y until the
complete subjugation of the Boers was accomplished, which meant either
their entire extermination or the sacrifice of their sacred rights.

There were, however, several notable exceptions, men who were not afraid
to speak the truth about their enemies or their country's enemies,
regardless of what others might think or say of themselves, regardless
whether they would be called Boer-sympathisers or pro-Boers. Such men we
shall ever revere and hold in estimation because they dared to speak the
truth, cost what it would.

Thus far we have depicted the Boer character negatively in denying the
unjust and unfounded charges brought against them by callous and
misinformed minds. We do not hesitate to state that they are _not_ a
race of inferior beings, savage and uncivilized. They are not as good as
some have presented them, they are not as bad as others have pictured
them. Who, then, are these men and women who so stubbornly resisted
British power and supremacy for such a long period under such great
disadvantages? What are their main characteristics?

The Boers are the descendants of those pioneers who, for various
reasons, left the Cape Colony between the years 1834-39. These emigrants
or pioneers inspanned their large ox-waggons, bade farewell to their
homes and farms in the Cape Colony and trekked across the Orange River.
They traversed the wide plains of the late Orange Free State and
proceeded to the Drakensberg Mountains. These mountains they crossed and
settled down in Natal. How they were attacked and massacred by the
Zulus, and how they, in their turn, defeated the Zulus and broke their
power, how Natal became a British colony, all this is ancient history.
The pioneers, objecting to English rule, quitted Natal. Some of them
forded the Vaal River and they founded the Transvaal or South African
Republic. Others settled west of the Drakensberg Range and founded the
Orange Free State Republic.

These states were then infested by wild beasts and uncivilized native
tribes. Against these the sturdy pioneers had to contend, and only after
years of suffering, hardship, and bloodshed did they succeed, by their
indomitable spirit, in vanquishing all foes, and so made habitable and
opened up for commerce and civilization the Republics, which the late
war has laid in ruins and ashes, indeed, converted into a howling
wilderness, a land of desolation.

And these pioneers, whence came they, and what is their origin?