passengers. Is it, for example, quite impossible to supply them with that not uninteresting development of the musical-box—the megaphone? Of course it should be quite possible; but antiquated, even antediluvian, in its arrangements, the Castle Company cannot initiate anything which has not yet been adopted by the other lines of ocean shipping. And yet I have been told by numerous merchant captains that it is the steerage which provides the profits, making lucrative the business of carrying cargoes of goods and human freight from our shores to more distant lands. But that also is the way of the world; yet when a rude prosperity enables the emigrant Jew and Gentile to throng the saloons, making them altogether impossible for the gentler classes, we shall find the economy of the third class appealing to an ever-increasing and ever-superior body of people until these "superior" people will not endure the dirt, unwholesome surroundings, and fetid atmosphere of the steerage accommodation of ocean-going steamers, but will cry to Heaven upon the niggard's policy which controls the vessels.

As the days wore away, and Madeira came and went, even the flying fishes ceased to attract, and the noises of the ship grew more distant, the people less obtrusive. Moreover, I became at rest within myself, and the gaping, aching void which has filled my vitals these many days, became assuaged. It was then we began to inspect the passengers; to consider almost kindly the African Jew millionaire who ate peas with his fingers and mixed honey with his salad, thought not disdainfully of the poor lady his wife, who, suffering the tortures of the damned when at sea, shone at each meal valiantly and heroically until the menu was pierced by her in its entirety, and she made still further happy by the administration of an original preventative against mal de mer of sweet wine biscuits bathed in plentiful and sticky treacle. It was her way of pouring oil on troubled waters. Oh, those were dreadful people, never ill, always eating, ever complaining of a curious dizziness which, nevertheless, occasioned them no loss of appetite. Surely they, of all others, were indeed of the specially select! Then there was Mr. Clarke, a friend of the two Presidents, who, undaunted by the most violent motions of the steamer, kept to the deck in a constant promenade, discoursing amicably the while, and punctuating his utterances, of a somewhat patriarchal order, with brief pauses, in which he stroked, with much dignity, a long white beard. He was a dear old man, and, unlike other Boers, he did not quote from the Scriptures, a concession which, to be properly appreciated, demands the lassitude and extreme prostration of violent nausea. There is something inordinately irritating about the man who proposes to soothe the irruptions attendant upon sea voyages by the assurance that such discomfiture is to be endured, since in Chapter i., verse 1, of a pious writer, the Lord hath there written that the ungodly shall be everlastingly punished. Personally I objected only to the form of punishment.

The friend of the President, a fine specimen of sturdy masculinity, touching eighty-two years of age, was quite the most impressive figure aboard this particular Castle packet. He had been a sojourner in the Orange Free State for forty years, coming to it from Australia shortly after the riots at Ballarat goldfields. The old fellow had fought against the Boers, championed their arms against the Basutos, raided the blacks in Queensland, and tumbled through a variety of enterprises ranging from mining in Australia to successful sheep farming near the Fickersburg. I liked him, taking an intense anxiety in his future movements, and wondering whether this fine old specimen of life would also become our enemy. Who could tell! So much depended upon the situation, so much upon the action of the President and the will of Providence. He stood, as he himself was apt to remark, upon the border of the next world—looking back upon a span of four score years, possessing a knowledge of the affairs of these African Republics which had obtained for him the friendship of President Steyn and President Kruger; indeed, they had been comrades-in-arms, Oom Paul and himself, while he had seen Steyn spring into manhood from a stripling, and when his thoughts dwelt upon those days the voice of the old man became flooded with emotion. These tears of memory were a sidelight to his real character, and I was convinced that if he shouldered arms at all these earlier friendships were held by such ties as were too sacred to be violated. In his heart he hated fighting, yearning merely for the attentions of his children, the cool delights of his mountain home. In his domestic environment he was a happy man, since prosperity had brought him certain cares of office, much as the dignity of his age had brought him the respect of his fellow-burghers. And yet he figured as an illustration of countless hundreds, each one of whom was in close relationship with the crisis in the politics of the country.

Morning, noon and night he strolled, the one figure of interest in the ill-assorted company of passengers which the good ship—to my nostrils an evil-smelling tub—was carrying to the Cape. There were few others of importance upon this journey. There was a colonel of the Royal Engineers, who had a snug billet in the War Office, and who was leaving Pall Mall to inspect the barracks at Cape Town, St. Helena, Ascension, and all those other places to which certain preposterous War Office officials devoted that attention which should so much more properly have been paid to the defenceless condition of the frontiers in South Africa. But then, after all, what is the destiny of the War Office unless to meddle and make muddle? If Colonel Watson might be said to have represented the Imperial Government among the passengers, Mynheer Van der Merure, Commissioner of Mines in Johannesburg, might be considered as representing the Pretorian Government. It seemed to me that these two worthies were quite harmless, representing, each in his own way, the acme of good nature, the gallant—all colonels imagine that they be gallant—colonel by reason of his advanced age; the worthy—all commissioners imagine that they be worthy—commissioner because he lived off the spoil of the mines. But even the spectacle of these three—the grand old man, the War Office attaché, the wealthy Randsman—did not suffice to break the hideous monotony of a most depressing voyage.

With the peace of nature enveloping us in a feeling of security, it was difficult to realise that each day we drew a little nearer to a possible seat of war. There was much rumour aboard; the stewards hinted that the hold was filled with a cargo of munitions of war. The captain flatly denied it, even the War Office pensioner thought it improbable. "You must understand, sir," said he one morning, across the breakfast table, "that it is contrary to the custom of her Majesty's Government, and, if I may say so, sir, especially contrary to the custom of her Majesty's War Office, to squander the finances of our great Empire upon unnecessary munitions of war because the Times and other papers choose to send half a dozen irresponsible individuals to South Africa. Now, sir—pooh!" When Colonel Watson broke out like this the friend of the President would intervene, suggesting in his kindly, paternal fashion that "the War Office—given half a dozen colonels, gallant or otherwise—might well afford to follow the lead of the Times newspaper." "It has been my experience," the Colonel retaliated on one occasion, "that when people begin to interfere they cease to understand." It was always quite delightful to watch these two cross swords; the elder invariably took refuge