little community sent to the Republic’s treasury.  In those days he used to plead that the distance was great, and the time required for coach-travelling was too considerable; but the development of the Witwatersrand and the growth of Johannesburg within thirty-two miles of the capital, while disposing of the pretexts which held good in the case of Barberton, found Mr. Kruger no more inclined to make the acquaintance of the newcomers than he had been before.  Notwithstanding that the law prescribes that the President shall visit all the districts and towns of the State at least once during the year, notwithstanding, also, the proximity of Johannesburg, the President has only visited the industrial capital of the Republic three times in nine years.  The first occasion was in the early days—­a visit now remembered only as the occasion of the banquet at which Mr. Cecil Rhodes, then one of the pioneers of the Rand, in proposing the President’s health, appealed to him to make friends with the newcomers, and to extend the privileges of the older residents to ’his young burghers—­like myself.’  That was before Mr. Rhodes had secured his concession, and long before the Charter was thought of.

There is an unreported incident which occurred a year or two later, concerning the two strong men of Africa—­it was a ‘meeting’ which didn’t take place, and only Mr. Rhodes can say how it might have affected the future of South Africa had it come off.  The latter arrived by coach in Pretoria one Saturday morning, and, desiring to see the President, asked Mr. Ewald Esselen to accompany him and interpret for him.  Mr. Rhodes, knowing the peculiar ways of Mr. Kruger, waited at the gate a few yards from the house while Mr. Esselen went in to inquire if the President would see him.  Mr. Kruger’s reply was that he would see Mr. Rhodes on Monday.  Mr. Esselen urged that as Mr. Rhodes was obliged to leave on Sunday night the reply was tantamount to a refusal.  The President answered that this was ‘Nachtmaal’ time and the town was full of his burghers, and that he made it a rule, which he would violate for no one, to reserve the Saturdays of the Nachtmaal week for his burghers so as to hear what they had to say if any wished to speak to him, as his burghers were more to him than anyone else in the world.  ’I do no business on Sunday,’ he concluded, ‘so Rhodes can wait or go!’ Mr. Rhodes did not wait.  When he heard the answer he remarked to Mr. Esselen, ’The old devil!  I meant to work with him, but I’m not going on my knees to him.  I’ve got my concession however and he can do nothing.’

The second visit of Mr. Kruger to Johannesburg was the famous one of 1890, when the collapse of the share market and the apparent failure of many of the mines left a thriftless and gambling community wholly ruined and half starving, unable to bear the burden which the State imposed, almost wholly unappreciative of the possibilities of the Main Reef, and ignorant of what to do to create an industry and restore prosperity.