had the moral courage to take the side of the native on the ground of civil and political justice. They are willing to give the black man religious teaching, such as they think suitable to him, but it is a teaching which does not go so far as the brotherhood of all races of men. The other churches in the Transvaal have perforce been silent; but conjecture as to what they would do under a freer system of government is not encouraging in view of the feeble stand which has been made by the churches in the Cape Colony, for instance, in a similar cause. The native has little to hope for from Colonial Governments and Colonial public opinion in the time now coming.

Great and many as have been the shortcomings of the Imperial Government, the fact remains that the thoughtful native in South Africa sees hope for his people mainly in Imperial as against Colonial administration. In the Cape Colony, as we have seen, the foundations for liberty were laid under direct rule from Great Britain, and we enjoy a certain amount of security in consequence, which is increased by the strength of the missionary organisations. In Natal it is only the strong hand of the Home Government which has held the balance, and that strong hand is tolerated because there is a consciousness in the Natalian mind that the Colony has to look to it to control, or to assist in times of stress in the control of, the enormous overshadowing native population. In Rhodesia, the abominable maladministration of the Chartered Company culminated in the rebellion of 1896, a rebellion which compelled the intervention of the Imperial Government, first to restore order, and then to take such measures as would be a guarantee for the future. Basutoland was handed over to Cape control, only to be handed back in 1884, because Colonial rule was at once too weak and too arbitrary to be tolerated by a people strong enongh to hold their own in a mountainous country.

Everywhere it is the same story. The Colonial sense of justice to the native when it does exist is overborne by selfish and shortsighted considerations. For some time to come the Home Government will have to keep a restraining hand on the native policy of the Northern States of South Africa. As long as these States continue to be governed provisionally direct from London, such restraint will no doubt form part of the system, but when, as we hope in a few years at most, a large increase of self-government comes to be accorded, it will be necessary to decide where the native is to come in, and to secure a permanent and automatic arrangement so as to preclude any necessity for perpetual and irritating interference from home.

Now that the whole problem of new and healthy constitutions for the Boer communities north of the Orange River has to be dealt with, some principle will have to be adopted; a principle which will be in itself an organic part of the constitution, which will work

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naturally, and obviate the necessity for any future special and abnormal interference from home.

We have a solemn duty to those who come after us. We have our choice of alternatives. We may allow the Boer to persist in regarding black men as a servile race, and keeping them under as such. This line of policy must result in hideous failure. Any race kept in a servile condition must deteriorate, and the process of deterioration will not confine itself to them, but will spread upwards like a foul miasma, poisoning the springs of the whole national life. Moreover, these black men in South Africa answer to what we call in Europe the democracy. Democracies have a way of asserting themselves eventually. In the long run they are bound to win. They may win by a healthy constitutional growth, as we see them doing in Great Britain and in the United States. Or they may assert themselves spasmodically and terribly in ruinous upheavals. Do we want a Black Terror in South Africa some daylike the Red Terror of a hundred years ago in France?

The other course is to accept the black man as a possible fellowcitizen. He has qualities which in the pure air of constitutional freedom are favourable to the noblest type of manhood, and calculated to add to the dignity and welfare of the whole community. The time will come when, dealt with on the broad ground of human justice, instead of being a danger, he will be one of the great sources of strength to the South African Commonwealth.

Cape Town

J. S. MOFFAT.

THE CAVALRY RUSH TO KIMBERLEY, AND IN PURSUIT OF CRONJE

[A MELANCHOLY interest attaches to this account of General French's great ride. It has been received since the death of the writer. Coming safely through the storm and stress of the fortnight of incessant action and activity here so graphically described, Cecil Boyle, a few weeks later, was killed in the successful little fight near Boshof.

And such, if death was to come so soon, was the death he would have wished. A soldier's death: a military funeral. Death while leading his men: death in the hour of victory. Death while doing his duty and serving his country, of which he was so proud, and to which he was so passionately devoted. A tragedy; but a tragedy with a silver lining to the cloud.

Written in scraps, at odd moments, under considerable campaigning difficulties—and none the worse for that-the story here given is a graphic, simple, and soldier-like account, by a spectator, of those masterly cavalry operations which came so opportunely at a critical moment. The freshness of the narrative has not been impaired by any retouching over here.

When, on the 16th of December, was published the telegram announcing the Colenso reverse, following hard on the news of Magersfontein and Stormberg, and the War Office appealed to the patriotism of the Yeomanry for volunteers, Cecil Boyle was among the very first to offer his services.

As a young man he had joined the London Scottish as a private. In 1886 he joined the Oxfordshire Hussars as a lieutenant, and became captain of the Banbury troop in 1898. A soldier at heart, a man who never did things by halves, he had for years put into his Yeomanry work all the strenuous energy of which he was capable; and had spared neither time, money, nor practical trouble, both to make himself a useful soldier, and to infuse the same spirit into the men he commanded.

He felt, at once, when the crisis came-as did so many other

Yeomanry officers-that he could not expect his men to volunteer unless he volunteered himself. And it is a remarkable evidence of the influence of his character, of the confidence felt in him, and the devotion felt for him by those with whom he came into personal relations, that not only did a considerable number of the Banbury troop volunteer, but that eleven of his City friends, including a partner and a partner's son, joined his corps in order to follow him to South Africa.

But it was in no spirit of bravado, not for glory nor for praise, it was with no light heart, that Cecil Boyle left those near and dear to him, and his business and home interests at the call of his country. He went from a stern sense of duty; the desire to do his own duty and, by example, to make it easier for others to do theirs. A typical instance of that which has been shown of late to be so universal-self-sacrifice in our country's cause at the hour of need.

On the 18th of December, Lord Roberts's appointment as Commander-in-Chief was known, and the War Office appeal to the Yeomanry was announced. That same day he volunteered. Once before he had been out to South Africa; and Lord Chesham-who was to command the Imperial Yeomanry-hearing that he was willing to start at a moment's notice, asked him to prepare, on arrival at Cape Town, the necessary depôt in anticipation of the landing of the Yeomanry. He sailed on the 23rd by the Dunottar Castle the ship that was conveying Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener to the Cape.

Arriving at Cape Town on the 11th of January, he was for some weeks very busily occupied in the task of preparing the depôt at Maitland Camp, in scouring the country for remounts, in buying horses here and there-many of those offered him being only about fit to carry my boots'-in acting, as he said, as a sort of gigantic vet. ; from time to time reporting progress to Lord Kitchener. The atmosphere of the camp made him feel at the end of a week as if I had done nothing but soldiering all my life.'

His work at Cape Town completed, and with a fortnight at his disposal before the first detachments of the Imperial Yeomanry would arrive, he was invited by Colonel Douglas Haig, of General French's Staff, an old schoolfellow, to go up with him to Colesberg and watch the cavalry operations.

Eager for action--hoping, moreover, that at the front he might pick up experience which would be of subsequent service to his men-he gladly accepted the offer, little thinking to what it would lead. Starting for Colesberg, he found that their destination was the Modder River camp-matters were rapidly developing. He arrived there on the 8th of February. On the very next day he received a note asking him to join General French's Staff as galloper, to go with

the flying column about to start for the relief of Kimberley. Too good to be true, he thought at first the thing was a joke, and tore up the note. But it was true; and, securing two horses, he started with the column the next morning at daybreak.

Then came the rapid advance-'the ride up the plain to Kimberley, between two fires, of the whole division at the gallop was the most gloriously exciting thing I ever dreamt of—the relief of Kimberley; the sudden march back to intercept Cronje, and the final capture of his force.

That over, though sorely tempted by an invitation from General French to remain with him for the entry into Bloemfontein, he reluctantly tore himself away from the Army in order to meet the detachment of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry just arriving. Starting on the 7th of March from Cape Town, they came up by train to De Aar Junction. There' our hearts fell,' for 'we heard, to our disgust, that we were not to go to Naauwpoort, but probably to put down rebels at Prieska.' Detraining at De Aar, they marched, a composite gathering of troops under the general directions of Lord Kitchener, to Prieska; a long, weary, dusty, comfortless march. Arriving at Prieska on the 19th of March, without any fighting, but with occasional alarums and excursions, they left it immediately and marched back to De Aar—this time a draggled, trying march, with torrential rain and floods. From there, on the 28th of March, they went by train to Kimberley, hoping to go up to Fourteen Streams and thence to the relief of Mafeking. From Kimberley they went to Boshof.

On the 4th of April a party of Boers were reported as moving a few miles off. 'Boot and saddle' was sounded, and in half an hour the troops were off, some 250 of the Imperial Yeomanry and 250 of the Kimberley Light Horse, with a battery of Royal Field Artillery. The Boers were found posted on a kopje at Driefontein. The attacking force gradually surrounded the position; and, when the circle was completed, advanced to drive out the enemy; and finally, after some severe fighting, killed or captured the whole party. It was in this advance, while leading his men, and when within eighty yards of the Boer position, that Cecil Boyle was killed. Shot through the temple, he died without pain-the first Yeomanry officer who, in this history of ours, has fallen in action. He was buried in the little churchyard at Boshof; and a cross, made and put up by the men of his company, marks where he

lies.

In order to realise the full significance of the operations here described, a few dates may be recalled.

The Boer Ultimatum was launched on the 11th of October. By the end of the month, Mafeking, Kimberley, and Ladysmith <were invested, North Natal was overrun, and the northern dis