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Show : the Boer Soldier I BY POULTNEY BIGELOW. On the occasion of my visit to the Transvaal in the year made memorable memor-able by the Jameson raid, and the imperial im-perial cable to Paul Kruger, there was much military stir, and spsculation was already then rife regarding a possible possi-ble conflict between Boer and Briton. President Kruger received me in a house protected by an encampment of mounted pcliee, and when I called upon General Jou-eTt, his office resembled re-sembled a museum of modern rifles, for he was discuEclng with his colleagues col-leagues the relative merits cf Mauser, Krag-Jorgensen, Martini-Henry, Lebel, and other makes. Above the town German engineers were constructing artillery positions which I w-as not allowed to inspect, or even approach. From a distance I was reminded of some of the forts about Metz. The commander of the National artillery, a broad-faced, good-natured Boer, and who looked to me somewhat odd in the Austrian uniform, showed me over his camp and dwelt with pride upon, the new barracks and stables in course of erection. His artillerists were physically physi-cally a good-ilooking lot of young men; the equipment appeared to be of the best quality; the -Krup-p- guns were well cared for, and there Jr.'as besides an anomalous battery made up of what was captured from Jameson. The Cape cart in which that invader had made his progress was treasured as carefully as is the coach in which Napoleon I fled from the field of Waterloo. But of all the military, things in and about Pretoria none was so significant to me as a piece of artillery which had 82'en service in the war of 1SS1. The Whole of this machine' might have been constructed by an average village blacksmith. The tires of ox-wagons had been heated and then wound round and round something cylindrical, and so hammered together as to pass for a I cannon bv those of us who have seen specimens constructed in the Middle Ages. This strange instrument was mounted on the forward end of a bullock bul-lock wagon, and the training of it must have been done by gunners who believed in a special providence in lieu of range-finders. The Boers love this crazy old gun, for it symbolizes to them a capacity j to improvise weapons, and wield them successfully when their cause seems desperate to the rest of the world. The history of British rule in South Africa offers many instances of English Eng-lish and Dutch fighting side by side against the common enemy, but, we regret re-gret to say. many more when the Boer 'has regarded his resistance to the redcoats red-coats his highest duty. The bitter feeling feel-ing which today arrays white men against white men, in the midst of a wilderness where united they are barely a match for the blacks, springs from a long chain of events, most of them highly creditable to the moral sense of the British parliament, but so far as political sense is concerned, most unfortunate. un-fortunate. The, battle of Waterloo not only resulted re-sulted in populating St. Helena with Napoleon I, but made the Cape Colony the permanent homo of a strong Brit- j ish administration. The year 1815 had not closed before this administration ! came into conflict on the borders of the Cape Colony with a certain Boer named Bezuidenhoodt, who declined to recog-r.ize recog-r.ize the authority of a court messenger messen-ger hailing him for trial. The Boer was a rough frontiersman, who had as hazy a notion of government as some of Mark Twain's heroes who settled Nevada Ne-vada and California half a century ago. BezuidenSioodt was suspected of carrying car-rying on a contraband trade with the nativee, and likewise of having ill treated treat-ed one of them. The charge may or not have beon well founded, but in .any case the Boers themselves were divide! as to how far England had a right to stretch her arm into the Black Continent. Conti-nent. Soldiers were sent out; Bezuidenhoodt Bezuid-enhoodt resisted, and was shct; his family and neighbors clamored for vengeance; ven-geance; more soldiers and more Boers came into conflict, and finally, in 1816, six of the ringleaders were tried for treason and hung at a place called Slaagtei-'s Nek. The Great Trek, a wholesale emigration emi-gration of Boers from the Cape Colony to the uplands of the interior, did not commence until 186, twenty years later. From Slaagter's Nek there went forth a band of irreconcilable farmers or cowboys who had so long lived beyond be-yond the restraint of the law that they could not reconcile themselves to any government. They had" their counterpart counter-part in the American frontiersman, who in these same years was fighting his-way, his-way, over the Allegheny mountaine, down the Ohio river, and toward the Texas border.. While small parties of Boers were, in these early years, joining their brethren breth-ren of roving, if not lawless tastes, on the fringes of the then civilized South Africa, the great body of the people recognized the good intentions of the British government and remained loyal. Things might have gone on smoothly enough but for an agitation in England Eng-land whose object was the immediate abolition of slavery-. This movement originated with men full of philanthro- i pic zeal, but empty of political sagac- j ity. The Boer farmers had for many nsnnroHnna ivnrlrol thpir pstn tea hv 6un..i..uuu ....... , means of slaves, as was then universally univer-sally the custom in all parts of the world where black men were to be found. The Boer recognized the desirability desir-ability of treating slaves humanely he was even prepared to abolish the institution: in-stitution: by slow degrees. But he did resent the injustice and arrogance of London politicians and missionaries, who charged him with cruelty and de-nounced de-nounced him as a semi-savage. Parliament, Par-liament, as we all know, voted a large sum for the purchase of slaves, but this sum, in the Cape Colony at least, proved to be so ridiculously inadequate that the farmers found themselves bankrupt as a result of this alleged generosity. Boers who owned slaves for whom they had paid 500 apiece were indemnified by an offer of 50, when at the same time each slave was mortgaged for several times that amount. When the day of emancipation emancipa-tion arrived. 1838. nothing could persuade per-suade the blacks to remain at work, and lonely farms were left valueless by this one stroke of a philanthropic pan. A large and law-abiding population of Christian Chris-tian white men were thus forced to choose between remaining on a valueless value-less farm or trekking into the wilderness wilder-ness and conquering new territory from the warlike natives. This Great Trov- took them to the Orange Free State, to Natal, and to the Transvaal. There was fighting at every stage of their iourney, and the women loaded the muskets for their husbands and eons This Great Trek was the schoofl in which Paul Kruger was educated a gichool in which there were no books but the Bible and no mechanical arts save those connected with the repair of flintlock. These people left the mother colony, if not the mother country, in bitterness at the injustice they had experienced, ex-perienced, and they retired into a wllderneHa where the post did not penetrate, and where no news reached them of the grand progress in liberal legislation which marks the England of Queen Victoria's earlv vears- After the Boers, had fought their way throueh Natal and settled at Durban, the English government laid its hand upon the Colony, withdrew it again, and then changed its mind, and once more claimed it. It is fortunate for the commerce of the world that Natal is today English, for it is a pattern for other colonies and its cities are, m favorable contrast with those of the Boer re-public. But from the Boer point of view the behavior of the English government was cauricious, if not shifty. In 1S35 Dutch and English had fought splendidly side by side in the Cape Colony against an invasion of 15,000 blacks, who had been for some time occupied in stealing cattle and i destroying farmhouses. The amount of damage done has been officially assessed- at -C.300,000, intended to cover the loss of 456 farm houses completeJv destroyed. 350 others partially des- i trcyed, sixty big farm wagons, des- troyed. The stolen property included about 6,000 horses, 112,000 cattle. d 162.0C0 sheep. The Boer.s fought bravely, brave-ly, suffered great hardsips, and earned the gratitude of every colonist at the Cape, and notably that of the governor. Sir Beniamin d'Urban, who hail called them out. They had been promised compensation for their losses during the war, and -looked at least for grateful acknowledgment in Downing street. The result, however, was a surprise for every one, from the governor down. Downing street scolded them for fighting against the blacks indeed, it was very evident that missionaries and not soldiers were in power at Westminster. This, along with the ruin of their property, through the sudden abolition of slavery', brought to the side of the Boers a large portion por-tion of the wavering population, who were made to feel that while the black man could secure any favor through Exeter Hall, there was not even common com-mon justice for a Boer. The eighty years which have elapsed between the battle of Waterloo and the Jameson raid have been years in which a large portion of the Boers have handled the rifle as freely as we handle the pen. They have fought their way through black tribes outnumbering them ten to end. Some of their expeditions have been massacred, but the rest have not been discouraged. Even today the recreation rec-reation of Boers who live in town is tq go for a day's rifle shooting, if possible pos-sible after game, if not, then at a target. tar-get. Every Boer, from the chief justice jus-tice down, knows how to cook in the open and organize a bivouac. It is safe to say that even today the average citizen cit-izen of the Transvaal is ready at a moment's mo-ment's notice to take the field fully armed and equipped for at least three days. The chief enemy of the Boer today is not England, but his own ignorance. The Boer under the English flag en-Joys en-Joys more liberty than in the Transvaal, Trans-vaal, yet so ignorant are the burghers of "Oom Paul," that they persit in pic turing Englishmen as tyrants, desirous desir-ous of overthrowing their freedom. Nowhere No-where in English circles have I beard more violent abuse of President Kru-ger's Kru-ger's retrograde policy than in Pretoria Preto-ria from the mouths of his own burgh- ers but these particular men happened happen-ed to have traveled and observed for themselves that it is England which stands for freedom in things colonial, and that no such tyranny would be tolerated tol-erated in Germany as disgraces the so-called so-called republic of South Africa. But it is our business to look at the Boers from their own side, and thus to understand I the grievances they entertain, in order that after the war the breach may be I healed let us hope forever. Today the I government of Pretoria has not merely revived the evil spirit of protectionism, but has added to its those features of special privilege and monopoly which were a scandal In the reign of Louis XIV. The education of youth has been for political reasons hampered almost as stupidly as in Poland. Young Boers can no longer get a good education at Pretoria, but must go to a neighboring colony for th'3 purpose. Of late years the Kruger government has emulated the spirit of Pobiedcnostsef in seeking to exterminate the language and the institutions in-stitutions which appeared to be hosi'le to the government. Instead of recruiting recruit-ing the official ranks from their brother Boers in adjoining colonies they have confessed to an almost Chinese lack of capacity by drawing young cleTks directly di-rectly from Rotterdam, and exhibiting feverish haste to isolate themselves from the great onward movement of the white race in South .Africa. All thisI believe to be bad for the Boers themselves, them-selves, and therefore, in common with their most intelligent citizens, I hail the day when Krugerism shall have become be-come in South Africa' as impotent as the Mormon government in Utah. As to the war as a poUtical necessity, at this moment It is not for me to express ex-press an opinion. ..But this much I may-say, may-say, that the whole world has an interest inter-est in its speedy close and above all. in its conduct, so that it may leave behind be-hind the least possible race animosity. Time works wonders in these matters. fr many -f present, who can recall the hatred between Americans during the great civil war. now witness their tVcendants fighting side by side for a unN;d country. Boers and Britons have 1 stood shoulder to Shoulder in their wars with native tribes, and I. for one. expect to see the day when we shall hear from the Cape to the Zambesi only lone tongue, know only one union of i free states, and see but one uniform tinder tin-der which shall beatloyal hearts de- I scended from the men who now faco j each other in anger. |