From Capetown to Ladysmith | Page 6

as hard, when roused, to subdue.
A loitering Arcady--and then you hear with astonishment that
Burghersdorp is famous throughout South Africa as a stronghold of
bitter Dutch partisanship. "Rebel Burghersdorp" they call it in the
British centres, and Capetown turns anxious ears towards it for the first
muttering of insurrection. What history its stagnant annals record is
purely anti-British. Its two principal monuments, after the Jubilee
fountain, are the tombstone of the founder of the Dopper Church--the
Ironsides of South Africa--and a statue with inscribed pedestal
complete put up to commemorate the introduction of the Dutch tongue
into the Cape Parliament. Malicious comments add that Afrikander
patriotism swindled the stone-mason out of £30, and it is certain that
one of the gentlemen whose names appear thereon most prominently,
now languishes in jail for fraud. Leaving that point for thought, I find
that the rest of Burghersdorp's history consists in the fact that the
Afrikander Bond was founded here in 1881. And at this moment
Burghersdorp is out-Bonding the Bond: the reverend gentleman who
edits its Dutch paper and dictates its Dutch policy sluices out weekly
vials of wrath upon Hofmeyr and Schreiner for machinating to keep
patriot Afrikanders off the oppressing Briton's throat.
I went to see this reverend pastor, who is professor of a school of
Dopper theology. He was short, but thick-set, with a short but shaggy
grey beard; in deference to his calling, he wore a collar over his grey
flannel shirt, but no tie. Nevertheless, he turned out a very charming,
courteous old gentleman, well informed, and his political bias was
mellowed with an irresistible sense of humour. He took his own side
strongly, and allowed that it was most proper for a Briton to be equally
strong on his own. And this is more or less what he said:--
"Information? No, I shall not give you any; you are the enemy, you see.
Ha, ha! They call me rebel. But I ask you, my friend, is it natural that
I--I, Hollander born, Dutch Afrikander since '60--should be as loyal to
the British Government as a Britisher should be? No, I say; one can be
loyal only to one's own country. I am law-abiding subject of the Queen,

and that is all that they can ask of me.
"How will the war go? That it is impossible, quite impossible, to say.
The Boer might run away at the first shot and he might fight to the
death. All troops are liable to panic; even regular troop; much more
than irregular. But I have been on commando many times with Boer,
and I cannot think him other than brave man. Fighting is not his
business; he wishes always to be back on his farm with his people; but
he is brave man.
"I look on this war as the sequel of 1881. I have told them all these
years, it is not finish; war must come. Mr Gladstone, whom I look on as
greatest British statesman, did wrong in 1881. If he had kept promises
and given back country before the war, we would have been grateful;
but he only give it after war, and we were not grateful. And English did
not feel that they were generous, only giving independence after war,
though they had a large army in Natal; they have always wished to
recommence.
"The trouble is because the Boer have never had confidence in the
English Government, just as you have never had confidence in us. The
Boer have no feeling about Cape Colony, but they have about Natal;
they were driven out of it, and they think it still their own country.
Then you took the diamond-fields from the Free State. You gave the
Free State independence only because you did not want trouble of
Basuto war; then we beat the Basutos--I myself was there, and it was
very hard, and it lasted three years--and then you would not let us take
Basutoland. Then came annexation of the Transvaal; up to that I was
strong advocate of federation, but after that I was one of founders of the
Bond. After that the Afrikander trusted Rhodes--not I, though; I always
write I distrust Rhodes--and so came the Jameson raid. Now how could
we have confidence after all this in British Government?
"I do not think Transvaal Government have been wise; I have many
times told them so. They made great mistake when they let people
come in to the mines. I told them, 'This gold will be your ruin; to
remain independent you must remain poor.' But when that was done,
what could they do? If they gave the franchise, then the Republic is

governed by three four men from Johannesburg, and they will govern it
for their own pocket. The Transvaal Boer would rather