130 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



revenge the Hottentot on the European? 

 " For that which hath been is, and that which 

 will be hath been, and there is no new thing." 

 The thought made " a goblin of the sun." " O 

 stars that sway our fate ; O orbs that should be 

 very wise, for you have circled the heavens 

 and regarded the earth from the most ancient 

 days, you who, impassively, have seen an 

 endless succession of civilisations arise, de- 

 cline and die, when, and at whose hand, will 

 our nemesis come ? " 



A spirit of laziness had overcome us all. 

 Andries lay fast asleep under the wagon; his 

 large frame was loosened, his placid, hand- 

 some, weather-beaten face relaxed. He would 

 have looked just as he did then, had he been 

 dead, for his days had been days of quietness 

 and all his pathways peaceful. Yet in that 

 man's deliberate arteries flowed the blood of 

 those who withstood Alva in the Netherlands, 

 and of others who abandoned France, with all 

 that seemed to make life worth the living, 

 rather than bend the knee at the shrine of a 

 false god. I wondered whether that large- 

 boned, contented, easy-going farmer were cap- 

 able of standing on the ramparts of another 

 Leyden and, from hunger-bitten, indomitable 

 lips roaring heroic and vitriolic defiance at a 



