time have always possessed. There was fighting and the Dutch had certain native allies, who assisted them well. The use of such allies has become quite customary in South Africa. At the very moment in which I am writing we are employing the Fingos against Kreli and the Galekas in Kafraria. But Mr. Burgers with his allies could not conquer Secocoeni although he was again and again rebuked by our Secretary of State at home for the barbarity with which he carried on the war. It is thus that Lord Carnarvon wrote to our Governor at the Cape on the 25th January 1877. "I have to instruct you once more to express to him"—President Burgers,—"the deep regret and indignation with which H.M. Government view the proceedings of the armed force which is acting in the name and under the authority of the Transvaal Government, and that he is rapidly making impossible the continuance either of those sentiments of respect and confidence towards him, or of those friendly relations with him as the Chief of a neighbouring Government, which it was the earnest hope of H.M. Government to preserve." This was a nice message for a President to receive, not when he had quelled the Natives by the "armed force which is acting in the name and under the authority of the Transvaal Government,"—and which was undoubtedly the Transvaal army fighting for the just or unjust claims of the country,—but when that armed force had run away after an ineffective effort to drive the enemy from his stronghold!
Whether Mr. Burgers ever received that message I do not know. It was not written till a day or two after the arrival of Sir Theophilus Shepstone at Pretoria,—to which place he
