A Breath from the Veldt 135 



every young Dutchman wants to have another Boer war, and talks bombastically 

 of how half a dozen Boers could sweep an English regiment of " roibatjes " off 

 the face of the earth in half an hour, and constantly refers in grandiose terms 

 to Majuba. His boast is that if the English continue to encroach upon his 

 territories as they have lately been doing, he will have to start and shoot a few 

 thousands down as bucks. But age brings with it reasoning power and a wider 

 range of thought, and as he gets older the Boer, though liking the Englishman 

 none the better, sees that it is to his advantage to keep on good terms with 

 him, and that a second war might not end in precisely the same way as the 

 first. 



Those who have read Mr. Rider Haggard's masterpiece Jess will have 

 gained a far better idea of the virulent anti-English Boer than any I can convey. 

 He has painted to perfection the young ignorant Dutchman, the swaggering 

 insolent cubs who love to talk of the cheerful days of Majuba Hill, when the 

 " plunk " of the bullet into the viscera of some " verdomder roibatjes " was the 

 sweetest music that could greet his ears, and seems to imply that the Boers are 

 all like that, a nation of bullies and Bobadils with whom no person of education 

 or kindly feeling could possibly live. But fortunately all are not so. Among 

 the Dutch Boers are many good men and true, whose acquaintance is far more 

 desirable than that of the third-rate loafers calling themselves Englishmen, who 

 are unfortunately only too common in South Africa. 



Without patting ourselves on the back as models of magnanimity. English- 

 men cherish no real feelings of animosity against the one nation that has in 

 recent times given us a fair and just thrashing ; for the Boer war was the most 

 dastardly and unfair conflict we ever engaged in, and we thoroughly deserved 

 the licking we got. Rather are we inclined to respect our whilom conquerors 

 for their strategy and good shooting. On the other hand, the Dutchmen, I 

 believe, thoroughly detest us as a nation ; and the more so as they know that 

 their victory cost them more than anything they gained by it. Hundreds of 

 families were ruined, all their cattle and horses being run off with by their own 

 " commandeers," and not a penny of compensation was ever given to the poor 

 sufferers. As the older Boers know well, it was a disastrous war for them as 

 well as for us ; and it is gall and bitterness to their souls to think that the very 

 people whom they ostensibly defeated will probably one day be called in to rule 

 them, so that they may not be swindled by their own relations. 



In his home life the Boer is slow, calculating, lethargic, roughly-kind, 

 touchy, and conceited ; all his geese are swans, and his ways are those of the 



