OTHER LANDS THAN OURS. I Rudyard Kipling, who is essentially I Enelish. is taking- a hand, metaphori cally speaking, in the fight between the subjects of Her British Majesty and the Boers down in the south end of the hitherto designated "Dark Continent." Conti-nent." In verse, which may be considered consid-ered "heroic,',' he is urging the people, "one of whom he is which" to beware of listening to "the old king." Rudyard Rud-yard is "smooth," if we may be permitted per-mitted to resort to the pathos of the slinger of slang. Gifted beyond the lot of ordinary mortals, with a practice (lucrative, too), of years, in the juggling jug-gling of words, he is enabled to make favorable impressions where a man as j sincerely honest as it is possible to conceive con-ceive would fail; with a knowledge of j that, he seeks to assert the supremacy of the British empire over the noble thoughts of men who may be classified with those who signed the immortal Declaration of Independence. But then "there are others," if again we mav be permitted to resort to the accepted vernacular of the ordinary people: those who go to make up the nrmnUitirwn. nf tMa rpnnhlic Olivf Schreiner, the novelist of South Africa, who has made a "trek" wagon a sort of Cape of Good Hope palace car; who has clothed the stolid Dutchman of the Transvaal with a sturdy integrity which wrould adorn the most honest man in the Avorld, comes to the front with a defense of the position of these I rugged old fellows which merits atten-! atten-! tion. She Is brave and fearless, too, is Olive. There isn't a bit of hesitation on her part. Without waiting to see where the chips fall, she hews to the line of truth, God bless her! uiuc istura cwl ayi.cai 11 iiitr ui 111. In sentences which are not only entertaining, enter-taining, but almost fascinating; which appeal first to the reason and then make the blood course quicker through the veins, she relates that these stolid old "biltong" eaters- come of a stock which came with the Angles and the Saxons and made the British ancestors of those who seek to down the South African republic, quail before their onslaughts. on-slaughts. Olive was born and reared in southern south-ern Africa. The hills and Plains of the dark continent are hers. Where the gemsbok cantered and the eland galloped gal-loped over the plain was where she saw the light of day. Underneath the southern cross which blazes its glory 1 through the sky. she learned life's les-eon. les-eon. The people are her kin and she is theirs. She knows them by heart, and when she declares, speaking of the Boers: "Even under the early Dutch government govern-ment of the East India company they were not always restful, and resented interference and external control. They frequently felt themselves 'onderge-drukf 'onderge-drukf (oppressed), and taking their guns and getting together wife and vhildren and all that thev had. and inspanning their wagons, they 'trekked' away from the scant boards of civiliza tion into the wilderness to form homes nf freedom for themselves and their descendants," She speaks a truth which is apparent to all who- have studied the question. Rut Olive does not stop there. She continues, to .the great disadvantage of those who would suppress a stolid people, who contain within themselves the sentiment of liberty and independence: independ-ence: "Men and women are still living who can remember how, sixty years ago. the spot where the great mining camp of Johannesburg now stands was a great silence, where they drew up their wagons wag-ons and planted their little homes, and fought inch by inch with wild beasts to reclaim the desert. In this great northern land, which no white man had entered or desired, they planted their people, and, loving It as men only can love the land they have suffered and: bled for, the gallant little republic they raised, they love today as the Swiss loves his mountain home and the Hollander his dikes It is theirs, the best land on earth to them." Two people have made South Africa known to the world. One did it with the sword of war, the commanding blade which directs armies; the other with the pen, silent in action, yet potent po-tent in results. It is common to say: "The pen is mightier than the sword." The rendition is an error. It should read: "Beneath the rule of those entirely-great, the pen is mightier than the sword." Who shall say the pen of Olive Hchreiner is not greater than the blade of Joubert, or the youthful I major general (youthful in experience is whfat is meant), who will command her J-ritannic majesty's armies as they adv&nce to dispossess the Boers? ' plive, in her appeal, continues: "Born in South Africa, our eyes first 1 opened on those African hills and plains: around us. of other parent,,...,, but born with us in the land, our tur; fellows were men of another u.r.. race, and we grew up. side by sir, A,th them. Is it strange that, like all sv.- living who have the hearts of n,. ,. V ) learned to love this land in whi. h v.a first saw the light? When we sto.,. . the Alps and looked down on th.- !,',-., and forests of Switzerland we h.ft said: 'This is fair, but South An., , to us is fairer.' When on th t.,;, ,, Milan cathedral and we have !.,.,!...j out across the wide plains of L.-.n.i, we have said: "This is noble, but n .i.i, '. to us are the broad plains of Afii, with their brown kopjes shimne-rir!- ,.J the translucent sunshine.' It is st:-;,. I that when we are in other lan. is iv,.i j death approaches us we say: "i'.ik.. me back! We may live away fn.m ,. r but when we are dead we must !: ,.a' her breast. Bury us among th,- k, ,.. where we played when we wen- . h 'l dren, and let the iron stones and re I sand cover us'?" Ah! what an apostrophe to countr? and home! To kindred and fricivls: 'i- , little ones who play before the door! T, ! graves which are marked with tokens of affection. But again she says: "Who gains by war? Not thn grr-ij woman whose eighty years tonight completes, com-pletes, who would carry with h-T r.. her grave the remembrance t;,,, longest, reign and the purest: w., would have that when the- uatio;-,., . gather around her bier the whisp.-r ahull go round, 'that was a mother's hand -it struck no child. Who gains by wHi-.' Not the brave English soldier thnv nr.. no laurels for him here. The dying i,t -j with hands fresh from the pi.w tb old man tottering to tlu grave, wi,,. seizes up the gun to die with it. th-, simple farmer who. as h falls, hcju yet his wife's last whisper, 'for free, dom and our native land!' and he, hearing it these men can bind no ) , i re Is on a soldier's brow! They may i,e) shot, not conquered fame rests with them. Go, gallant soldiers, and defend the shores of that small island that we love; there are no laurels for yea here." 1 In this paragraph she pays a tribute to the queen of England; to the soldier sol-dier who rights for the flag of the nn-tion: nn-tion: to the men who ordered them t i the front; to the spirit of liberty which prevails all over the world. Great ii Olive in her appeal. Then she becomes prophetic. Not a, I civilized man or woman believes but England will be victorious in time. But Olive declares: "I suppose there is no man who today to-day loves his country who has not perceived per-ceived that in the life nf the nation, as in the life of the individual, the hour of external success may be the hour of ' irrevocable failure, and that the hour of death, whether to nations or individuals, indi-viduals, is often the hour of immortality. immortal-ity. When William the Silent, with his little band of Dutchmen, ros-- np to face the whole empire of Spain. I think there is no man who does not recng- I nize that the hour of greatest victory was not when they had conquered Spain, and hurled backward the greatest great-est empire of the world to meet its slow imperial death: it was the hour when that little band stood alone with the waters over their homes, facing death and despair. It is that hour that made Holland immortal, and her history his-tory the property of all human hearts." "Wacht een beetje alles zal recht com," declares Olive in her conclusion. Meaning: "Wait a little; all will come right." It will. E'er the sound of the great reveille; the great awakening on the final morn, yea by millions of centuries, cen-turies, the hand of the Great Ruler of the universe will have set all things aright!