"
"I don't think there is any occasion for that; as long as I am working
the mines and they are taking the gold, which no doubt they will have to
repay when our army are masters here, they will not interfere with me.
They treat us badly enough, as we know; but they love the gold even more
than they hate us, so I have no fear whatever as to my personal safety.
I am afraid, dear, that for a time things will go very badly with us.
Already we know that commandos have gone forward in great strength to
the frontier, and I should not be surprised if the whole of South Africa
rises; at any rate, the Boers are confident that it will be so.
Gladstone's miserable surrender after our disasters at Laing's Nek and
Majuba have puffed them up with such an idea of their own fighting
powers and our weakness, that I believe they think they are going to
have almost a walk over. Still, though it was certain that we should
have a hard time whenever war came, we have been hoping for years that
England would at last interfere to obtain redress for us, and we must
not grumble now that what we have been so long expecting has at last
come to pass. I believe there will be some stern fighting. The Boers are
no cowards; courage is, indeed, as far as I know, the only virtue they
possess.
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