Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/286

 Atterbury spent a good many months in Pretoria during the Boer war; part of the time Mr. Atterbury was American consul. On one occasion the English shelled the Boer forts nearly all day, and every shell passed over the Atterbury home; one exploding shell broke a window in the American consulate. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury say that a shell, in passing high above you, shrieks and screams like a living thing in distress. They know Pretoria as well as you know the town in which you live, so that we had excellent guides in our visit to the capital I had a room on the second floor of the Grand Hotel, facing the old Boer capital just across the street. During the war, President Krueger (Oom Paul) and members of the war board met daily in a room just opposite my room; people used to sit on the hotel veranda and watch the war board in session. We visited the modest home of President Krueger this morning, and the care-taker showed us over the one-story house. In one of the nine rooms is displayed three hundred bouquets of immortelles sent to Oom Paul's funeral. A few of the bouquets were made of solid silver, and a few of beads; in addition to these, many of which were sent by kings and princes, three hundred bouquets of perishable flowers were sent. Oom Paul (Uncle Paul) died in Switzerland, having been compelled to leave his country during the war, but his body is buried in Pretoria. Mrs. Krueger died in the house we visited. She was a plain old woman, the wife of a farmer, and refused to go to Holland or Switzerland when it seemed impossible to prevent Pretoria falling into the hands of the British. Not only Lord Roberts, but Lord Kitch