CH. Il] 
BRITONS AND BOERS 
41 
De eenjes in de water-plass ! 
So groot myn kleine (here insert the 
little boy’s or little girl’s name) wass !” 
My pronunciation caused trouble at first; but I think 
they understood me the more readily because doubtless 
their own usual tongue was in some sort a dialect; and 
some of them already knew the song, while they were 
all pleased and amused at my remembering and repeat¬ 
ing it; and we were speedily on a most friendly footing. 
The essential identity of interest between the Boer 
and British settlers was shown by their attitude toward 
the district commissioner, Mr. Humphries, who was 
just leaving for his biennial holiday, and who dined 
with us in our tent on his way out. From both Boer 
farmer and English settler—and from the American 
missionaries also—I heard praise of Humphries, as a 
strong man, not in the least afraid of either settler or 
native, but bound to do justice to both, and, what was 
quite as important, sympathizing with the settlers and 
knowing and understanding their needs . A new r country 
in which white pioneer settlers are struggling with the 
iron difficulties and hardships of frontier life is, above 
all others, that in which the officials should be men 
having both knowledge and sympathy with the other 
men over whom they are placed and for whom they 
should work. 
My host and hostess, Sir Alfred and Lady Pease, 
were on the best terms with all their neighbours', and 
their friendly interest was returned. Now it was the 
wife of a Boer farmer who sent over a basket of flowers, 
now came a box of apples from an English settler on 
the hills; now Prinsloo the Boer stopped to dinner; 
now the McMillans—American friends, of whose farm 
and my stay thereon I shall speak later—rode over 
