338 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



ever darkened the annals of this country, should 

 be made at the muzzles of the rifles of these 

 Transvaal farmers. Just one hundred years before, 

 the capitulations of Burgoyne and Cornwallis, in the 

 American War of Independence, had cast a shadow 

 upon the fair page of English history ; but, compared 

 with the Majuba surrender, the failures of Burgoyne 

 and Cornwallis were honourable incidents. These 

 generals were then far separated from their home 

 government, and were compelled in a great 

 emergency to act upon their own responsibility 

 and their own judgment. In 1881, every disgraceful 

 item of surrender was flashed by wire direct to 

 the scene of battle. The thing is done, but the 

 British colonists, the Cape Dutch (in a different 

 sense), and, too, the natives of South Africa, never 

 will, never can forget the humiliating and 

 exasperating dishonour that the English then 

 suffered. Well might Earl Cairns say, in a 

 memorable speech made in debate at that period : 



" In all the ills we ever bore 

 We grieved, we wept, we never blushed before." 



The Boers have been ever proud of their history 

 in South Africa ; and, indeed, little known though 

 their achievements are, the story of their struggles 

 for existence in that country, of their " trekking " from 

 British rule, and of their bloody but victorious 

 strife with Dingaan in Natal, and Moselikatse in 

 the Transvaal, is so abounding in romantic episodes 

 as to be scarcely credited in modern history. The 

 fatal day of Majuba Hill, and the English reverses 

 before that fight, have added a proud chapter to 

 Dutch Afrikander history. 



