24 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



flowed its banks they absolutely thought they had struck 

 a source of the Nile, and called it the Nile River " Nyl- 

 stroom," which name it still bears. The same clergyman 

 to whom I have referred also told me that in his travels 

 in the interior he had met most friendly Boers, who told 

 him they could not understand why such an intelligent 

 Englishman should preach to the Kafirs, who possessed 

 no souls. I have been assured by other competent and 

 long residents in the country, that the Boers look upon 

 the Kafirs as the descendants of Cain, and consider 

 any attempt to christianize them as trying to nullify a 

 curse of God. It is difficult to hear these views 

 openly expressed at the present day, and it will be 

 more so in future, now that there is a foreign and 

 critical community around ; but it is these esoteric 

 beliefs that often govern the volitions of a people and 

 the government of a country. A friendly Boer once 

 speaking to an acquaintance about Matabele Land, 

 assured him it was a beautiful country and would one 

 day be taken over by the Boers, adding, seriously, 

 " God Almighty never made such a beautiful country 

 for Kafirs." 



The Boer treatment of the Kafirs is now certainly 

 much better than it was ; but in saying this I feel a great 

 reticence, for there are, and always have been, many 

 Boers of natural kindness of heart, than whom Kafirs 

 could have no better masters. But of others, and in 

 former times, the reverse is the fact, and they treated 

 their Kafir labourers with savage harshness *. They 

 had not forgotten the long and sanguinary fights 

 necessary to dispossess the natives of their country, 

 nor of the savage reprisals and murders incidental to 

 the same. Reports are current, for which I will not 

 vouch, that, by degraded Boers, labourers once were 

 sometimes only paid at the expiration of their term 

 and then followed and shot for the recovery of the 



* Burchell gives an instance (' Travels in Interior of South Africa,' vol. ii. 

 p. 9-j). See also Living-stone ('Popular Account Missionary Travels and 

 ilesearches/ new edit. p. :28). 



