serious trouble, for he was unable to resist the lion which Mr. Rhodes had offered him.  He confided to me that the President had spoken ‘most harshly’ to him in consequence, and had peremptorily ordered the immediate return of the beast under threats of instant dismissal.  Gunning said that he could not have borne such treatment, but that after all a man must live.  My private impression is that he will acquiesce in any political settlement which leaves him to enlarge his museum undisturbed.  But whether the Transvaal will be able to indulge in such luxuries, after blowing up many of other people’s railway bridges, is a question which I cannot answer.

The fourth member of the Board, Mr. Malan, was a foul and objectionable brute.  His personal courage was better suited to insulting the prisoners in Pretoria than to fighting the enemy at the front.  He was closely related to the President, but not even this advantage could altogether protect him from taunts of cowardice, which were made even in the Executive Council, and somehow filtered down to us.  On one occasion he favoured me with some of his impertinence; but I reminded him that in war either side may win, and asked whether he was wise to place himself in a separate category as regards behaviour to the prisoners.  ‘Because,’ quoth I, ’it might be so convenient to the British Government to be able to make one or two examples.’  He was a great gross man, and his colour came and went on a large over-fed face; so that his uneasiness was obvious.  He never came near me again, but some days later the news of a Boer success arrived, and on the strength of this he came to the prison and abused a subaltern in the Dublin Fusiliers, telling him that he was no gentleman, and other things which it is not right to say to a prisoner.  The subaltern happens to be exceedingly handy with his fists, so that after the war is over Mr. Malan is going to get his head punched quite independently of the general settlement.

Although, as I have frequently stated, there were no legitimate grounds of complaint against the treatment of British regular officers while prisoners of war, the days I passed at Pretoria were the most monotonous and among the most miserable of my life.  Early in the sultry mornings, for the heat at this season of the year was great, the soldier servants—­prisoners like ourselves—­would bring us a cup of coffee, and sitting up in bed we began to smoke the cigarettes and cigars of another idle, aimless day.  Breakfast was at nine:  a nasty uncomfortable meal.  The room was stuffy, and there are more enlivening spectacles than seventy British officers caught by Dutch farmers and penned together in confinement.  Then came the long morning, to be killed somehow by reading, chess, or cards—­and perpetual cigarettes.  Luncheon at one:  the same as breakfast, only more so; and then a longer afternoon to follow a long morning.  Often some of the officers used to play rounders in the small yard which we had for exercise.  But the rest walked moodily up and down, or lounged over the railings and returned the stares of the occasional passers-by.  Later would come the ’Volksstem’—­permitted by special indulgence—­with its budget of lies.