crowd of drunken and half-drunken men was a quiet and respectable-looking man drinking his glass of beer from the counter.  One of the habitues of the place suddenly addressed him, and demanded with an oath whether he had ever heard so good a song as the low ditty which had just been screamed out by a painted woman on the stage.  The stranger remarked quietly that it “wasn’t a bad song, but he had certainly heard better ones,” when the bully in front without any warning struck him a violent blow in the face, felling him to the ground.  A comrade of mine, a Welshman, who was standing near the victim, protested against such cowardly behaviour, and was immediately set upon by some dozen of the audience, who savagely knocked him down and then drove him into the street with kicks and blows.  These valiant individuals then returned and were soon busy with a hiccuping chorus of “Rule, Britannia”.  How forcibly the whole scene recalled Dr. Johnson’s words:  “Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of a scoundrel”.

The Uitlander refugees were numerous in Capetown, and the principal hotels were full of them.  Those whom I happened to meet did not seem at all overwhelmed by their recent oppression, and some of them contrived out of their shattered fortunes to drink champagne for dinner at a guinea a bottle.  I do not think that the average Johannesburg Uitlander impresses the Englishman very favourably.  Mining camps are not the best nurseries for good breeding or nobility of character, and one could not help feeling sorry that gallant Englishmen were dying by hundreds while some of these German Jews wallowed in security and luxury.  Quite recently an officer overheard a “Jew-boy” loudly declaring in a shop that “after all, British soldiers were paid to go out and get shot,” etc., and in a fit of righteous indignation the Englishman seized the Semite and threw him out of the door.

English visitors to the Cape who, like myself, wished to contribute our humble share towards the work of the campaign had several directions in which to utilise their energies.  The Prince Alfred’s Field Artillery was raising recruits, and on the point of leaving for the front for the defence of De Aar.  The Duke of Edinburgh’s Rifle Volunteers enlisted men on Thursday, drilled them day and night, and sent them off on the Tuesday.  This fine corps has, much to its vexation, been almost continuously employed in guarding lines of communication and protecting bridges and culverts from any violence at the hands of colonial rebels.  The South African Light Horse has already been mentioned.  For those of us who found it impossible to pledge ourselves for the whole period of the war, owing to duties at home which could not be left indefinitely, and who possessed some knowledge of ambulance work, an excellent opening was found in one of the ambulance corps originated by the Red Cross Society under Colonel Young’s able and energetic management.