98 TALES OF A NOMAD. 



They have a sort of rough-and-ready organisation 

 under their field-cornets and commandants, and they 

 have the courage that all men possess when they are 

 fighting for their wives, their families, their land, their 

 all. They never do fight excepting for the gravest 

 reasons. 



In truth, the Boers are very much pleasanter to meet 

 as friends than as enemies. 



They have an objection to Englishmen, not so much 

 individually as nationally, for, rightly or wrongly, they 

 charge us with having constantly persecuted them and 

 misjudged them ; with having on more than one occasion 

 deliberately broken solemn treaties, and made their 

 interests the shuttlecock of our policy. Notwithstanding 

 this, they are kindly in their behaviour towards those 

 Englishmen whom they know and understand ; but there 

 is a deeply-rooted anti-English Government feeling which 

 will prevent any coalition of all the South African States 

 under the real rule of the English flag. 



The Boers, animated by Africanderism (i.e., a senti- 

 ment for the land of their birth), will, I have no doubt, 

 confederate with the other South African States ; but 

 Downing Street will have to keep its finger out of the 

 pie, or no Boer will consent to approach it. 



There is a real national feeling as Africanders. The 

 people are unselfish, and will therefore value the welfare 

 of the State above the success of any particular fads they 

 may hold. Their Parliaments will probably be delibera- 

 tive assemblies, and not mere concourses of d elegates, 

 and public affairs will be conducted with more honesty 

 and dignity than at present they are in England. 



There will be little or no scope for the demagogue. 

 In fact, there is every reason to believe that representa- 



