170 Recollections of Adventures 



married to the daughter of my good old friend 

 Joachim Prinsloo, Landdrost of Pretoria. Outside, 

 everything had gone excepting the frame of a large 

 steam wheat-thrashing machine, of which bolts, 

 wheels, sieves, etc., etc., had been taken away. I 

 found that some of my immediate Boer neighbours 

 had most of my things. At the retrocession the 

 British Government undertook to compensate those 

 who had been pillaged. On the 13th of June, 1881, 

 Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of the Cape Colony, 

 and General Evelyn Wood arrived in Pretoria. On 

 August the 3rd, 1881, the Pretoria Convention was 

 signed, and on the 21st September the last British 

 troops left the Transvaal. Sir Owen Lanyon, who 

 had become Administrator on March 5th, 1879, left 

 Pretoria 8th April, 1881. Sir John Brand, President 

 of the Orange Free State had arrived in Pretoria on 

 June 8th, 1881, to join with Sir H. Robinson, General 

 Evelyn Wood and Chief Justice de Villiers, in hand- 

 ing back the Transvaal to the Boers, after the fight 

 of Majuba (on the 27th February, 1881). Mr. Glad- 

 stone decided to abandon the country, and carry out 

 the programme as announced in the Midlothian 

 election campaign. Among other events Sir H. 

 Robinson called a meeting of native chiefs at which 

 I was present. He explained to them that the 

 white Queen over the water did not wish to fight 

 the Boers, so had given the Transvaal back to them 

 with all the natives, English residents, etc., and told 

 them to be law-abiding, faithful subjects to the Boer 

 Republic. He introduced General Piet Joubert (who 

 sat on his right hand) as Minister for Native Affairs 

 in place of Henrique Shepstone. The natives asked 

 why they had paid taxes to the British (under 

 promise of protection ) while they were now being 

 handed over to the Boers, etc. It was a most 

 humiliating spectacle ! 



