Three hundred of that sort endeavoured to hold converse with us, wanting to know where we had come from, why we had come, and what we thought of our chances in the hereafter—no Boer thinks anybody who has taken up arms against the Lord’s anointed people has a million-to-one chance of salvation. We told them as much as we could, some of it with regard to the truth, but mostly without. They plainly said we were liars when we informed them we came from India. They knew all about Indian coolies, so weren’t to be taken in. They were of opinion that several of us who were clean-shaven were mere children, and deplored the sinfulness of a Government that could send such lambs to the slaughter. The clean-shaven ones cordially concurred, and ventured to hope the Boer Government would do the right thing and ship the little pets straight away to their mammas. That was another story, said they—one that Oom Paul would know how to deal equitably with. Pretoria! Pretoria! It was always Pretoria, as if that ghastly little village was the hub of the universe. I may be allowed here to point out that the Dutch pronunciation of the name of the late President of the Transvaal differs slightly from that commonly used in India. Of course, our Indian way is the soundest, but it may give this feeble narrative a touch of realism to have included the fact that in South Africa ‘Kruger’ is pronounced ‘Cree-yer,’ with the accent on the ‘Cree.’ ‘Paul’ is pronounced like ‘towel,’ with a ‘p’ instead of a ‘t.’ The Burgher General Botha, in his native land, is called ‘Beau-ta,’ both syllables of equal value and spoken rather quickly—like our Indian word ‘lotah,’ with which word, in fact, ‘Botha’ rhymes. Many other words appertaining to South Africa are pronounced not at all in the way that we have accepted as fit and proper. Swears, however, find Boer and Briton unanimous both in pronunciation and frequency of use.