The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-11-13
THE BoERs ARE BITTER.
Their Fierceness in War Expresses Hate
 Long Felt.

Their Fierceness in War Expresses Hate
 Long Felt,
 Some twenty years ago I was sitting lin a Southampton bound carriage at Waterloo Station when three burly men, evidently foreigners, entered my conn
 partment They had a lot or luggage,
 including many cigar boxes. One was dark, saturnine, and sleepy. Another 1 fell asleep at once. The third man sat | opposite to me. I can only describe him as huge. I had read of Dutchmen, but
 this mans hands, were nearly foot across. There was a sense of elephant inc power about him. He looked as if he could have caught hold of me and snapped me across his knee like a car- rot if he had wanted to; but fortunately he didn't want to--he wanted a light.
 I noticed and supplied the want, and he lit up and puffed away tiercely. His { cigar and his eyes seemed to glow to- gether, and as he alternately sucked and puffed I got into conversation and | found I was talking to MT. Joubert, one of the delegates from the Transvaal Boers who had come to England to pro- | test against the annexation of their country had failed to impress Lord Kimberly and were going home. seeing Paris en route, via Southampton and Havre
 | MT. Joubert was very bitter about his | failure with our Colonial Office and | very frank To my ignorant mind-as | ignorant as, I believe, most English mems were at that time, mores the I pity!--he seemed trifle crazy. He de- nounced the English rule and all it's ways, saying we didn't understand the | Zulus or how to deal with them. Why" said he, you are going to war-r-r- (that was how he pronounced the word) with the zulus now" I said the English were going to crush the Zulus in self-defense, and also to protect the Boers themselves
 "Bah!" said he. You leave us a. lone. Did we not beat Pandah? An, yes! And Dinga-ahn? An, yes! And you say we are cruel to natits! Ban again! You do not know. Listen-see, (and as he leaned toward me- splutter- ing, while as he grew excited his beard and mustache literally bristled like pin Wire.) Those natifs, to whom you say we are cruel, they came down one time and killed our women and children. We followed them. I was one who followed. yes. They ran to hide--in caves We waited but we could not get them a-cut. We roll stone to the caves-big stone. And then Che raised himself from his seaD we sit on the stone, there he dropped back on the cushion with an appalling plump,) and we sit and sit for six weeks" He paused, and added quietly, Then we come away.
 I fully realized the impossiblity of any fugitives, unprovided with gum powder in large quantities or powerful machinery, raising stone on which MT. Joubert might happen at the mo- ment to be sitting, and also the danger of disturbing him, even from above ground, when engaged in his agreeable occupation I merely asked him what he and his people meant to do.
 We shall wait" he answered, in a cool, businesslike way, as if the affair had been considered beforehand, until your people have eaten up Cetewayo."
 He pronounced the lst word "Ketsche- wai-yo" with a weiling tom-cat em- phasis upon the "wai-yo," which mere pen and ink cannot vocalize.
 And then?" I asked.
 we shall fa-ight," he said, quite simply.
 Man alive" I cried, in sheer amaze ment, you can't fight the British Government"
 He shook his head, with an easy roll of his ponderous shoulders. II do not know" was his answer, but we shall tra-ai."
 They did try" as we know tried to good purpose, and perhaps I was less astonished than most people when the news of our amazing discomfiture at the hands of a few rebels first came to hand. Assuredly MT. Joubert was terri bly, in earnest when he spoke to me. He said incidentally, that they had only one enemy at the Cape I suggested Sir Bartle Frere, but he shook his head impatiently, "Frere? No. Pouf! He all right. No! S-S--S-Shepstone. ,
 He lowered his head as he spoke and fairly hissed out his name, with look of such awful malignity as I have never seen before or since. After that look I knew perfectely well whether Boar could be cruel or not, if he got the chance l nave WIllIeIl llllS SuOII dCCOuIL OI Hly meeting with Englands great enemy because it shows, to my mind, the in- vincible obstinacy of the man and his people. When they threw down the gauntlet to a great empire twenty years ago, the chances of this handful of Boers seemed quite as hopeless in the worlds eyes as they do now--nay, more so, if possible. Yet they fought, and { succeeded. Such considerations may stimulate them now. Anyway, leave the discussion to profounder politicians than myself. I only know I found MT. | Joubert very instructive companion. | When we parted he shook hands and | told me if ever I was at the Cape to | come and see him.
 l have not yet accepted his invitation, | and, if l ever do, I shall not go, all | things considered, just yet. Next | Autumn, perhaps.-F. S. D. in Pail Mall Gazette.