Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/287

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • ener, were compelled to come to South Africa and take

personal charge of the campaign against the Boers. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury saw Lord Roberts ride into Pretoria at the head of his troops. Across the street from Oom Paul's residence is the church where he often preached, for he hated the devil almost as much as he hated the English. . . . The Boers were wonderful soldiers, and, being in their own country, they had a great advantage over the English. When they captured English prisoners, they didn't know what to do with them, so turned them loose. It is related that General DeWett captured a certain English regiment three times, and this fact caused that particular regiment to be known as "DeWett's Own.". . . Pretoria has 65,000 people, and is a beautiful city. A new capitol building is approaching completion, at a cost, everything counted, of nearly ten million dollars. It is an enormous and beautiful structure of marble and granite, situated on a hill overlooking the city. The erection of this building is bitterly resented by the English as a useless waste of money, but the Boers are in control of the government, and for sentimental reasons insist upon this enormous structure at Pretoria, Oom Paul's late capital. An Englishman told me lately that the Pretoria capitol will cost two-thirds as much as Westminster, the seat of the English parliament. . . . I speak of Pretoria as the capital of the United States of South Africa. As a matter of fact, it is only the administrative capital, as the South-African congress meets at Capetown, while the South-African supreme court sits at Bloemfontein. The capital is thus divided between three cities. Our Washington is the