The Transvaal's the place for living in. Here life is life, be it never so lively. The only nuisance is the Boer; and the Boer's a hass, or rather a mule. That's my opinion of Boers individually and collectively; I make no concessions to them; hang 'em, they've already got enough. If this country had been in the hands of Englishmen, or Americans, or both jointly (talking of jointly, we'd have had better dinners than we get now but of this anon--) with a certain person whom I can mention, and who is not a hundred miles distant from the present writer at this moment, as Head of affairs, an Imperial ruler, with power to add to his number (which number would be One, and would remain so), then this country, in a very short time, would have ruled the world. What ports, what champagnes, what railroads, what shipping, what commerce, what an Imperial Parliament, with the Despot in the Chair in both Houses, all speeches, except the Despot's, limited to five minutes apiece, and no reduction on talking a quantity. Oh, for one hour of this power, and the Amphitryon be blowed! Aha! _Grandolphus Africanus Protector_ to begin with; _Grandolphus Africanus Rex_ to go on with; and _Grandolphus Africanissimmus Imperator_ to finish with! REMORSE AND REGRET. [Illustration: Grandolphus Africanus.] Now to dinner! On what? Yah! tough beef, woolly mutton and stringy chicken. And to think that but for the Boers, the beastly Boers, we should have had the finest teal, wild duck, venison, goslings, asparagus, French beans, best Welsh mutton, and real turtle soup every day _au choix_!! But what did the Boers do? Why, they ascertained that skins and feathers, and shells, were valuable, whereupon they went to work, shot everything everywhere, sold skins and feathers, and shells! So that deer and birds hadn't a chance. If they popped out, pop went the guns like the original weasel, which some years ago was always popping, and the poor dumb animals with the pleading eyes and the tender flesh were slaughtered wholesale. In this manner, too, the game soon came to an end, as it must do whenever the game is so one-sided as it was here. Then, as I have said, the shells were valuable! The shells! What chance had the tortoise and the turtle? "'Tis the voice of the turtle, I heard him complain." (What's that from? That's from WATTS--eh?) What chance had the peas, however wild? or a bean as broad as one of ----'s after-dinner stories? Ah! it makes me sad and angry, and once again I cry Oh, for an hour, and that the dinner-hour, aboard the _Grantully Castle_! Ay! even though the G.O.M. were on board; for he could appreciate the daily Currie which to me is now _perdu_. Well! so to dinner "with what appetite I may," and then on to Pretoria, of which place I think I shall change the name to Pre-radicallia or Pre-fourthpartia. You see Pre-toria implies one who was Toryer than a Tory. Aha! what is my scheme? Do you see the picture? GRANDOLPHUS