d speak
the plain, ungilded truth concerning friend and foe, that, not alone
beneath the British flag are heroes found. Not alone at the breasts of
British matrons are brave men suckled; for, as my soul liveth--whether
their cause be just or unjust, whether the right or the wrong of this war
be with them, whether the blood of the hundreds who have fallen since the
first rifle spoke defiance shall speak for or against them at the day of
judgment--they at least know how to die; and when a man has given his life
for the cause he believes in he is proven worthy even of his worst enemy's
respect. And it seems to me that the British nation, with its long roll of
heroic deeds, wrought the whole world over, from Africa to Iceland, can
well afford to honour the splendid bravery and self-sacrifice of these
rude, untutored tillers of the soil. I have seen them die.

Once, as I lay a prisoner in a rocky ravine all through the hot afternoon,
I heard the rifles snapping like hounds around a cornered beast. I watched
the Boers as they moved from cover to cover, one here, one there, a little
farther on a couple in a place of vantage, again, in a natural fortress, a
group of eight; so they were placed as far as my eye could reach. The
British force I could not see at all; they were out on the veldt, and the
kopjes hid them from me; but I could hear the regular roll and ripple of
their disciplined volleys, and in course of time, by watching the actions
of the Boers, I could anticipate the sound. They watched our officers, and
when the signal to fire was given they dropped behind cover with such speed
and certainty that seldom a man was hit. Then, when the leaden hail had
ceased to fall upon the rocks, they sprang out again, and gave our fellows
lead for lead. After a while our gunners seemed to locate them, and the
shells came through the air, snarling savagely, as leopards snarl before
they spring, and the flying shrapnel reached many of the Boers, wounding,
maiming, or killing them; yet they held their position with indomitable
pluck, those who were not hit leaping out, regardless of personal danger,
to pick up those who were wounded. They were a strange, motley-looking
crowd, dressed in all kinds of common farming apparel, just such a crowd as
one is apt to see in a far inland shearing shed in Australia, but no man
with a man's heart in his body could help admiring their devotion to one
another or their loyalty to the cause they were ri