The observer must take into account that among these people there happened to be a good many who, as the war went on, enrolled themselves in the various Volunteer Corps which were formed.  These gave the benefit of their experience to the British officers, who relied on the knowledge and perception of their informants because of themselves, especially during the first months which followed upon their landing, they could not come to a clearly focused, impartial judgment of the difficulties with which they found their efforts confronted.  One must also remember that these officers were mostly quite young men, full of enthusiasm, who flamed up whenever the word rebellion was mentioned in their presence, and who, having arrived in South Africa with the firm determination to win the war at all costs, must not be blamed if in some cases they allowed their minds to be poisoned by those who painted the plight of the country in such a lugubrious tint.  If, therefore, acts of what appeared to be cruelty were committed by these officers, it would be very wrong to make them alone responsible, because they were mostly done out of a spirit of self-defence against an enemy whom they believed to be totally different from what he was in reality, and who if only he had not been exasperated, would have proved of better and healthier stuff than, superficially, his acts seemed to indicate.

There was still another class of refugee, composed of what I would call the rich elements of the Rand:  the financiers, directors of companies; managers and engineers of the different concerns to which Kimberley and Johannesburg owed their celebrity.  From the very first these rightly weighed up the situation, and had been determined to secure all the advantages which it held for anyone who gave himself the trouble to examine it rationally.  They came to Cape Town under the pretence of putting their families out of harm’s way, but in reality because they wanted to be able to watch the development of the situation at its centre.  They hired houses at exorbitant prices in Cape Town itself, or the suburbs, and lived the same kind of hospitable existence which had been theirs in Johannesburg.  Their intention was to be at hand at the settlement, to put in their word when the question of the different financial interests with which they were connected would crop up—­as it was bound to do.

The well-to-do executive class forming the last group had the greatest cause to feel alarmed at the consequences which might follow upon the war.  Although they hoped that they would be able to maintain themselves on the Rand in the same important positions which they had occupied previous to the war, yet they had enough common sense to understand that they would not be allowed under a British administration the same free hand that President Kruger had given, or which they had been able to obtain from him by means of “refreshers” administered in some shape or other.  It is true that they had always the alternative of retiring from South Africa to Park Lane, whence they would be able to astonish Society, but they preferred to wait, in case the crash were still delayed for some little time.