The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-11-20
MEETING WITH JOUBERT.

fish.
 Some twenty years ago I was sitting
 In a Southampton bound carriage at
 Waterloo Station, when three burly
 men, evidently foreigners, entered my
 compartment. They had a lot of lug
 gage, including many cigar boxes. One
 was dark, saturnine and sleepy. An
 other fell asleep at once. The third
 man sat opposite to me. I can only
 describe him as huge. had read of .Dutchmen, but this mans hands as
 they rested on his enormous knees were
 nearly foot across. There was a
 sense of elephantine power about him.
 He looked as if he could have caught
 hold of me and snapped me across his knee like a carrot if he had wanted to, 1 but, fortunately, he didn't want to- 1 he wanted a light.
 l noticed and supplied the want, and
 he lit up and puffed away fiercely. l His cigar and his eyes seemed to glow | together, and as he alternately sucked
 and puffed I got into conversation and i found I was talking to a MT. Joubert,
 one of the delegates from the Trans Vaal Boers who had come to England 1 to protest against the annexa- ton of their country, had failed to inn
 press Lord Kimberley, 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 n1pn'G w nt tir11n bo pity-he seemed a trifie crazy. He de- nounced the English rule and all it's i ways, saying we did not understand ulus, or how to deal with them. Why" said he, you are going to war-r Chat was how he pronounced the word) with the Zulus now"
 l 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 alone. Did we not beat Pandah? Ah, yet! And Dinga -ahn? An, yes And you say we are cruel to natifs! Bah again! You do not know. Listen-see (and he leaned toward me, spluttering, while, as he grew excited, his beard and mustache literally bristled like pinwire). 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-out We roll stone to the caves--big stone. And then Che raised himself from his seat) we sit on the stone (here 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 impossibiity of any fugitives, unprovided with gun powder in large quantities or powerful machinery, raising a 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 business-ike way, as if the affair had been considered beforehand "un- til your people have eaten up 'Cete- wayo'"
 He pronounced the last word "Ket- schewai-yo," with a wailing, tomaso emphasis upon the "wai-yo'' which mere pen and ink cannot vocalize
 And then?" asked.
 We shall fa-ight," he said quite sim ply.
 Man alive" I cried in sheer amaze ment, you can't fight the British gov ernment!"
 He shook his head with an easy roll | IL. .I1r l~ know" was his answer, but we shall | tra-a-i."
 They did try" as we all know | tried to good purpose, and perhaps I | was less astonished than most people | when the news of our amazing dis | comfiture at the hands of a few rebels | first came to hand. Assuredly, MT. | Joubert was terribly in earnest when | he spoke to me. He said incidentally | that they had only one enemy at the Cape. suggested Sir Bartle Frere, but | he shook his head impatiently "Frere? | No! Pouf! He all right. No! S-S-S- 
 He lowered his head as he spoke and fairly hissed out the name, with a look of such awful malignity as have never seen before or since. After that look I | knew perfectly well whether a Boer could be cruel or not, if he got the chance. I have written this short ac- count of my meeting with Englands great enemy because it shows, to my mind, the invincible 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 hope ess in the worlds eyes as they do now nay, more so, if possible. Yet they ought and succeeded Such considera- ions may stimulate them now. Any way, I leave the discussion to pro- 'ounder politicians than myself. I only 1now I found MT. Joubert a very in- Itructive companion. When we parted le shook hands, and told me if ever I vas at the Cape to come to see him.
 I have not yet accepted his invita- ion, and if I ever do I shall not go, III things considered, just yet. Next lutumn Derhaps.-Pail Mall Gazette
 " M C A MEMS MEETTNG