of hay bound to his saddle and a sausage in his wallet. Fathers among
them as hale as the brawny sons by their sides. They looked capable
of any amount of fatigue.

Numbers of stray dogs and cats attest the many deserted homes.

JANUARY 15.--Every train brings women and children, hobby-horses and
canary birds back to their homes in Johannesburg. Betty has returned,
accompanied by Mr. Seymour Port, from Pretoria. She gives a very
spirited account of her visit. Through Mr. Sauer, one of the advocates
retained by the Reformers, a visiting permit was obtained. She and Mr.
Fort were obliged to wait several hours, in company with a crowd of
wives, at the prison gates, under a broiling sun. All were loaded down
with offerings.

Betty's own donation was several green-lined umbrellas (a god-send in
a whitewashed court beat upon by a tropical sun). After being admitted
each lady was taken into a private room and 'felt all over by a Boer
woman,' who was so fat, Betty declares, 'she must have grown up in
the room, as she could not possibly have got through the door, even
sideways.'

In the prison court the prisoners were sitting about in great
diversity of costume, pyjamas predominating. The weather was
suffocatingly hot. To while away the tedious time some were playing
marbles, others reading, and a few of the most active brains on the
Rand were caught dozing at midday, in a strip of shadow the width of
one's hand, the sole shade in the whole enclosure. Colonel Bettington
sat on a bench near the entrance in a peculiar and striking costume
which proved to be, to those who had courage to linger and analyse,