in 1881. Now let us turn to its inhabitants. It has been the fashion to
talk of the Transvaal as though nobody but Boers lived in it. In reality
the inhabitants were divided into three classes: 1. Natives; 2. Boers;
3. English. I say were divided, because the English class can now hardly
be said to exist, the country having been made too hot to hold it, since
the war. The natives stand in the proportion of nearly twenty to one
to the whites. The Boers were in their turn much more numerous than the
English, but the latter owned nearly all the trading establishments in
the country, and also a very large amount of property.

The Transvaal Boers have been very much praised up by members of the
Government in England, and others who are anxious to advance their
interests, as against English interests. Mr. Gladstone, indeed, can
hardly find words strong enough to express his admiration of their
leaders, those "able men," since they inflicted a national humiliation
on us; and doubtless they are a people with many good points. That they
are not devoid of sagacity can be seen by the way they have dealt with
the English Government.

The Boers are certainly a peculiar people, though they can hardly be
said to be "zealous of good works." They are very religious, but their
religion takes it colour from the darkest portions of the Old Testament;
lessons of mercy and gentleness are not at all to their liking, and they
seldom care to read the Gospels. What they delight in are the stories of
wholesale butchery by the Israelites of old; and in their own position
they find a reproduction of that of the first settlers in the Holy Land.
Like them they think they are entrusted by the Almighty with the task
of exterminating the heathen native tribes around them, and are always
ready with a scriptural precedent for slaughter and robbery. The name of
the Divinity is continually on their lips, sometimes in connection with
very doubtful statements. They are divided into three sects, none of
which care much for the other two. These are the Doppers, who number
about half the population, the Orthodox Reform, and the Liberal Reform,
which is the least numerous. Of these three sects, the Doppers are
by far the most uncompromising and difficult to deal with. They much
resemble the puritans of Charles the First's time, of the extreme
Hew-Agag-in-pieces stamp.

It is difficult to agree with those who call the Boers cowards, an
accusation which the whol