The Gazette de Lausanne, a paper that cannot certainly be
accused of prejudice in favour of the British, pub- lishes in its issue of June 1st some instructive impres- sions of M. Pache, a Swiss volunteer who served with the Boers. M. Pache entirely acquits the British soldier of the charge of cruelty and outrage on women. Ho only heard of one such case, and believed it to be " absolument isole." On the other hand, he credits our troops with admirable courage under fire and in assault. The immense numerical superiority of the English, in M. Pache's view, counts for little owing to the vast extent of the theatre of war, while in most of the minor actions the Boers were in superior force. Of Botha's courage he speaks slightingly, accuses all the Boer generals of peculation, and the rank- and-file of wholesale thieving from their foreign allies. For himself he never felt safe, except when they were sing- ing hymns at night. "All the same," he adds, "they are very good fellows," and concludes : " What the Boer defends is his soil rather than his fatherland. What the Boer hates in the Englishman is not so much the conqueror as the maker of rules and regulations,"—/e faiscur crordre.
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