influenced by shibboleths bearing on the relative thicknesses of blood
and water. When, however, we learned how very much mistaken folks may
be, the "villainy" of President Steyn was--rather overstated, and the
continued independence of his country pronounced an impossibility.

This was all very well; but it involved some inconsistency, in that we
had veered round to the belief that the Transvaal would never have faced
the music _alone_, and without the aid of the neighbouring State! That
is to say: war was certain from the beginning; the Free Staters were
equally certain to be neutral; but since they were not neutral,
responsibility for the war was theirs, and theirs _only_. Perhaps it
was; but how was the view to be reconciled with our previous
positiveness to the contrary? As a fact, few were conscious of any
weakness in their way of laying down the law, and _they_ (tacitly)
admitted their fallibility.

On Monday the enemy betrayed signs of activity in the building of a
redoubt opposite the Premier Mine. This was disappointing; it looked as
if the purpose was to place a gun in the redoubt--to shy shells at the
Premier. A special edition of the _Diamond Fields' Advertiser_ lent
colour to the assumption. The Boers, the special stated, had a gun fixed
up at Mafeking, and had actually trained it on that town. The shells, we
were assured, had not burst; but (flying) they could hit a man in the
head, we thought. Whence they (the Boers) got the gun was a puzzle to
not a few; and how they managed to make it "speak" was beyond the
comprehension of others. "They might have another gun," these people
exclaimed in horror! They might indeed; the question soon ceased to be
one of speculation, for when a body of the Light Horse attempted to
cross the Free State border, the boom of "another gun" was unmistakably
real. Shell after shell was burled at the Light Horse; none of them were