Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) | Page 9

bullet going into his head

alongside his right eye, and coming out just in front of the right ear. His
friends need not be anxious concerning him; he is quite out of danger,
and he and I have killed a few tedious hours blowing tobacco smoke
skywards, and chatting about life in far off Australia. Another familiar
face was that of an English private, named Charles Laxen, of the
Northumberlands, who was wounded at Stormberg. I am told that he
displayed excellent pluck before he was laid out, firstly by a piece of
shell on the side of the head, and, later, by a Mauser bullet through the
left knee. He is getting along O.K., but will never see service as a
soldier again on account of the wounded leg.
I had written to the President of the Orange Free State, asking him to
grant me my liberty on the ground that I was a non-combatant.
Yesterday Mr. Steyn courteously sent his private secretary and carriage
to the hospital with an intimation that I should be granted an interview.
I was accordingly driven down to what I believe was the Stadt House.
In Australia we should term it the Town Hall. The President met me,
and treated me very courteously, and, after chatting over my capture
and the death of my friend, he informed me that I might have my
liberty as soon as I considered myself sufficiently recovered to travel.
He offered me a pass viâ Lourenço Marques, but I pointed out that if I
were sent that way I should be so far away from my work as to be
practically useless to my paper. The President explained to me that it
was not his wish nor the desire of his colleagues to hamper me in any
way in regard to my work. "What we want more than anything else,"
remarked the President, "is that the world shall know the truth, and
nothing but the truth, in reference to this most unhappy war, and we
will not needlessly place obstruction in your way in your search for
facts; if we can by any means place you in the British lines we will do
so. If we find it impossible to do that you must understand that there is
some potent reason for it." So I let that question drop, feeling satisfied
that everything that a sensible man has a right to ask would be done on
my behalf.
President Steyn is a man of a notable type. He is a big man physically,
tall and broad, a man of immense strength, but very gentle in his
manner, as so many exceptionally strong men are. He has a typical

Dutch face, calm, strong, and passionless. A man not easily swayed by
outside agencies; one of those persons who think long and earnestly
before embarking upon a venture, but, when once started, no human
agency would turn him back from the line of conduct he had mapped
out for himself. He is no ignorant back-block politician, but a refined,
cultured gentleman, who knows the full strength of the British Empire;
and, knowing it, he has defied it in all its might, and will follow his
convictions to the bitter end, no matter what that end may be. He
introduced me to a couple of gentlemen whose names are very dear to
the Free Staters, viz., Messrs. Fraser and Fischer, and whilst the
interview lasted nothing was talked of but the war, and it struck me
very forcibly that not one of those men had any hatred in their hearts
towards the British people. "This," said the President, "is not a war
between us and the British people on any question of principle; it is a
war forced upon us by a band of capitalistic adventurers, who have
hoodwinked the British public and dragged them into an unholy, an
unjust struggle with a people whose only desire was to live at peace
with all men. We do not hate your nation; we do not hate your soldiers,
though they fight against us; but we do hate and despise the men who
have brought a cruel war upon us for their own evil ends, whilst they
try to cloak their designs in a mantle of righteousness and liberty." I
may not have given the exact words of the President, as I am writing
from memory, but I think I have given his exact sentiments; and, if I
am any judge of human nature, the love of his country is the love of his
life.

"STOPPING A FEW."
I saw him first, years ago upon a station in New South Wales; a neat,
smart figure less than nine stone in weight, but it was nine stone of
fencing wire full of the electricity of