These are the lads who in their packed thousands tramped yesterday
through Pretoria. Past old Kruger's house, a cottage you might almost
call it, with its lions in front and several old burghers in black
crying in the verandah, we went at a foot's pace, choking in the cloud
of red dust, with the strains of "God Save the Queen" in our ears. We
emerge into the square. The Volksraad is on our right; then the Grand
Hotel, with all its windows full of English people, or sympathisers with
England, many of them women, all waving handkerchiefs and raising a
cracked cheer as we pass. I was staring at all this, whilst a big band
on the right broke merrily out with the "Washington Post," and did not
see till I almost brushed his horse's nose, our Commander-in-Chief
standing like an amiable little statue at the head of all his generals
and their staffs, with finger raised to helmet. It is quite a moment to
remember, and I do really feel for an instant, what all the morning I
have been trying to feel, that we are what literary people call "making
history."
As for Pretoria itself, it is a pretty and well-wooded little place,
with pink and white oleander trees in blossom, fir-trees, gums, and
weeping-willows along the streams and round the little bungalow houses.
The shady gardens and cool verandahs give these houses a very inviting
air in this land of blazing sun.
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