while Clemens made his platform trip to the South African cities.  It was just at the time when the Transvaal invasion had been put down—­when the Jameson raid had come to grief and John Hares Hammond, chief of the reformers, and fifty or more supporters were lying in the jail at Pretoria under various sentences, ranging from one to fifteen years, Hammond himself having received the latter award.  Mrs. Hammond was a fellow-Missourian; Clemens had known her in America.  He went with her now to see the prisoners, who seemed to be having a pretty good time, expecting to be pardoned presently; pretending to regard their confinement mainly as a joke.  Clemens, writing of it to Twichell, said: 

A Boer guard was at my elbow all the time, but was courteous & polite, only he barred the way in the compound (quadrangle or big open court) & wouldn’t let me cross a white mark that was on the ground—­the “deathline,” one of the prisoners called it.  Not in earnest, though, I think.  I found that I had met Hammond once when he was a Yale senior & a guest of General Franklin’s.  I also found that I had known Captain Mein intimately 32 years ago.  One of the English prisoners had heard me lecture in London 23 years ago....

These prisoners are strong men, prominent men, & I believe they are all educated men.  They are well off; some of them are wealthy.  They have a lot of books to read, they play games & smoke, & for a while they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for long, not for very long, I take it.  I am told they have times of deadly brooding and depression.  I made them a speech—­sitting down.  It just happened so.  I don’t prefer that attitude.  Still, it has one advantage—­it is only a talk, it doesn’t take the form of a speech . . . .  I advised them at considerable length to stay where they were—­they would get used to it & like it presently; if they got out they would only get in again somewhere else, by the look of their countenances; & I promised to go and see the President & do what I could to get him to double their jail terms....  We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up &. a little over & we outsiders had to go.  I went again to-day, but the Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, & the warden, a genial, elderly Boer named Du Plessis, explained that his orders wouldn’t allow him to admit saint & sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday.  Du Plessis descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200 years ago—­but he hasn’t any French left in him now—­all Dutch.

Clemens did visit President Kruger a few days later, but not for the purpose explained.  John Hayes Hammond, in a speech not long ago (1911), told how Mark Twain was interviewed by a reporter after he left the jail, and when the reporter asked if the prisoners were badly treated Clemens had replied that he didn’t think so, adding: 

“As a matter of fact, a great many of these gentlemen have fared far worse in the hotels and mining-camps of the West.”