have heard his side of the question from his own lips, and would have attended to it. But as it was, he could not understand it. He had walked many miles to hear and answer, and only half the affair had come off. Something was wrong. The rumours that the Dutch had licked the English must be true. He was to be handed back to the Boers, and he did not like it. So rival chiefs-chiefs who, when pitted against each other, had kept us free from the risk of a combination amongst 600,000 natives, shook hands, and went off together in earnest conversation.

Difficulties-civil war is mentioned as one-are likely to arise among the Boers themselves in the struggle for the leading powerwho is to be the foremost man in the country. Cronje at Potchefstroom is a violent, uneducated man, with an inordinate belief in his own importance, not a little increased by his so-called victory over the garrison there; and he is supported by a large number of the Boers in the district. Solomon Prinslow in the Pretoria district has always been an arch-rebel, both against the former Boer government and the English which succeeded it, and is likely to be at the old game again. Marais at Heidelberg counts upon a good following to support his pretensions, and there are many more. But to attempt anything like a surmise as to what will happen to the unhappy country hereafter can be but guess-work. Already the Boers are crying out that they will fight to make the English take back the country; they see English rule about to be replaced by Boer misrule; worst of all, English money is rapidly leaving the Transvaal. The outlook is not pleasant. Others say they will turn the Resident out as soon as the soldiers are off, and that gentleman has no pleasant prospect before him. If he turns

Boer, they may stand him—if he acts up to the letter of the Convention, they will get rid of him. In either case he can only rely on moral force in the exertion of his authority, and that is the very force which no Boer can ever give way to.

Looking at the lessons taught us in the late war we cannot value them too much.

Like all great commanders, the Boers have produced a novelty in warfare, and it has beaten the older system. They have taught us the value of men who can ride and shoot at the same time-who have been taught the importance of cover, and know by instinct where to look for it. A body of men so trained would turn the scale in many a battle nowadays. The infantry soldier is powerless against their rapid movements. Artillery finds its target merely a cloud of dots, always in motion, and widely scattered. The cavalry alone can do anything against such an enemy, and they again are heavily weighted when compared with the Boers. Some men who took a leading part in the siege of the Potchefstroom garrison, on seeing the cavalry escort march in with the second garrison, said: "Ah, if you had only had four hundred men like that, with swords, who would gallop at us without caring if a few were shot, we should never have risen."

We in our clumsy way have got up an imitation of the Boer system in our mounted infantry. Necessity made us produce the nearest approach to cavalry we could out of the materials at hand. The idea is good; in practice, mounted infantry, as at present organised, are useless. Look at the way we set about raising them. The colonel of a regiment is told to pick out as many men as he thinks suited to the work, and he naturally chooses those who can ride, not an over

common accomplishment in our infantry. These men can ride fairly, but the chances are against their being able to shoot even tolerably. Here is a second accomplishment to be added to the first; and if one is rarc, how much rarer must be the two combined? The men thus raised go out to fight, happy if they can stick in their saddles, armed with carbines, by no means a perfect weapon, and meet men born, so to speak, on horseback, carrying the best rifles that money will buy, and trained in their use from childhood.

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Mounted infantry did good service in Zululand, because every Zulu has a peculiar dread of a man on horseback; but against Boers or Europeans they are useless under their present organisation. Mounted infantry first came to be heard of in the American war, when a battalion was mounted and sent away to anticipate the enemy at a certain spot, when they mounted and became infantry again. The horse was simply a means of locomotion. A couple of regiments composed of men who can ride and shoot, and don't mind taking a leaf out of the Boer farmers' book, would be invaluable to a general in the field. Wise men are never above learning from their inferiors, even though these be rough Boer farmers.

The Boers get very indignant if you tell them that they wanted to be beaten; all they wished was to show that they were not cowards, and to get better terms about the future of their country than they could have got without fighting. But having beaten us they have got too much, and don't know what to do with it. They fought well and bravely; their system of patrolling was admirable; their investments of the various garrisons were so well organised that it was barely possible to get a single mes

senger through their lines; while the attack on Majuba was a deed which, had it been done by English soldiers, would have been spoken of as a glorious instance of British pluck and heroism.

Pity that, with much to admire, their true character showed out when they were not under the immediate eye of their leaders. So we have to deplore the murders of Elliot, of Malcolm, of Barber; the kicking to death of the storekeeper near Pretoria; the mock trial and execution of the pretended spies at Potchefstroom; and the murder of many natives in cold blood all over the country.

But of all the deeds done the massacre of Bronker's Spruit will remain a lasting record of Boer cruelty and Boer dishonour. Read the short story taken from the lips of one present, a man in a position of trust, a soldier of nearly twenty years' service-a man whose simple words breathe truth in every syllable, and whose life has never borne a stain.

"I was in the fifth waggon from the front; the country had become covered with thorny bush, and we could not see far any way. Just then the road came out into an open space where the bushes fell away back for perhaps fifty yards. on either side; about the middle was a big tree. It was just when we reached this open space that I saw five Boers riding in the bushes; and immediately after I saw them, a great number more, several hundred, came trooping over the low hill on our left rear. They came on, and the Colonel gave the order for the band to stop playing, and the men to halt. From the middle of the crowd, which still kept advancing, rode out three men, one carrying a white flag. They came about twenty-five yards in front of the rest, and the Colonel rode out to meet the white flag. He came

up to it, quite slowly, and spoke to the man carrying it, the others still advancing; they were about eighty yards from the road where the men were halted. After speaking to the man the Colonel turned his horse and walked back towards the men. He had got about half-way when a shot was fired from the Boers, and immediately a volley. The Colonel fell where he was, and some of the other officers, and many of the men. Then volley after volley was fired, and the men fell very fast. When the first volley was fired, the man with the white flag was riding back to the rest, and the flag was still flying. As soon as the Colonel gave the order to cease fire, the Boers rushed on us like tigers, and took our rifles and belts away; they took the boots off the dead and wounded before they would allow us to do anything for them. The waggon with the women in it stood with its open end to the Boers, and they could not help seeing the women, but they fired into it just the same. Sergeant Stacey piled up some boxes behind which the women and Mrs. Smith's two little children crouched, and as he was doing it, a bullet hit him through the wrist, and glanced upwards through one of the women's hats. Mrs. Fox was shot through the body.

"The big tree I told you stood by the roadside, was marked quite lately to show the range, as the Boers had chosen the place before. They only gave us food on payment. I have paid three shillings for a loaf of bread, and Dr. Ward used to pay for the milk every week. I counted sixty-seven horses

lying dead, so we must have killed some Boers. I was going to the Dutch farm then to try and buy something for the wounded, and was stopped by a Boer, who told me not to come there till the afternoon as they were burying their dead."

And in face of these well-known facts, Mr. Chamberlain stated in his speech during the Transvaal debate, that "Bronker's Spruit, which was at first thought to have been a massacre, is now proved beyond dispute to to have been a fair fight."

We have read of the old soldier who, in his declining years, takes up his grandchildren on his knees, and tells them of all the glorious fights of old which Englishmen have fought for Queen and country. Here, at least, is one which no old soldier will care to speak of when he prattles of England's deeds of bravery in the days gone by. There are dead faces under the sods up yonder, and sad ones at home looking down on crippled limbs and shattered lives; and those dead faces under the turf cry out with silent tongues to England who sent them forth to die; and England will not hear them. Those cold faces lying there can no longer brighten with the thought that, though they died to add another page to England's greatness, she in her love has freed their memories from disgrace, and wiped out with her just anger the bloody day; while those still living can only turn away and sigh to feel how easily brave English soldiers can be forgotten by their own country.

My friend Luigi is reckoned one of the finest violin-players of the day. His wonderful skill has made him famous, and he is well known and honoured for his talent in every capital in Europe.

If in these pages I call him by another name than the one he has made famous, it is solely on account of a promise he exacted from me, in case I should ever feel tempted to make the following strange experiences, we shared together, public property. I am afraid, nevertheless, that too many will readily identify the man himself with the portrait I am obliged to draw.

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Luigi - leaving his professional greatness out of the questionwould have been a noticeable man in any company, a man that people would look at and ask not only, "Who is he?" but "What has he done in the world?" knowing that men of his stamp are seldom sent upon this scene to live an ordinary everyday life. In person he was very tall, standing over six feet. His figure was graceful, and might be called slight, but had breadth of shoulder enough to tell it was the figure of a strong man; a face with a pale but clear complexion; dark deep-set eyes, with a sort of far-away expression in them; black hair, worn long, after the manner of geniuses of his kind; a high but rugged forehead; a wellshaped nose; a drooping moustache; a hand whose long and delicate fingers seemed constructed for their particular mission-violin-playing. Picture all these, and if you enjoy the acquaintance of the musical world, or even if you have been in the habit of attending concerts where stars of the first magnitude condescend to shine, I fear, in spite

of my promise of concealing his name, you will too easily recognise my friend.

lived

Luigi's manner in ordinary life was very quiet, gentlemanly, and reposed. He was, in his dreamy sort of way, highly courteous and polite to strangers. Although, when alone with me or other friends he loved, he had plenty to say for himself-and his broken English was pleasant to listen to-in general company he spoke but little. But let his left hand close round the neck of a fiddle, let his right hand grasp the bow, and one knew directly for what purpose Luigi came into the world. Then the man and revelled, as it were, in a life of his own making. The notes his craft drew forth were like bracing air to him; he seemed actually to respire the music, and his dreamy eyes awoke and shone with fire. He did that rare thing-rare indeed, but lacking which no performer can rise to fame-threw his whole soul into his playing. His manner, his very attitude as commenced, was a complete study. Drawing himself up to every inch of his height, he placed the violinnestling it, I may say-under his chin, and then taking a long breath of what appeared to be anticipatory pleasure, swept his magician's wand over the sleeping strings, and waking them with the charmed touch, wove his wonderful spell of music. The moment the horse-hair came in contact with the gut, the listener knew he was in the presence of a master.

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Luigi had come to London for the season, having, after much negotiation and persuasion, accepted an engagement at a long series of some of the best, if cheapest and

most popular, concerts held in London. It was his first visit to England: he had ever disliked the country, and believed very little in the national love for good music, or in the power of appreciating it when heard. He disliked, also, the trumpeting with which the promoters of the concerts heralded his appearance. Although his fame was great already throughout the Continent, he dreaded the effect of playing to an unsympathetic audience. His fears were, however, groundless. Whether the people liked and understood his music and style of playing or not, they at least appeared to do so; and the newspapers, one and all, unable to do things by halves, went into raptures over him. They compared him with Paganini, Ole Bull, and other bygone masters, and their comparisons were very flattering. Altogether, Luigi was a great success.

I met him on two occasions at the houses of some friends of mine, who are in the habit of spending much time, trouble, and some money on that strange sport, lion-hunting. His concerts were held, I think, on two evenings in every week; so he had time at his disposal, and was somewhat sought after. We were introduced, and I took a liking to the quiet, gentlemanly celebrity, who, different from many others whose names are in the mouths of men, gave himself no airs, nor vaunted, by words or manner, the "aristocracy of talent." I could make shift to converse with him fairly enough in his own soft language; so that upon my meeting him the second time, he expressed his pleasure at again enountering me. A few days afterwards we met by chance in the street, and I was able to extricate him from some little difficulty, into which his imperfect knowledge of English and of English ways had betrayed

him.

Then our acquaintance ripened, until it became friendship; and even at this day I reckon him amongst the friends I hold the dearest.

I saw a great deal of Luigi during his stay in London. We made pleasant little excursions together to objects of interest he wished to visit. We spent many evenings together-nights I should rather say, for the small hours had sounded when we parted, leaving the room dim with the smoke from my cigars and his own cigarettes. Like many of his countrymen, he smoked simply whenever he could get the chance; and when alone with me, I believe the only cessation to his consumption of tobacco was when he took his beloved fiddle in his hand and played for his own pleasure and my delight.

He was a charming companion -indeed what man who had seen such varied life as he had, could be otherwise when drawn out by the confidence that friendship gives! and I soon found that under the external calmness of the man lay a nature full of poetry, and not free from excitement. I was also much amused to find a vivid vein of superstition and belief in the supernatural running through his character; and I believe it was only my merriment on making the discovery that hindered him from expatiating upon some ghostly experiences he had gone through himself, instead of darkly hinting at what he could reveal. It was in vain I apologised for my ill-timed mirth, and with a grave face tried to tempt him. He only said: "You, like the rest of your coldblooded, money-making race, are sceptical, my friend. I will tell you nothing. You would not believe; you would laugh at ine-and ridicule is death to me.'

Another thing he was very tena