There is no doubt that there were two forces at work in Johannesburg, as, indeed, I had surmised during our voyage out: the one comprising the financiers, which strove to attain its ends by manifesto and public meeting, with the hint of sterner measures to follow; and the other impatient of delay, and thus impelled to seek the help of those who undoubtedly became freebooters the moment they crossed the Transvaal border.

Certainly Dr.Jameson's reported words seemed to echo with reproach and disappointment--the reproach of a man who has been deceived; but whatever his feelings were at that moment of despair, when his lucky star seemed at length to have deserted him with a vengeance, I happen to know he never bore any lasting grudge against his Johannesburg friends, and that he remained on terms of perfect friendship even with the five members of the Reform Committee, with whom all the negotiations had gone forward.

These included Colonel Frank Rhodes,[3] always one of his favourite companions.
As an instance of how acute was the feeling suddenly roused respecting Englishmen, I remember that Mr.Harry Lawson, who was staying in the same house as ourselves, and had decided to leave for Johannesburg as special correspondent to his father's paper, the _Daily Telegraph_, was actually obliged to travel under a foreign name; and even then, if my memory serves me right, he did not succeed in reaching the Rand.

In the meantime, as the daily papers received fuller details, harrowing accounts came to hand of the exodus from Johannesburg of men, women, and children travelling twenty in a compartment meant for eight, while others, not so fortunate, had to put up with cattle-trucks.

The Boers were said to have shown themselves humane and magnanimous.