The day before my arrival in the town John McCann, of Johannesburg, who is a former New-Yorker and a friend of the President, informed Mr. Kruger of my intention to visit Pretoria. The President had refused interviews to three representatives of influential London newspapers who had been in the town three months waiting for the opportunity, but he expressed a desire to see an American. "The Americans won’t lie about me," he said to Mr. McCann. "I want America to learn our side of the story from me. They have had only the English point of view." I had scarcely reached my hotel when an emissary from the President called and made an appointment for me to meet him in the afternoon. The emissary conducted me to the Government Building, where the Volksraad was in session, and it required only a short time for it to become known that a representative from the great sister republic across the Atlantic desired to learn the truth about the Boers. I was overwhelmed with information. Cabinet members, Raad members, the Commissioner of War, the Postmaster General, the most honoured and influential men of the republic--men who had more than once risked their lives in fighting for their country’s preservation--gathered around me and were so eager to have me tell America of the wrongs they had suffered at the hands of the British that the scene was highly pathetic. One after another spoke of the severe trials through which their young republic had passed, the efforts that had been made to disrupt it, and the constant harassment to which they had been subjected by enemies working under the cloak of friendship. The majority spoke English, but such as knew only the Boer taal were given an opportunity by their more fortunate friends to add to the testimony, and spoke through an interpreter. Such earnest, such honest conversation it had never been my lot to hear before. It was a memorable hour that I spent listening to the plaints of those plain, good-hearted Boers in the heart of South Africa. It was the voice of the downtrodden, the weak crying out against the strong. When the hour of my appointment with the President arrived there was a unanimous desire among the Boers gathered around to accompany me. It was finally decided by them that six would be a sufficient number, and among those chosen were Postmaster-General Van Alpen, who was a representative at the Postal Congress in Washington several years ago; Commissioner of Mines P. Kroebler, Commissioner of War J. J. Smidt, Justice of the Peace Dillingham, and former Commandant-General Stephanne Schoeman.