346 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



everywhere taking place south of the Zambesi, 

 it is, I think, incontestable that the future of South 

 Africa is assuredly now to be British and not 

 Dutch. The two races are at length just beginning 

 to move together in the march of progress. The 

 dream of an United South Africa, owning allegiance 

 to Great Britain, is not now an Utopian one, and 

 ten years hence may see it peacefully accomplished. 

 But, whatever the issue, I have no fear that the 

 Boer will ever vanish from South Africa. I, for 

 one, should be sorry indeed to see him go, or his 

 old-world characteristics entirely swamped by the 

 thrusting modern European element. As a social 

 and historical study, this farmer of the African 

 wilderness, shut off from his fellows by 200 years 

 of a rude and semi-barbarous existence, is unique, 

 and deeply interesting. That he has been able 

 to retain the good qualities and they are not few 

 that he possesses, a deep if simple faith, a 

 wonderful power of self-help and self-reliance, an 

 intense love of family, extraordinary skill as a 

 hunter, no little knowledge as a grazier, and when 

 put to it, an undaunted courage speaks volumes for 

 the better type of the South African Boer. Through 

 evil and good report, through petty wars and perils 

 innumerable, in sunshine as in storm, ill-equipped, 

 and ever relying upon his own stout arm alone, 

 he has clung to his beloved " Zud Afrika," his 

 land of promise ; and his magnificent faith in that 

 wonderful country is, as we may now all . see, 

 entirely justified, and not one whit too greatly 

 rewarded. 



