is carried on in the Boer tongue. About two hundred of the prisoners are under seventeen years of age, and are being taught anything they will learn, as well as how to speak and read English. Many of the older men are quite uneducated, and take the opportunity of learning English and profiting by the free instruction. One of the sights of the camp is a large canvas, about 8 feet long and 6 feet high, painted in oils, representing one of the battles in the Transvaal, and another smaller canvas gives a picture of one of the attacks on Mafeking. Both drawing and colouring were crude and inexperienced, but there were by another hand apparently good likenesses of General de Villiers and other prominent leaders. The leaders are not, it would seem, treated outwardly with any great consideration by their more humble companions. The Boer is no respecter of persons, and the guards say that they have tried in vain to discover any differences of class or rank. The officers, who were separately housed, do not seem to have more education or training than the men in the ranks, but they are none the less granted several privileges by the English commandant. The large recreation ground, which lies in the centre of the camp, is a place of general resort for all during the afternoon and evening, and cricket, football, skittles, quoits, and all active games seem very popular. Cricket matches are arranged with neighbouring teams, and the surrounding country is explored and enjoyed by large walking parties on parole. At first there were several attempts at escape, and two got away in a German ship to Rangoon before being recaptured. On another occasion three succeeded in eluding pursuit by embarking on a Russian ship and were traced back to the Transvaal, where one has since died in an English hospital. Lately they have given up running away, perhaps partly owing to the difficulties thrown in their way by the ingenious plan adopted with regard to their money. Large remittances from South Africa are received every mail by at least half of them, and some few already possess considerable sums. The Governor of the island becomes their banker and holds a private account for each individual, who can draw upon it whenever he pleases. There is as much as six thousand pounds in his hands, and any amount required is supplied to its owner in a specially designed paper currency of various values, which passes in the camp alone. This renders it impossible for any prisoner to bribe or corrupt either soldiers or natives, and likewise prevents his purchasing food or clothing should he escape, while it gives him complete control over his own money.

One of the chief labours connected with the camp is the censorship of all the correspondence which passes to and fro... It has been found to be of the greatest importance, and has been the means not infrequently of preventing mischief both in camp and South Africa by the suppression of wilful mis-statements as well as

inflammatory language. The Boers cannot all write themselves, but they get those who can do so to write for them, and they communicate freely with their wives and families. Many letters are received from the Concentration Camps, and nothing has been reported which can in any way justify the outcry raised in England by a certain section of the pro-Boer press. Indeed the confidence shown by the prisoners as to the welfare of their belongings would seem to indicate that the humane policy of providing homes for the women and children has prolonged the inevitable miseries of war. Among much that is disloyal and untrue, there is a good deal that is very simple and naïve in their letters. Some of them when they first arrived apparently drew the long bow and described themselves as lodged in the jungle among herds of elephants, and then with a sudden desire to verify their descriptions they petitioned the Governor to exhibit some in the camp. Their request was granted and their childish curiosity gratified. They have six chaplains of their own race and religion among them, and they conduct their services entirely according to their own wishes and customs. There is also a library well stocked with literature and newspapers, and every effort is made to render their captivity as little irksome as possible. No special dress distinguishes them from other Europeans, as they apply for and choose their own. They seem to have some odd fancy, however, for wearing their old clothes, even though they may be in a dirty and insanitary condition, while they carefully hoard stores of new ones. Whenever they get leave on parole, their property is handed over for custody and search to the commandant, and it is not unusual to find two or three perfectly new suits and pairs of boots carefully stowed away. Each one has an ordinary pith sun-helmet, round which the officers have a red ribbon. In appearance the Boers at the Diyatawala Camp were mostly tall burly fellows with large loosely knit limbs and rather heavy dogged countenances, of a totally different type from that of their foreign mercenaries whose prison camp we afterwards visited at Raguma, not very far from Colombo. These men had proved such a disturbing element to the peace of the Transvaal community that they were removed to separate quarters. The Raguma encampment stands at a good elevation in a lovely grove of palm trees, and consists of the same description of tin huts, but as a protection for the hotter climate the roofs are thatched over with dried palm leaves to keep out the sun. We visited this towards evening and found Germans, Scandinavians, Poles, Russians, French, Armenians, Jews. Some were pacing up and down smoking; some who had laid out small vegetable and flower gardens in front of the huts were watering the quickly growing plants; others were reading newspapers or etching and drawing at the little hut tables, for here they mess in companies in a dining hall and not each in the hut to which he belongs. There were six or seven men in the cool little

hospital, and we spoke to a Corsican, a Greek, a Dutchman, a German, an Afrikander, and an American. The censorship of the correspondence here is much less simple than at the Boer camp, for last month the principal censor had through his hands letters written in no fewer than twenty different languages.

The task of taking charge of the thousands of captives made during the Boer War is a thankless and ungrateful one, but it is none the less important for the future of our South African dominions. The presence of this small army of hostile prisoners in an island not so large as Ireland causes very little inconvenience to the inhabitants, so perfect is the organisation and so great the attention to detail on the part of the Governor and his able military commandants. The burden of silent drudgery and patience required of those who undertake it here and elsewhere is one that is scarcely recognised by the British public and is apt to be overlooked in the clash and din of arms. We may, however, be permitted to hope that when these enemies of our country are once more free they will carry back to their native land much useful experience, and teach their compatriots improved habits of hygiene and cleanliness learned from the care bestowed upon them. At all events they should return to their homes without any feelings of bitterness towards their captors, and, moreover, prepared to become loyal subjects of the Empire.

MARY A. A. GALLOWAY.

THE EMPRESS FREDERICK IN YOUTH

A RECOLLECTION

THE day I first set eyes on the Princess Royal was late in December 1857. It was after tea in a small boudoir at Windsor Castle. The Princess was standing between the Queen and the Prince Consort, and as I advanced to kiss her hand I felt the flower-like touch of her fresh face on my cheek and saw her bright eyes smile into mine.

Though barely out of the school room myself, the Princess appeared to me extraordinarily young. All the childish roundness still clung to her and made her look shorter than she really was. She was dressed in a fashion long disused on the Continent, in a plum-coloured silk dress fastened at the back. Her hair was drawn off her forehead. Her eyes were what struck me most; the iris was green, like the sea on a sunny day, and the white had a peculiar shimmer which gave them the fascination that, together with a smile showing her small and beautiful teeth, bewitched those who approached her. The nose was unusually small and turned up slightly, and the complexion was decidedly ruddy, perhaps too much so for one so young, but it gave the idea of perfect health and strength. The fault of the face lay in the squareness of the lower features, and there was even then a look of determination about the chin; but the very gentle and almost timid manner prevented one realising this at first. The voice was very delightful, never going up to high tones, but lending a peculiar charm to the slightly foreign accent with which the Princess spoke both English and German.

Though all who knew the Princess at that epoch recognised the promise of some of the great and remarkable qualities which went to form the character of the Empress Frederick, nobody could foresee the circumstances and tragic events which shaped them in a peculiar mould. During those last weeks before her marriage the Princess appeared to cling with passion to all her family, especially to her father, whom she worshipped and admired with all her soul. She was highly cultured, and she felt she owed this to his incessant care of her. He, on his part, was proud of this lavishly endowed child and always said that it was of her and Don Pedro of Portugal, his

cousin, that he had the highest expectations and felt himself best understood. Don Pedro died in the flower of his youth, and the Prince scarcely lived to see the development of his beloved daughter.

The Princess had a great feeling for fun and innocent humour, and was full of stories about her brothers and sisters. She adored the baby Princess Beatrice, who was only a few months old, and when fondling her the motherly instinct came out strongly. She was in fits of laughter about Prince Affy, who, having discovered that one of the gentlemen of the Court wore false calves, planted pins with flags into his silk stockings, and also much amused at Prince Leopold, who, aged four, always picked out the prettiest ladies and insisted upon helping them to do their hair.

It was not entirely a spirit of contradiction which, later on, made her depreciate her German surroundings, for even before she left England I never saw anybody so entirely attached to her home and her belongings and consciously appreciating them, a thing very rare in one so young. From the moment, however, that Prince Frederick William arrived a few days before the marriage, his presence seemed to fill the whole picture out for her.

Anybody who ever approached Prince Frederick William knows how great his kindness, charm, and geniality were; but he was undeveloped for his age, and, though ten years older than the Princess, it was easy to see who would take the lead. Her surroundings had been large, splendid, and liberal, whilst he had been brought up in a narrow, old-fashioned, and reactionary way, which had kept him back and subdued him. Nobody was more aware of this than himself or spoke more openly about it with his friends. The Princess, often from no particular reason, took violent fancies to people. She used at first to think them quite perfect and then came the bitter disillusion. She also took first-sight dislikes to persons, based often only on a trick of manner, or an idle word dropped about them in her presence, and thus she often lost useful friends and supporters. She was no judge of character, and never became one, because her own point of view was the only she could see. This is a frequent defect in strong characters endowed with much initiative.

When I first knew the Princess Royal it was the Empress Eugénie who filled her young mind with admiration. She was never tired of extolling her grace and her beauty. She still treasured a piece of tulle torn off the Empress's dress at some ball in Paris when she accompanied the Queen there in 1854, and spoke of her in raptures. When she worked herself up to these enthusiasms, or, as the French would call it, engouements, she praised the fancy of the moment so excessively that it was difficult to agree entirely with her, thus often raising opposition and even contradiction, which, however, only fanned her enthusiasm to a brighter flame. She was in the