174 SOUTH AFRICA. 



still remains optional with Paul Kruger to evade 

 performance should caprice incline him to that 

 line of action. We are in duty bound, I hear, to 

 be thankful for the smallest mercies, and, if so, 

 we ought to feel grateful that Uncle (Oom) Paul 

 abstained on this occasion from " sitting on " our 

 Queen's representative, which he would certainly 

 have done had Mr. Gladstone been Prime 

 Minister, if only to gratify the well-known taste 

 for u long-suffering " characteristic of the G.O.M., 

 and as some acknowledgment of the debt owing 

 on the score of the " magnanimity " treatment of 

 which he (Paul) was the imaginary recipient after 

 his Majuba victory. 



Paul is not a man to laugh much at any time, 

 but he is said for once to have resisted the 

 impulse to indulge in that weakness most 

 boisterously, and that was when some one was 

 kind enough to read to him Mr. Gladstone's 

 exculpatory speech on the subject of the notorious 

 Convention with the Boer Triumvirate of which 

 Paul formed the prominent unit. 



And now it may not be amiss to add a few lines 

 embodying my opinions on the strained relations 

 so long existing between the Transvaal oligarchy, 



