Town and Port Elizabeth. Huge packing-cases, marked 'Agricultural
Instruments' and 'Mining Machinery,' arrived from Germany and
France, to find their places in the forts of Johannesburg or
Pretoria. Men of many nations but of a similar type showed their
martial faces in the Boer towns. The condottieri of Europe were as
ready as ever to sell their blood for gold, and nobly in the end
did they fulfill their share of the bargain. For three weeks and
more during which Mr. Kruger was silent these eloquent preparations
went on. But beyond them, and of infinitely more importance, there
was one fact which dominated the situation. A burgher cannot go to
war without his horse, his horse cannot move without grass, grass
will not come until after rain, and it was still some weeks before
the rain would be due. Negotiations, then, must not be unduly
hurried while the veld was a bare russet-coloured dust-swept plain.
Mr. Chamberlain and the British public waited week after week for
their answer. But there was a limit to their patience, and it was
reached on August 26th, when the Colonial Secretary showed, with a
plainness of speech which is as unusual as it is welcome in
diplomacy, that the question could not be hung up for ever. 'The
sands are running down in the glass,' said he. 'If they run out, we
shall not hold ourselves limited by that which we have already
offered, but, having taken the matter in hand, we will not let it
go until we have secured conditions which once for all shall
establish which is the paramount power in South Africa, and shall
secure for our fellow-subjects there those equal rights and equal
privileges which were promised them by President Kruger when the
independence of the Transvaal was granted by the Queen, and which
is the least that in justice ought to be accorded them.' Lord
Salisbury, a little time before, had been equally emphatic. 'No one
in this country wishes to disturb the conventions so long as it is