Affairs in Pretoria and Johannesburg that preceded the warlike movements connected with the Lydenburg campaign must now be briefly discussed. On the 1st of August the Railway Pioneer Regiment arrived at Johannesburg, and entered on its new duties, that of policing the mines. The Transvaal constabulary, under Colonel Maxse, continued to increase in size--by this time 700 Colonials had joined--and in the Court of Justice many actions which, owing to lack of faith in Transvaal administration, had been set aside during the war, were now brought up for adjudication. Things seemed to be shaping themselves fairly well, notwithstanding the rumour that the Boers intended to maintain guerilla warfare till the presidential election in America in November was over, when intervention was promised them. America was scarcely propitiated by the conduct of Theron's Scouts, however, for a day later a train flying the stars and stripes, and containing the American Consul-General, Colonel Stowe, was thrown off the rails and burned at Honing Spruit. To be awakened at 1 A.M. by the hail of bullets and the hurly-burly of derailed waggons is scarcely pleasing, and Theron's mode of ingratiating himself with the Americans, if not happy, was original. Seventeen bullets penetrated the carriage in which the Consul was travelling, one of which struck a friend who was occupying the compartment. Colonel Lord Algernon Gordon Lennox, who was journeying south, was taken prisoner, together with forty men, but all were liberated at the request of Colonel Stowe. Two, however, were killed by the overturning of the waggons.