To Mr. Distant's portrait of the President of the South African Republic another and a later one may be appended. It is drawn by the able pen of Mr. Fitzpatrick, the author of "The Transvaal from Within." "In the history of South Africa the figure of the grim old President will loom large and striking--picturesque, as the figure of one who, by his character and will, made and held his people; magnificent, as one who, in the face of the blackest fortune, never wavered from his aim or faltered in his effort; who, with a courage that seemed and still seems fatuous, but which may well be called heroic, stood up against the might of the greatest empire in the world. And, it may be, pathetic too, as one whose limitations were great, one whose training and associations, whose very successes, had narrowed and embittered and hardened him; as one who, when the greatness of success was his to take and hold, turned his back on the supreme opportunity and used his strength and qualities to fight against the spirit of progress and all that the enlightenment of the age pronounces to be fitting and necessary to good government and a healthy State. "To an English nobleman who, in the course of an interview, remarked, 'My father was a Minister of England and twice Viceroy of Ireland,' the old Dutchman answered, 'And my father was a shepherd!' It was not pride rebuking pride; it was the ever-present fact which would not have been worth mentioning but for the suggestion of the antithesis. He, too, was a shepherd, and is--a peasant. It may be that he knows what would be right and good for his people, and it may be not; but it is sure that he realises that to educate would be to emancipate; to broaden their views would be to break down the defences of their prejudices; to let in the new leaven would be to spoil the old bread; to give unto all men the rights of men would be to swamp for ever the party which is to him greater than the State. When one thinks of the one-century history of this people, much is seen that accounts for their extraordinary love of isolation, and their ingrained and passionate aversion to control; much, too, that draws to them a world of sympathy. And when one realises the old Dopper President hemmed in once more by the hurrying tide of civilisation, from which his people have fled for generations--trying to fight both Fate and Nature, standing up to stem a tide as resistless as the eternal sea--one sees the pathos of the picture. But this is as another generation may see it. To-day we are too close, so close that the meaner details, the blots and flaws, are all most plainly visible: the corruption, the insincerity, the injustice, the barbarity--all the unlovely touches that will by-and-by be forgotten, sponged away by the gentle hand of Time, when only the picturesque will remain." [Illustration: PAUL KRUGER, President of the Transvaal Republic. Photo by Elliott & Fry, London.]