We will not forget, Mr. Englishman, and are truly grateful to you, that you behaved to us with common courtesy, and stood aside to let us pass; but surely you, the politest of polite men, would not take credit for that, which should be the birthright of all gentlemen. We dwell not in times of Sabine sisterhoods, good sir! And if little Miss Uitlander bathe you in smiles, and lisp pretty nothings into your much-astonished ear, call but to mind that she comes from your own "far countree," and has here learned this way of welcoming the conqueror. I am no Boadicea, say you. Oh, sir, you mistake grievously. I would smite you with mine own hands, were I able. Did you perhaps not catch a glimpse of me in General Cronje's laager, whither I went to share the danger with my brother, and cheer him in his arduous task? True it is that homely comfort abounds in our cottages, and should it not be so? Perhaps there was a time too when your stately sister did not scorn to keep house, instead of attending theatres, soirees, musicales, at-homes. Evidently, Miss Uitlander forgot the divine music of Queen's Hall and Covent Garden, when she crowded to do justice to the awful and untuneful melodies, to which your English bandsmen treated her on the Market Square. But you see "It is so long since she left 'home,' and it is sweet to hear those sounds which come straight from dear old England." I, sir, stopped my ears with cotton wool (for, whatever Miss Bloemfontein is, she is musical, and even had I been pleased to see you, I could never have allowed myself to be tortured with those fragments of the divine art). Poor Pan! he stood afar on the topmost steeple of the Dutch Church, and played his pipes and wept, and had you not been so absorbed in "tripping to your gay tunes," you might have heard faintly stealing over our ancient towers "Heeft burghers t'lied der Vrijheid aan," while the organ within our "piously Presbyterian" edifice echoed the anthem, which was caught up by the instrument in your exclusively English cathedral, and Miss Bloemfontein heard the echo and was comforted. And now, Mr. Englishman, do you fully realise that I am not pleased to see you, that I hate to have you here; I, a real daughter of the soil? And if to-morrow I could turn you out, I would do so joyously, while little Miss Uitlander would stand by, her lovely eyes moist with grateful tears, and whisper, "That is right," or perhaps push you with her tiny left hand, while she once more extended her right to my badly dressed brothers, as they came over the top of the Bloemfontein Hill! The gulf between the angry past and the still more angry present will never be bridged, Mr. Englishman. You have made Afrikanderdom by fighting us, and have awakened in our breasts the knowledge that we are of another sort than yourselves. Only now, with the "Schwanenlied" sounding in our ears, do we feel what it is to have a country--to be a nation!