CH. ii] imn ONS AND BOERS 41 



De eenjes in de watcr-plass ! 



So groot mvn kloine (here insert the 



Httle boy's or Httle girl's name) wass V 



My proiiiiiiciation caused trouble at first ; but I think 

 they understood me the more readily because doubtless 

 their own usual tongue was in some sort a dialect ; and 

 some of them already knew the song, while they were 

 all pleased and amused at my remembering and repeat- 

 ing it ; and we were speedily on a most friendly footing. 

 The essential identity of interest between the Boer 

 and i5ritish settlers was shown by their attitude toward 

 the district commissioner, Mr. Humphries, who was 

 just leaving for his biennial holiday, and who dined 

 with us in our tent on his way out. From both Boer 

 farmer and English settler— and from the American 

 missionaries also — 1 heard praise of Ilinnphries, as a 

 strong man, not in the least afraid of either settler or 

 native, but boimd to do justice to both, and, what was 

 (juite as important, sijmpatliiziiig with the settlers cuid 

 knowing and understanding their needs. A new country 

 in which white pioneer settlers are struggling with the 

 iron difliculties and hardships of frontier life is, above 

 all others, that in which the officials should be men 

 having both knowledge and sympathy with the other 

 men over whom they are placed and for whom they 

 should work. 



My host and hostess. Sir Alfred and Lady Pease, 

 were on the best terms with all their neighbours, and 

 their friendly interest was returned. Now it was the 

 wife of a Boer farmer who sent over a basket of flowers, 

 ! now came a box of apples from an English settler on 

 the hills ; now Prinsloo the Boer stopped to dinner ; 

 now the McMillans — American friends, of whose farm 

 and my stay thereon I shall speak later — rode over 



