Cronje's surrender reached them they celebrated the event with almost as
much gusto as if they had not been in the enemy's country. A fancy dress
ball was held in Johannesburg in honour of the event, and a champagne
dinner was given within a few yards of the Government buildings in
Pretoria, but a few days later all the celebrants were transported across
the border by order of the Government.

One of the pathetic features of Pretoria was the Boers' expression of
faith in foreign mediation or intervention. At the outset of hostilities
it seemed unreasonable that any European nation or America would risk a
war with Great Britain for the purpose of assisting the Boers, yet there
was hardly one burgher who did not cling steadfastly to the opinion that
the war would be ended in such a manner. The idea had evidently been
rooted in their mind that Russia would take advantage of Great Britain's
entanglement in South Africa to occupy Herat and Northern India, and when
a newspaper item to that effect appeared it was gravely presumed to
indicate the beginning of the end. Some over-zealous Irishmen assured the
Boers that, in the event of a South African war, their fellow-countrymen
in the United States would invade Canada and involve Great Britain in an
imbroglio over the Atlantic in order to save British America. For a few
weeks the chimera buoyed up the Boers, but when nothing more than an
occasional newspaper rumour was heard concerning it the rising in Ashanti
was then looked upon as being the hoped-for boon. The departure of the
three delegates to Europe and America was an encouraging sign to them, and
it was firmly believed that they would be able to induce France, Russia,
or America to offer mediation or intervention. The two Boer newspapers,
the Pretoria _Volksstem_ and the Johannesburg _Standard and Diggers'
News_, dwelt at length upon every favourable token of foreign assistance,
however trifling, and attempted to strengthen hopes which at hardly any
time seemed capable of realisation. It was not until after the war had