oses, antelopes, and
birds of all kinds, offered horns, hides, tusks, and feathers to the
adventurous sportsman. All these things the nomadic Boer had
hitherto freely enjoyed, plying now his rifle, now his plough, and
taking little thought for the morrow or for the moving world outside
the narrow circle of his family experiences. With the appearance of
British paramountcy at the Cape came a hint of law and order, of
progress and its accompaniment--taxation. The bare whisper of
discipline of any kind was sufficient to send the truculent Boer
trekking away to the far freedom of the veldt. Quantities of them
took to their lumbering tented waggons, drawn by long teams of oxen,
and put a safe distance between themselves and the new-comers. All
they wanted was a free home, conducted in their own gipsy
fashion--their kraals by the river, their camp fires, their flocks
and herds, and immunity from the vexation of monopolies and taxes.
And here at once will be seen how the seeds sprang up of a rooted
antagonism between Boer and Briton that nothing can ever remove, and
no diplomacy can smooth away. The Boer nature naturally inclines to
a sluggish content, while the British one invariably pants for
advance. The temperamental tug of war, therefore, has been one that
has grown stronger and stronger with the progress of years. The
principles of give and take have been tried, but they have failed.
Reciprocity is not in the nature of the Boer, and without
reciprocity society and States are at a standstill. The Boer is
accredited with the primitive virtues, innocence, sturdiness,
contentment. If he has these, he has also the defects of his
qualities. He is crafty, stubborn, and narrow, and intolerant of
everything beyond the limits of his native comprehension.
Innovations of any kind are sufficient to fill him with suspicion,
and those started by the British in their first efforts at Cape
government were as gall and wormwood to his untrammelled taste.
These efforts, it must be owned, were not altogether happy. There
was first a rearrangement of local governments and of the Law
Courts; then, in 1827, followed a decree that English should be the
official language. As at that time not more than one colonist in
seven was British, the new arrangement was calculated to make
confusion worse confounded! The disgust of the Cape Dutch may be
imagined! The finishing touch came in 1834. By the abolition of
slavery--humane though its object was--th