"The streets grown over with rank vegetation; the water-furrows unclean and unattended, emitting offensive and unhealthy stenches; the houses showing evident signs of dilapidation and decay; the side paths, in many places, dangerous to pedestrians--in fact, everything the eye can rest upon indicates the downfall which has overtaken this once prosperous city. The visitor can, if he be so minded, betake himself to the outskirts and suburbs, where he will perceive the same sad evidences of neglect, public grounds unattended, roads uncared for, mills and other public works crumbling into ruin. These palpable signs of decay most strongly impress him. A blight seems to have come over this lately fair and prosperous town. Rapidly it is becoming a 'deserted village,' a 'city of the dead.'" RETROCESSION The Government, through the medium of the Queen's Speech, had announced its intention of vindicating her Majesty's authority in the Transvaal. This was in January 1881. About that time President Brand, of the Orange Free State, formed himself into a species of Board of Arbitration between the contending parties--Boers and British. The reason for this intervention was threefold--first, he genuinely desired to avoid further bloodshed; second, he as genuinely hoped, under a mask of neutrality, to advance the Dutch cause throughout South Africa; and third, he amicably wished to put himself in the good graces of the British Government. Prior to General Colley's death Mr. Brand had urged him to allow peace to be made, and to guarantee the Boers not being treated as rebels if they submitted. General Colley was no quibbler with words. He would give no such assurance. He proposed, in a telegram to the Colonial Secretary, to publish an amnesty on entering the Transvaal to all peaceable persons--excepting one or two prominent rebels. On the 8th of February (the day of the battle of the Ingogo), a telegram was received from home, promising a settlement upon the Boers ceasing from armed opposition. This showed that the Government had early begun to put their foot on the first rung of the ladder of disgrace--it can be called by no other term--and that the "climb-down" policy was already coming into practice. An unfortunate game at cross-purposes seems to have been going on, for Mr. Brand was proposing to Lord Kimberley that Sir H. de Villiers--the Chief-Justice of the Cape, should be appointed as Commissioner to go to the Transvaal to arrange matters, while at the same time Sir George Colley was telegraphing a plan to be adopted on entering the Transvaal, a plan which should grant a complete amnesty only to Boers who would sign a declaration of loyalty.