236 SOUTH AFRICA. 



starvation ; thousands have succumbed to fever and 

 other diseases incident to an insufficient diet 

 largely composed of wild roots. The quality of 

 brave and silent suffering is wonderfully developed 

 in the Boer race; as an eyewitness I might cite 

 many harrowing proofs in evidence. If only a 

 modicum of the distress and misery among the 

 Boers inhabiting the northern and western districts 

 of the Transvaal had occurred in any British 

 dependency, effective steps would have been taken 

 to meet the situation. Imbued with the convenient 

 creed that Providence has decreed these mis- 

 fortunes, and that it would savour of sin seriously 

 to assist the sufferers, the Transvaal Government 

 has only ventured on applying the most homoeo- 

 pathic palliatives, with, of course, little or no 

 beneficial result. 



The wealth-gorged President groaningly con- 

 tributed 5 to help his dear burghers; at last a 

 small show was made to avoid the scandal of 

 appearing utterly indifferent 



A mass of the surviving Boer sufferers has surged 

 into the mining centres in search of employment, 

 but as the Government doggedly clings to its 

 policy of limiting the industry there, these poor 



