate black son of the south will know, as we do, all the troubles and standards of the labour market: will discern the reason, which to us is obvious, of his princely pay. But this is where our crass stupidity overtakes us. The native does not arrive at his conclusions through the same channel of thought as we do ourselves. How could he? And as we only use him to suit our own convenience, and remain reckless of the interpretation which he places upon our actions, we shall only have ourselves to blame, when, having pandered to the inherent vanity of the black, we suddenly find him at our throats. Not that we believe that the natives are sufficiently advanced to render our hold in the country insecure. But they have been pampered by us enough to make them imagine vain things, and vain imaginings may result at no distant period in a repetition of that rapine, pillage, and massacre of isolated white settlements, which has ever furnished the saddest stones in the cairn of our great Empire. As the sun rose it brought news from the Prieska Road. The helio twinkled out another message from the general: "Good water at Rietvlei, four miles on. Move on to Rietvlei, form your brigade there, and await orders from me." Almost at the same moment the helio from the summit of Minie Kloof called us up. "Have brought along two squadrons of the Mount Nelson Light Horse and a troop of the 21st King's Dragoon Guards. Pushing on as fast as possible"--signed, "Brigade-Major New Cavalry Brigade."