At 5 p.m. we crawled into the suburbs of the Boer
capital, having driven 135 miles with the same horses. The description
of Pretoria under British occupation, and the friends we met there, I
must leave to another chapter.
CHAPTER XV
PRETORIA AND JOHANNESBURG UNDER LORD ROBERTS AND MILITARY LAW
"With malice to none ... with firmness in the right, as
God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are
in."--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
At Pretoria Mrs. Godley and I found accommodation, not without some
difficulty, at the Grand Hotel. Turned for the moment into a sort of
huge barrack, this was crowded to its utmost capacity. The polite
manager, in his endeavour to find us suitable rooms, conducted us all
over the spacious building, and at last, struck by a bright thought,
threw open the door of an apartment which he said would be free in a few
hours, as the gentleman occupying it was packing up his belongings
preparatory to his departure. Great was my surprise at discovering in
the khaki-clad figure, thus unceremoniously disturbed in the occupation
of stowing away papers, clothes, and campaigning kit generally, no less
a personage than my nephew, Winston Churchill, who had experienced such
thrilling adventures during the war, the accounts of which had reached
us even in far-away Mafeking.
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