The continuation of the Boer war. Death of queen Victoria

Early in May, Lord Rodes set out again for the Transvaal. On the 16-th of May the British vanguard crossed the Vaal. On May 18 an expedition sent from Kimberley relieved Mafeking, after a seven months' siege. On the 5-th of June Lord Roberts entered Pretoria. His way had lain over fairly open country, and though there was frequent fighting, the Boers nowhere offered a determined resistance. About 4,000 British prisoners were found near Pretoria and released. The march from Bloemfontein to Pretoria had been surprisingly rapid, and Lord Roberts was forced to wait for nearly six weeks till sufficient supplies had been brought up to enable him to make a further advance.

In September Mr. Kruger left for Europe, in the hope of obtain­ing foreign intervention — but his hope was fortunally not fulfilled.

By this time the war seemed practically over. All the main lines of railway were in hands of Great Britain, and the Boer forces were broken up into small bodies. The government thought it was the opportunity in the moment for dissolving Parliament, which had now lasted for five years. They appealed to the country to judge for themselves on their service and their conduct of affairs, especially in connection with the Transvaal, and to entrust them with a new man­date for the conslusion of the war and the settlement of South Africa.

There was no little dissatisfaction with Lord Salisbury's ministry on several accounts. The general election of October 1901 ended in a victory for the Unionists almost as decisive as that of 1895, and Lord Salisbury retained his hold of power with the large majority.

But the war was not over still, although it had changed its charac­ter. As there was no prospect of great operations, Lord Roberts left South Africa in December 1900, handing over the completion of his task to Lord Kitchener. It proved a very hard one. The two republics together were nearly as large as France, and the vast size of the country, the barrenness and ruggedness of large parts of it; the want of communications; the rapidity with which the mounted Boers, add­ed by the country population, moved about the country; the hostility of the Dutch in Cape Colony, many of whom rebelled against the government, — all these things made the work of subduing a brave, obstinate, and wily enemy very slow, laborous, and costly.

Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in June 1897 (while in September 1896 the queen's reign had reached a point at which it exceeded in length that of any other English sovereign, but she herself preferred to have a festival on her birthday). Mr. Chamberlain, the secretary for the colonies, persuaded his colleagues to use the opportunity of making the Jubillee a festival of the British Empire. Accordingly, the prime-ministers of all the self-governing colonies, with their families, were invited to come to London as the guests of the country to take part in the Jubilee procession; and representatives of the troops from every British colony and dependency were brought to England for the same purpose. The procession was, in the strickest sence of the word, unique. Here was a display, not only of Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, but of the Mounted Rifles from Victoria and New South Wales, from the Cape and from Natal, and from the Dominion of Canada. Here were inhabitans of Niger and the Gold Coast, coloured men from West India regiments, people from Cy­prus, Chinamen from Hong Kong — now civilized into military police — from British North Borneo. Here, most brilliant sight of 1 all, were the Imperial Service Troops sent by the native princes of India; while the detachments of Sikhs who marched earlier in the procession, received their full portion of admiration and applause. The queen was in her carriage for more than four hours, an extraor­dinary physical burden itself for a woman of seventy-eight.

The illuminations in London and the great provincial towns were magnificent, and all the hills from Ben Nevis to the South Downs were crowned with bonfires. The queen herself held a great review at Aldershot; but a much more significant display was the review by the prince of Wales of the fleet at Spithead on Saturday, the 26-th of June. No less than 165 vessels of all classes were drawn up in four lines, extending altogether to a length of thirty miles.

The two years that followed the Diamond Jubilee were, as regards the queen, comparatively without important events. Her health remained good. In spring of 1898 and 1899 queen Victoria visited the Riviera, as usual; and her last ceremonial function in London was laying the foundation stone of the new buildings com­pleting the Museum — henceforth to be called the Victoria and Albert Museum — which had been planned more than forty years before by the prince consort.

Throughout her life queen Victoria had enjoyed excellent health, and even in the last two years the only marks of age were rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which prevented walking, and a diminished power of eyesight. In the autumn of 1900, however, her health began definitely to fail, and though arrangement were made for another holiday in the South, it was plain that her strength was seriously affected. Still she continued the ordinary routine of her usual duties and occupations. On the second of January she received Lord Rob­erts on his return from South Africa and handed him the Order of the Garter. Until a week before her death she still took her daily drive. She felt a sudden loss of power, and on Friday evening, the 18-th of January, the "Court Circular" published an announcement of her illness. On Tuesday, the 22-nd, of January 1901, Victoria died.

Queen Victoria was a ruler of a new type. When she ascended the throne the popular faith in kings and queens was on the decline. She revived that faith; she consolidated her throne; she not only captivated the affections of the multitude, but won the respect of thoughtful men; and all this she achieved by methods which to her predecessors would have seemed impracticable — methods which it required no less schrewdness to discover than force of character and honesty of heart to adopt steadfastly

By queen Victoria's long reign and unblemished record her name has become associated inseparably with British institutions and imperial solidarity. The funeral in London on the 1-st and 2-nd of February, including first the passage of the coffin from the Isle of Wight to Gosport between lines of warships, and secondly a mili­tary procession from London to Windsor, was a memorable solemn ceremony; the great sovereign of England, whose name would in history mark an age, had gone to her rest.

It may be said that few, if any, epochs of equal length in British history have been so prosperous or so progressive.

NAMES AND EXPRESSIONS

the Vaal [va:l] — Вааль, или Ваал — река, давшая название

Трансваалю

the Boer forces were broken up into small bodies — силы буров

были разбиты, от них остались только небольшие отряды

the opportunity on the moment for — в этот момент наступил

удобный случай для...

the settlement of South Africa — устройство дел в Южной Африке (т. е. распределение владений)

it proved a very hard one — one = situation

to use the opportunity — использовать удобный случай (воз­можность)

Borneo [ 'bo:niəu ] — Борнео

Ben Nevis [ben' nevis] —Бен Невис, высочайшая вершина Англии

South Downs ['sauθ 'dauns] — меловые холмы на юге Англии

as regards the queen — что касается королевы

the Riviera [,rivi'eərə] — Ривьера

a diminished power of eyesight — ухудшение зрения

few, if any, epochs — немногие эпохи — если такие вообще были...

SOCIAL LIFE

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