memento-seeking tourists, not to mention botanical collectors whose greed for specimens is insatiable, have more or less marred the beauty of many fine trees and destroyed many young ones. It was in vain that Professor J. G. Lemon's earnest appeal was made for their protection to the State Forestry Commission in 1888; but in 1892 a protective ordinance passed the city council of San Diego, which has in a measure stayed devastation. Even these very few years of protection from cattle-grazing and brush fires have re

paratively rapid growers-trees two or three feet in diameter being often not over forty years in age.

There is a fine variety of undergrowth, among which are the spicy mountain sages, holly, chamisos, the beautiful trichostema (blue curls), mountain laurels, mahogany, oaks, and during their season clematis, wild roses, lilacs (ceanothus), magnificent ferns, at least a dozen varieties, as well as the yellow violet, the Mariposa lily, and the mountain pæonia (Pa. Brownii) whose presence here, so far from

its habitat in the Sierra Nevada, is only another indication that this is an unusual field for the botanical student. It is, indeed, a rare spot for the scientifically inclined wanderer, and not lacking in features to interest the less observant.

Easy of access from the city by either carriages from La Jolla, or a half-mile walk from the line of the Sante Fé, from which it is easily seen by the tourist, it is only because time must be divided that we can tell you no more of its beauties.

Suffice it to say that poet and painter, scientist and Nature lover alike unite in their admiration and reverence for these ancient pines.

We close with these lines from Bayard Taylor, fittingly addressed to the pines of California :

What point of Time unchronicled, and dim As yon gray mist that canopies your heads,

Took from the greedy wave and gave the sun
Your dwelling-place, ye gaunt and hoary
Pines?

When from the barren bosoms of the hills,
With scanty nurture, did ye slowly climb,
Of these remote and latest fashioned shores
The first born forest? Titans gnarled and
rough

Such as from out subsiding Chaos grew,
To clothe the cold loins of the savage earth.
What fresh commixture of the elements,
What earliest thrill of life, the stubborn soil
Slow mastering, engendered you to give
The hills a mantle and the winds a voice?
Along the shore ye lift your rugged arms
Blackened with many fires, and with hoarse
chant-

Unlike the fibrous lute your co-mates touch
In elder regions-fill the awful stops
Between the crashing cataracts of the surf.
Have ye no tongue, in all your sea of sound,
To syllable the secret.-no still voice
To give your airy myths a shadowy form,
And make us of lost centuries of lore
The rich inheritors?

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS Cornelius Ficks, son of a Transvaal Field Cornet, seeks the hand of Hilda, youngest daughter of Piet Rieker, a loyal Anglo-Dutchman in Natal. Reginaid Curtis, an English officer in camp at Ladysmith, arrives at the home of the Riekers with a letter from relatives in Devonshire, and is also attracted by Hilda. Paul Kruger and a German, Franz Hausman, Commander of the Boer Artillery, meet to discuss the pan of campaign. Hausman makes a tour of inspection of the intended field of operations, accompanied by Cornelius Ficks as guide. They reach Rieker's farm, where the German is smitten by Grietje, the elder daughter. Cornelius, jealous of the young Englishman, Curtis, makes an attempt on his life, which is frustrated by Hausman. It being rumored that the Free Staters have crossed the Drakensbergs, the Chief at Ladysmith sends Captain Curtis with a few men, on a scouting expedition. They come across a party of mounted Boers, making for the frontier, with Grietje and Hilda Rieker, who are being abducted by Cornelius Ficks. The girls are rescued.

F

CHAPTER VI.

THE CLOUD IN THE SOUTH.

NEW people in England during the fateful summer of 1899 believed that war would really break out, and even in the Colonies, save for some whom Paul Kruger trusted, the prevailing feeling was one of optimism. Abroad nobody thought the Boers would venture to attack the might of England, but then nobody knew of the forty million rounds of ammunition stored in the subterranean magazine at Pretoria, nor of the big guns upon which dark-visaged men in Germany and French foundries were working night and day. England did not want war; Paul Kruger did; and in the light of that knowledge the history of the negotiations of 1899 wears a very quaint and curious aspect.

Of course, there was talk of war, and it was regarded as within the bounds of the possible, and equally, of course, to those

who lived as the Riekers did, right on the borders of the two contending States, the possibility became something of a night

mare.

"Do you think there will be war, Captain Curtis?" asked Hilda one day in the early part of September.

Grietje had readily acceded to his desire that they would treat him as a cousin and call him by his Christian name, but Hilda could not bring her tongue to it-yet, much to Reginald's own annoyance, though had he been better versed in the ways of women he would have known that it was a good sign.

"I hardly think there will be war," he replied, though doubtfully. "I fancy Kruger will back down at the last minute." "I hope there will not," said Grietje, seriously." It would be terrible for us, living here."

Reginald nodded.

"If they invade Natal," he said, "it will be by this way. Is your father friendly with the Boers, Grietje?"

"He knows many of them," was the reply. "But he is very stanch in his loyalty to England, and I am afraid that a loyal Dutchman would be in their eyes a worse criminal than a loyal Englishman."

"He must flee before the storm breaks," said Reginald.

But Grietje shook her head. She knew her father's obstinate, dauntless spirit, and thought it a good deal more likely he would die on his own threshold rather than retreat.

"The Boers will surely never get as far south as this," said Hilda. "There are

British soldiers at Dundee and Ladysmith -those have to be fought first."

Reginald shook his head again. "The chief has warned them in England, I know," he said. "But the people over there our War Office, I mean,-are as obtuse as they make them. I don't fear the Boers. I fear more our own men at home. They are sending out driblets enough to goad the Boers into action, not enough to frighten them into silence. You don't know what a guaranty of peace a big army is, Grietje. Why, at home in Europe all the nations are as jealous of England as they can be, and would dearly like to spring at her throat, but they dare not. Why? Because our navy is so strong that they could not hope for victory."

"And, alas! your navy is useless here," sighed Grietje.

"I am afraid so," said Reginald, little knowing how much he and others were to owe the navy ere many days were out.

CHAPTER VII.

ABOUT THE LOAMSHIRES.

"There's more devil in ten of the Loamshires, sir, than in a whole battalion. of any other regiment," the old Colonel said, as we sat round him in the smokeroom of the club listening to his yarns of warfare. "If I were told to annex Hades itself, and had my choice of men, I would take the Loamshires; and though we might n't make the nether regions a British colony, I'll warrant we would give. Lucifer a run for his money. They're all blood, sir, the Loamshires."

I

"They are," assented Wickersley the author. "Blood-and bad language. came up from Loamshire three days ago, and traveled in the same compartment with a squad of them. I don't think I ever before heard so much bad language compressed into so short a time."

"Bad language, sir!" said the old Colonel, firing up. "Of course, they use bad language, as you call it. Would you have them singing 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star,' or quoting texts of Scripture? And somebody else will be using bad language ere the Loamshires get back again."

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497

beggars!"

"Poor

That was after the storm had broken, and the news had been conveyed along the cables that many of the Loamshires had been killed and nearly as many more taken prisoners, in one of the minor fights round Ladysmith. It was in defense of the Loamshires that the old Colonel uttered the words with which this chapter begins.

But it was before the war actually broke out that Jim Quigley, an irrepressible Cockney, and Micky Hennessy, an equally irrepressible Irishman, had the conversation on politics which it is now my pleasing duty to record.

66

Jim, phwat 's an ulmitatum?"

"I dunno, Micky,-unless it's summat for the 'air."

"Summat f'h th' hair, ye omadoon!that's pomitatum."

"Ah, so 't is," said Jim reflectively. "But w'y are yer astin'?"

"'Cause Krewger has sint a ulmitatum to th' Guv'mint, a impidint ulmitatum, this Dublin paper calls ut. I know phwat a impidint spalpeen is, 'cause that's phwat Father Gorley used to call mesilf."

"Oh, I know what it is," said Jim. "'e's sent one o' them there 'as 'e? Then there's going to be trouble." Foighting, is ut, Jim?"

66

"I guess so, Micky."

Thin praised be th' howly saints! Ut's gettin' mighty dull here doin' nuthin' but par-r-rade an' marchin' up hills. just f'r th' purpose iv comin' down on th' other side."

"You're right there, Micky," said Jim. "And take your dyin' solemn on it it ain't goin' to be no bloomin' Majewber this time out."

"Majuba!" said Micky, indignantly. "Let th' Loamshires but get on th' thrail