AT HIS POST.

His Honour the President has returned to the seat of Government.  The itinerary appears to have been somewhat prematurely cut short; but no one is likely to so ridiculously underestimate the sterling qualities of His Honour as to conceive the possibility of his absence when difficulty and danger imperatively command his presence at the head of public affairs.  The conclusions which Mr. Kruger has derived from converse with his faithful burghers are likely to remain buried in his own breast.  The outward and ostensible object of his recent tour has been fulfilled in much the accustomed manner; that is to say, he has discussed with apparent interest the necessity for a pont here or a bridge there; the desirability of Government aid for tree-planting, the trouble which the farmers experience in getting native labour, and so forth, and so on; but we must not derive from all this peripatetic fustian the erroneous impression that His Honour has been vacuously fiddling on the eve of a conflagration.  The real business which took him to Lydenburg and Middelburg has no doubt been satisfactorily accomplished.  Boer sentiment has been tested in secret, and the usual professions of fervid patriotism and of readiness for target practice with the Uitlander as the mark have been profusely evoked.  This sub-official aspect of the itinerary has been discreetly veiled in all the reports which have been permitted to transpire, and the censorship thereof has been more than normally exacting and severe; but we are from private sources left in no manner of doubt that Mr. Kruger has been canvassing and stimulating the Boers to be ready for any emergency, and has been metaphorically planting a war-beacon on every hill.  All scrutiny and inquiry fail to discover that he has uttered one single word which can be described as an emollient to the present critical situation.  He has pandered rather to the worst racial passions of the Boer, instead of using the enormous responsibility resting upon him in the direction of mediation.  Old patriarchs—­whom we cannot but respect and admire whilst we deplore their immitigable and hopeless rancour against the cause of the newcomer—­have been permitted, apparently without rebuke, to show their wounds to the younger and more malleable generation in His Honour’s presence, and to boast of their readiness to receive as much more lead as they can conveniently find room for.  The tour, indeed, has been a wapenschouwing, with oratory of the most dangerous and pernicious type for its accompaniment.  His Honour’s contribution to this interesting display of martial ardour has been couched, as usual, in the enigmatic form.  He has spoken another parable.  A mind so fertile in image and in simile cannot have lost much of its wonted vigour.  The one he has chosen to employ on this occasion is full of instruction, and is derived, as Mr. Kruger’s images frequently are, from the arena of natural history.  When you