THE BOER. 



23 



English, which he did not understand, but which had 

 been taken as security for a debt. Both were illus- 

 trated in that primitive and almost outrageous fashion 

 which seems to have often inspired biblical artists, and 

 no doubt these pictures considerably influence the 

 minds of these primitive Boers. Science, literature, 

 and criticism being unknown quantities, one can specu- 

 late on the theological crudities of these good people. 

 Alone on the veld, with the silent plains often more 

 or less surrounded by the " everlasting hills," the 

 Jehovah of the Jews seems to supplant in their minds 

 the God of the Christian, and these biblical pictures of 

 the pastoral patriarchs must have an attraction and 

 sense meaning to them which are unknown to us. 

 They are alone by themselves and the God of the 

 Illustrated Family Bible. I often ask myself if it is 

 better to be a joyful savage Kafir, or a sombre civilized 

 Boer. The Calvinistic sabbath is supreme on Sunday 

 in Pretoria : the Europeans drive and frequent their 

 hotels and clubs on that day, or, at least, the migratory 

 portion of our race do so ; the Boer rejoices in that 

 respectable gloom dear to Scotchmen (at home) and 

 themselves. 



To understand the Boer you mnst understand his 

 theology, which rules his life and guides his actions, 

 and you may as well fight him at once as seek to argue 

 with his prejudices. In the early days of the Boer 

 Trek, they absolutely thought that they would even- 

 tually reach Jerusalem *. Their favourite scriptural 

 reading is the Old Testament, and especially the Book 

 of Joshua, where the command to go forward, enjoy 

 the promised land, and smite the heathen was freely 

 adopted by themselves as referring to the Transvaal and 

 the treatment of the Kafirs. It is owing to this feeling 

 that you find towns in the Transvaal called by names 

 such as Bethlehem and Nazareth, and when in their 

 Transvaal advance they approached a river which over- 



* For this and some subsequent information, I have the absolute authority 

 of a Protestant clergyman of long experience in the country, -\vhose name 

 I naturally refrain from publishing. 



