The Withering Grasp of the Boer. 95 



with his herd of cattle into the better pastures and 

 mikler chmate of the low country veldt, and lives 

 as idly and uselessly in his waggon as he does 

 in his farmhouse. The summer sees him re- 

 turning home, and so on, year after year, genera- 

 tion after generation, the Boer farmer drags out 

 the most deui'aded and imoble existence ever ex- 

 perienced by a race with any pretensions to 

 civilization. I have, I must admit, met some 

 13ersons in Government circles and elseAvhere of 

 Boer or Dutch birth who are entirely excluded 

 from the scope of these remarks, whose manners 

 were polite and amiable, who were anxious to 

 show kindness and hospitality, whose conversa- 

 tion was distino'uished 1)V orio-inal ideas and 

 liberal sentiments. These, however, are but bright 

 exceptions. I speak of the nation of Trans- 

 A^aal Boers as a Avliole, as I think I have seen it. 

 I turned my back gladly on this people, hastening 

 northwards to lands jDossessed I hoped of equal 

 Avealth, brighter prospects, reserved for more 

 worthy owners entitled to happier destinies ; I 

 rejoiced after all that I had seen in the Trans- 

 \7ial, that tlie country and the people of the 

 Matabele and the Mashona had been rescued in 

 the nick of time, owing to the genius of J\Ir. 

 Rhodes and the tardy vigour of the British 

 (Tovermnent, from the withering and mortal gj-asp 

 of the Boer. 



