Punch: Punch (101.1891)

August 15, 1891.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

83

OFF TO MASHERLAND.

{By Our Own Grandolph.)

A Few Reminiscences.
Begin to regret dinners on board the Grantutty Castle. The other
day was regretting the Amphitryon. Don't go so far back as the

Imperial Parliament, with the Despot in the Chair in both Houses,
all speeches, except the Despot's, limited to five minutes apiece, and
no reduction on talking a quantity. Oh, for one hour of this power,
and the Amphitryon be biowed! Aha! Grandolphus Africanus
Protector to begin with; Grandolphus Africanus Rexto go on with;
and Grandolphus Africanissimus Imperator to finish with!

Go farther
and fare
worse."] Sick
of chicken.
With poetic
epigram macy
mig:ht say,
"Quite sick
Of chick."
Stringy chic-
kens, too! One
has to tug at them; sort of
game of " poulet-hauly "—as
Drummy would say. Though
were he here, I doubt if hew uld
say anything. He certainly
would eat nothing: probably
would only open his mouth to
observe, " I'm off ! " and then
we should see him no more.
Quite right. So would I—but
for "my oath, my Lord, my
oath!" {N.B. — This is a
quotation. Sure of it. Where
from ? Don't know. Tragedy
probably; sounds tragic. No
Grandolph and the AVild Turkey. matter. Can give it with effect

in a speech, and Members turn
to one another and ask, " What's that from ? " When they ask me
confidentially afterwards, I reply with an air of intense surprise,
" What! don't you know ! Well! ! " and I turn on my heel, leaving
Chucklehead, M.P., annoyed with himself,—" plante Id" as Drummy
would say,—for being so ignorant, and for having displayed his
ignorance so palpably. Off he goes to British Museum and searches
for quotation. This gives him opportunity of acquiring much useful
knowledge, which, but forme, he would not have had. Bather a
long parenthesis this. So—on we goes again.)

To the Mines.

2 propos of exploring, the other day, a digger's assistant came up to
me and inquired " If I had." as I understood him, " my gin pack'd."
I returned that I never took spirits. Found out subsequently that
word was spelt " mijinpacht" which is African-Dutch for " lease."
Well, why didn't he say so before ? Of course I have, and plenty of
'em ; else why am I here ?

To-day went to see the ore in the Robinson Crusoe Mines. As
D.W. would say, " The site strikes me with ore ! "

Much interested, of course, in inspecting the Salisbury Mine.
Naturally, I put in my claim for the Salisbury. What's in a name
and a family, if one can't get some good out of 'em ? Intend to start
thej ''^ncle Mine." Fine chance. Any place where there's a large
and fluctuating Pop-ulation (with emphasis on the "Pop"), the
Uncle Mine is a certainty." But Oh, for the "pop,"—I mean the
dear old fizz,—and the older it is, the dearer it is,—at the Amphitryon.

" Is Lite Wortii Living ? "

The Transvaal's the place for living in. Here life is life, be if
never so lively. The only nuisance is the Boer; and the Boer's a
hass, or rather a mule. That's my opinion of Boers individually
and collectively ; I make no concessions to them ; hang 'em, they've
already got enough. If this country had been in the hands of
Englishmen, or Americans, or both jointly (talking of jointly, we'd
have had better dinners than we get now—but of this anon — ) with
a certain person whom I can mention, and who is not a hundred
miles distant from the present writer at this moment, as Head of
affairs, an Imperial ruler, with power to add to his number (which
number would be One, and would remain so), then this country, in a
very short time, would have ruled the world. What ports, what
champagnes, what railroads, what shipping, what commerce, what an

Albemarle- Remorse and Regret.

Street Amphi- N"ow to dinner ' On what ? Yah ! tough beef, woolly mutton and
tryon, quite stringy chicken. And to think that but for the Boers, the beastly Boers,
satisfied with j we should have had the finest teal, wild duck, venison, goslings, aspa-
a simple Don- j ragus, French beans, best Welsh mutton, and real turtle soup every
aid Currie. day au choix ! I But whatdid the Boers do ? Why, they ascertained
[Mem. —The ; that skins and feathers, and shells, were valuable, whereupon they
proverb hath went to work, shot everything everywhere, sold skins and feathers,
much truth in : and shells ! So that deer and birds hadn't a chance. If they popped
it Jthat saith, j 0ut, pop went the guns like the original weasel, which some years
ago was always popping, and ihe poor dumb animals with the plead-
ing eyes and the tender flesh were slaughtered wholesale. In this
manner, too, the game soon came to an end, as it must do whenever

Grandolphus Africanus.

the game is so one-sided as it was here. Then, as I have said, the
shells were valuable! The shells! What chance had the tortoise
and the turtle ? " Tis the voice of the turtle, I heard him complain."
(What's that from ? That's from Watts—eh ?) What chance had
the peas, however wild ? or a bean as broad as one of -'s after-
dinner stories ? Ah! it makes me sad and angry, and once again
I cry Oh, for an hour, and that the dinner-hour, aboard the Gran-
tully Castle! Ay! even though the G. 0. M. were on board; for
he could appreciate the dailv Currie which to me is now perdu.
Well! so to dinner " with what appetite I may," and then on to
Pretoria, of which place I think 1 shall change the name to Pre-
radicallia or Pre-fourthpartia. You see Pre-toria implies one who
was Toryer than a Tory. Aha ! what is my scheme ? Do you see the
picture ? Grandolpitus Imperator Rex Auriferorum Meorum
(Latine for " Mines") surrounded by his Pretorian Guards.

Sport to Us !

Went out shooting before dinner. Killed one wild turkey, after

an awful strug-
gle, in which I
very nearly got
the worst of it;
but fortunately
the turkey was
unarmed, though
for all that he
used his drum-
sticks in such a
manner as in a
little more would
have brought
flocks of other
" What larks ! Killed four-and-twenty blackbirds all furious wild tur-
in a row ! at one shot!!!" keys on to the

scene, had I not, with great presence of mind and one small bullet