The quarrel with the chief had originated, as stated, in a Boer claim to his land, and the Boer President in replying urged the natural right of the Boers to all the land of the Transvaal. The chief magistrate at that time was President Burgers, a man who, if report may be believed, was far superior to those with whom he associated. This man, a Cape Dutchman, and sometime minister of the Reformed Church, had been called to the onerous post of President of the South African Republic in 1872. He was bent on the advancement of his nation, and his intelligence was remarkable. He was a man of sterling character, fanciful, enthusiastic, an idealist even, with a horror of slaveholding, and a hankering for the pure life of the humanist. In a measure he was too much in advance of the people with whom he was connected. To them he was something of a Freethinker, a man too ready to judge for himself while the Gospel was at hand to judge for him. Such liberal views were not in accord with peasant limitations. His desire to raise his country to the level of other nations, to bring commerce and railways within touch of his people, savoured of heresy. The appreciation for civilisation was so strong within him that he is even said to have carried it to extremes, to have favoured the prompt and regular payment of taxes, and to have executed an elaborate design for an international coat-of-arms! Now this reformer, like most reformers, was not appreciated among his own people. He had no police to support him, no means of putting pressure on those who should have served his cause. The Conservative party, with Mr. Kruger at their head, did their best to circumvent every innovation and to save themselves and the country from what they believed to be the dangerous inorthodoxy of their President. Mr. Burgers in his posthumous "Vindication" outlines some strange hints regarding the character of his compatriots, which outlines may now be readily filled in by personal experience. He therein asserts that had he chosen to publish to the world a faithful description of the Transvaal Boers, they would have forfeited the appreciation gained from the Liberal party in Europe. Mr. Burgers' reserve is much to be regretted, as a few sidelights thrown on the Boer character at that period might have helped to educate the Liberal party of whom he spoke, and thereby saved much of the vacillation of policy for which the country now has to suffer. [Illustration: SERGEANT-MAJOR of the 2nd DRAGOONS. (ROYAL SCOTS GREYS.) Photo by Gregory & Co., London.] THE POLITICAL WEB Before going further, we must examine the situation between the Governor of the Cape, the President of the South African Republic, and the Home Government.