How far do you mean to go in this? Are you going to burn down every house, and turn the whole country into a desert? I don't think it can be done. You can't carry out the Cromwellian method in the nineteenth century. Too many people know what is going on, and consciences are too tender. On the other hand, nothing is so disastrous as that method half carried out. We can't exterminate the Dutch or seriously reduce their numbers. We can do enough to make hatred of England and thirst for revenge the first duty of every Dutchman, and we can't effectively reduce the numbers of the men who will carry that duty out. Of course it is not a question of the war only. It is a question of governing the country afterwards. So far we only really hold the ground on which our armies stand. If I were to walk out from this tent a mile or two over the hills yonder, I should probably be shot. Kronstadt has been ours for four months. It is on the main railway. The country all round is being repeatedly crossed by our troops. Yet an Englishman would not be safe for a minute out of range of those guns on the hill. There is a delightful feeling of spring in the air. We have had some warm, heavy rains lately. The veldt grass, till now dry and dusty and almost white, is beginning to push up tiny green blades, and the green colour is beginning to spread almost imperceptibly over the distant hills. I begin to feel a sort of kindred impulse in myself. The old lethargy, bred of the dull, monotonous marches over the dreary plains, is passing, and I begin to cock an attentive eye at the signs of awakening, and feel that I am waking up myself. If you could see the view from here, the barren expanse of veldt stretching miles away, the cluster of tin roofs and the few leafless thorn-trees beyond, I have no doubt you would laugh at this fancy of a spring day. And yet I am sure I can feel it; there is a change in the air. It has grown elastic and feels alive, and there is a smell in it to my mind of earth and vegetables. Yesterday, when I toddled in as far as the village, I saw a little fruit tree in a garden that carried white starry blossoms at the ends of its black twigs. It gave me quite a thrill. Oh, to be in England now that April--Dear me! I was forgetting 'tis autumn, and partridges and stubble fields with you.