and a background of high hills crowned by forts, which latter were just visible to the naked eye.  From Sunny Side we were conducted over some of these fortifications:  there was Schantz’s Kop Fort, of very recent construction, and looking to the uninitiated of tremendous strength, with roomy bomb-proof shelters.  Here a corner of one of the massive entrance pillars had been sharply severed off by a British lyddite shell.  Later we inspected Kapper Kop Fort, the highest of all, where two British howitzer guns, firing a 280-pound shell, had found a resting-place.  Surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge, the view from this fort was magnificent.  The Boers were in the act of making a double-wire entanglement round it, and had evidently meant to offer there a stubborn resistance, when more prudent counsels prevailed, and they had left their work half finished, and decamped, carrying off all their ammunition.  In the town itself General French and his Staff had established themselves at the Netherlands Club, from which resort the members had been politely ejected.

To outward appearances, civil as well as military business was being transacted in Pretoria with perfect smoothness, in spite of the proximity of the enemy.  The yeomanry were acting as police both there and in Johannesburg.  The gaol, of which we had a glimpse, was crowded with 240 prisoners, but was under the competent direction of the usual English under-official, who had been in the service of the Transvaal, and who had quietly stepped into the shoes of his chief, a Dutchman, when the latter bolted with Kruger.  This prison was where the Raiders and the Reformers had been in durance vile, and the gallows were pointed out to us with the remark that, during the last ten years, they had only been once used, their victim being an Englishman.  A Dutchman, who had been condemned to death during the same period for killing his wife, had been reprieved.

In the same way the Natal Bank and the Transvaal National Bank were being supervised by their permanent officials, men who had been at their posts during the war, and who, although under some suspicions, had not been removed.  At the latter bank the manager told us how President Kruger had sent his Attorney-General to fetch the gold in coins and bar just before he left for Delagoa Bay, and how it was taken away on a trolley.  The astute President actually cheated his people of this bullion, as he had already forced them to accept paper tokens for the gold, which he then acquired and removed.  We also saw the Raad Saals—­especially interesting from being exactly as they were left after the last session on May 7—­Kruger’s private room, and the Council Chamber.  These latter were fine apartments, recently upholstered by Maple, and littered with papers, showing every evidence of the hurried departure of their occupants.  Finally, specially conducted by Winston, we inspected the so-called “Bird-cage,” where all the English officers had been imprisoned, and the “Staat Model” School, from where our cicerone had made his escape.  These quarters must have been a particularly disagreeable and inadequate residence.